dog eyes, the lo-fi Oakland duo of Davis Leach and Haily Firstman, want to talk about friendship. 

holy friend, the pair’s sophomore release – announced today & their first for Grand Jury Music– is a gentle 10-song ode to all types of relationships, an examination of the effect we have on the most important people in our lives.  It’s a cornucopia of hushed & humble mini-epics. Across the record, there’s ethereal twee on “fair,” patient slowcore on “rusty, my dog,”  mossy indie folk on “drive”  and economical bedroom pop on “moment,” available everywhere today. 

As Firstman puts it, “the ‘Holy Friend’ as a concept, creates an ideal person from scraps of perfection/the divine we find in flawed places. Hopeful, yet grounded, the “Holy Friend” is a testament to the idea that age brings nuance. Something bigger than the sum of its parts that helps guide us, rooted and reflected in the nuance of friendship.”

The band wasn’t nearly as conceptual with their debut, good, proper send off, which they self-released in 2022. “Our vision for ‘good, proper sendoff’ was a lot more pared down and simple,” says Leach. Where good proper send off was a record filled with field recordings, fuzzy radio static and fragile folk, holy friend levels up the ambition and expands the sonic horizons. On August 16th, Grand Jury will release that document, a limited edition cassette featuring holy friend on the A-side and good, proper send off on the B-side.

01 crush
02 firsts
03 rusty, my dog
04 drive
05 fair
06 moment
07 nothing at all
08 go together
09 ties
10 holy friend
[PRE-ORDER CASSETTE]

Today Sex Week unveil their new song “Cockpit,” a terminally climactic masterwork that is the centerpiece of their freshly-announced self-titled EP.

The seven-song release is coming on August 30th. Pre-saves and a CD pre-order are available now over on Bandcamp. The short-player features previous released singles “Toad Mode” and “Angel Blessings,” alongside a collection of nightmarish pop and surprisingly dynamic slowcore the band has been honing over the past few months.

Pre-Save / Pre-Order

01 Bluff
02 Shady Sadie
03 Angel Blessings
04 Cockpit
05 Kid Muscle
06 Naked
07 Toad Mode

More soon.

“I don’t think I’ll ever settle on a specific sound. I’m just a chameleon.”

True words from our very own Jordana Nye. So it should come as no surprise that her thrilling new Emmett Kai-produced single, “We Get By,” is a rollicking golden folk epic sprinkled with shimmering yacht rock glitter. The standalone left-turn seemingly ushers in a new Laurel Canyon era for Jordana, who in between tours with Local Natives, Remi Wolf, TV Girl & Wallows, has been working on material with Kai since 2023. The Otium-directed video is a delight, cycling through vignettes of a day in the life of our violin-playing protagonist.

There’ll be more to share soon. Stay tuned.

dog eyes are back today with a new single, “rusty, my dog.”

It’s a daydream-y slowcore song that calmly floats on a gentle breeze. “Matching the minimalist bedroom pop and unexpected existentialism of Hovvdy’s early work with the surreal tinge of @, the track is another promising indication of what dog eyes’ Grand Jury debut will have in store,” said FLOOD Mag in their premiere this morning.

The duo sums up the single as “a grumbling, slow-and-steady meditation about Martin, our favorite dog. While light-hearted and sweet, it sends us off with chilling mantras like: ‘I don’t exist outside of his big ears,’ and ‘I’m not whole when you’re not around.’”.

The song follows “fair,” which was paired with our signing announcement last month via Paste Magazine , who praised it for being “a green-as-grass folk track with cosmic vocal harmonies that sound like acid-covered flannel shirts come alive.”

Both songs are from a larger project that will be announced soon. In other news, the band just announced an upcoming show at San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill on August 15th. Tickets available here.

This year marks 10 years in business for Grand Jury Music.

For seven of those years, Samia has been releasing music via our little record label. To celebrate the anniversary, we’ve asked a few artists new and old across the roster to cover their favorite songs from the catalog.

When approached, Samia immediately selected “Making Breakfast” from Twin Peaks’ touchstone 2014 release, Wild Onion. It was the first release on Grand Jury, and officially turns 10 this August.

“Wild Onion was like a lightning strike of a record,” says Samia. “And Making Breakfast is just a perfectly-written song, painfully simple and effortlessly cool…I hope we did it justice.”

There’ll be more decade-capping celebrations to come later this year. In the meantime, catch Samia on the road opening for Bleachers beginning later this week.

We try to listen to every demo submission we ever get. But over the past ten years, we’ve never signed a band out of the info@grandjurymusic.com pile. Until now.

Today we couldn’t be happier that we opened the email from Oakland’s dog eyes – the lo-fi duo of Davis Leach and Hailey Firstman. Their first Grand Jury single, which follows their 2022 debut album a good proper send off, is the playfully off-kilter “fair.” It’s anchored by a hooky bassline and a warbly acoustic guitar jangle in the verses, but kicks into a beautiful second gear with choruses of ethereal twee that find the middle ground between K Records and Slumberland, coordinates on the musical map we’d never really thought to visit before.

Paste premiered the song & video above this morning, calling the song “a green-as-grass folk track with cosmic vocal harmonies that sound like acid-covered flannel shirts come alive. It’s a truly delightful sound to behold, as dog eyes reckon with a relationships and friendships now-separated but, in the eyes of hope, never fully surrendered.”

We’ll have plenty more from dog eyes soon. For now, enjoy!

Today we welcome the duo of Pearl Amanda Dickson and Richard Orofino – aka Sex Week – to the Grand Jury family.

We stumbled over their first single “Toad Mode” in November of last year and it immediately charmed us. Languid slowcore with a touch of levity – think Bedhead or Pinback minus the tendencies toward self-seriousness. Little did we know what more lurked beneath…

Today, paired with our signing announcement, is a new single called “Angel Blessings.” Where “Toad Mode” was playful and patient, the latest Sex Week offering is dark and insistent. From the jump it pokes and prods, and its INLAND EMPIRE-inspired video does the same. Stark blacks and reds match the song’s mood, and in its back half you’re treated to a hallmark of the new music Dickson & Orofino are working on, the bewitching doubled vocal of Pearl, one performing a distant black metal scream, the other whispering softly in your ear. It’s very, very good.

Long story short: we’re terribly excited. And we hope you are too. Read more about them over on their Artist Page.

Welcome home, Sex Week.

Native Sun just burnt Austin, TX to the ground (SXSW photos over @ Rolling Stone), and have spent the past month or so riding the roads alongside beloved Captured Tracks post-punks Thus Love.

After returning to New York last week, the band celebrates with a new single, “Too Late,” a soundtrack for the city they call home.

“’It’s too late and I don’t care!’ A rallying cry for the downtrodden who choose to persevere in spite of an uncertain future,” says Native Sun frontman Danny Gomez of the new song. “Dedicated to the streets of the city, its narrators and their untold stories. Optimism is resistance.”

The punchy production, courtesy of living legend Walter Schreifels (Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand, Rival Schools), creates a unique mesh of soaring guitars and tight percussion – an even more refined highwire act than the band’s previous EP, which Schreifels also helmed.

“Since working with Native Sun on their debut EP “Off With Their Heads” this is the fiery rock and roll anthem I was hoping for and needed,” says Schreifels. “With all the energy, swagger and panache ”Too Late” charges ahead with bigger ambition, catchier choruses and musical twists that’ll grab you by the collar and toss you in the pit like a damn doll.”

The single arrives with a Tim Nagle-directed music video, fittingly shot across iconic NYC backdrops, subway stops and beyond. The band has a few upcoming shows amidst those same backdrops, and a handful of additional North Eastern gigs, all listed below.

03/27 – Troy, NY @ No Fun *
03/28 – Boston, MA @ O’Brien’s *
03/29 – Brooklyn Made @ Brooklyn, NY *
03/30 – Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy *
04/09 – Brooklyn, NY @ St. Vitus #
04/12 – Brattleboro, VT @ The Stone Church ^
05/31 – Rochester, NY @ The Bug Jar
06/01 – Northhampton, MA @ Field Day Festival &

* w/ THUS LOVE
# w/John Reis (Hot Snakes & Drive Like Jehu)
^ w/ The Muckers
& w/ Indigo de Souza, Geese, Nation of a Language, Sheer Mag

It’s been nearly three years since we released I AM JUST A BOY LEAVE ME ALONE !!!, the debut EP from dad sports. Today, the Ottawa dream pop project –now solely helmed by Miguel Plante– returns with “take yr time.” Built using one of their oldest keyboards and a bass line made of their detuned vocal, it eschewing the project’s previous guitar-driven pep for a mostly electronic composition and still manages to be dad sports’ most earnest & personal offering yet.

Plante says of the new single: “I wrote this song right after releasing my last project in 2021 when I felt stuck and unsure where to go next. I shelved it and kept if for myself, listening to it when I needed a reminder that I am allowed to take time to make art I am proud of. A sort of comfort song for just myself.”

“Unplugging from music for the last couple of years has given me time to reflect on why I make music, and for who. The process of creating is so opaque and abstract; it seems hard to feel like you are progressing when you are not always coming out the other side with something to show for it. This song sort of acts as a celebration of the idea that your pace can only be set by you. Take your time, you’ll be alright.”

In other exciting news, we’ll be pressing I AM JUST A BOY LEAVE ME ALONE !!! on vinyl for the first time ever. It will arrive on May 10th, but is available for pre-order starting today – over on Bandcamp or directly above. The B-side of the release will include all previously released dad sports singles, including “take yr time,” making for a complete collection. First pressing of 500 copies exclusively on opaque hot pink vinyl, also including a 12×12 lyric sheet inner sleeve.

Today, Native Sun return with the addendum to their early 2023 EP Off With Our Heads. A two-song remix release featuring NYC rock royalty new and old in the form of A Place To Bury Strangers & Pure Adult. APTBS unleash “Called The Doctor” like a schizoid, fuzzed-out spinning top, vocals searing on top of the madness. Meanwhile Pure Adult add a stuttering beat and smokey energy to the jangly “When She.” Both songs are available to stream everywhere now.

And catch the band later this month doing a few more shows in the Northeast – in NYC tomorrow, and later this month with the mighty Witch up in Vermont.