Local act Spring Silver has appeared in DCist’s list of 12 musicians and bands to check out in 2024.
DCist chose up-and-coming singers, songwriters, composers, rappers, and bands that embody the region’s creativity and style. These artists consistently release new music, bring something unique to the local music scene, or have built a devoted fanbase, according to DCist editors.
Described on their Bandcamp page as “the wrong music for the wrong people,” band leader K Nkanza named Spring Silver’s genre as “queer metal” in a 2022 interview with The Washington Post:
“In this era, you can just make a genre,” Nkanza says. “’I’m going to call this ‘queer metal,’ I’m going to call this ‘they/them-core.’ It’s a signifier: ‘This is a specific thing. These are my pronouns. This is something you can know about me that might inform your engagement with the music.’ But also? It’s just fun. When you have the Internet, you can create culture almost immediately.”
Paste Magazine called K Nkanza one of the most exciting indie musicians working at the moment: “Their work embraces a spectrum of hardcore, power pop and emo; an awareness of what the apexes of those subgenres can create when mixed together. Nkanza’s 2022 single “I Saw Violence” floated under the radar, yet it was one of the most passionate, moving and visceral rock tracks of last spring. This time around, “Gold Star” is our look inwards at what Nkanza might just be cooking up next. Whether or not there’s a follow-up to their 2022 album I Could Get Used to This in the works or on the way, that will remain to be seen. For now, we’ve got this immaculate offering, on which Nkanza wrote, performed and mixed every element. It’s a distinctive, wondrous slice of rock music that owes as much to mid-2000s radio hits as it does doom and techno.”
“As you develop a song, you have to make certain eliminative decisions,” K Nkanza said of the band’s latest single “Gold Star,” released last October (video below). “You have to decide on the dynamics, the tempo, the key, and so on. While I don’t think it’s really possible to do away with this elimination (nor am I trying to), I like the idea of presenting multiple interpretations of the song and having them all exist in the final version.”
Visit Spring Silver’s website to see the band’s latest releases and upcoming tour dates.
Photo: Spring Silver / Facebook