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1. Katie Pruitt, “Expectations”
2. Ratboys, “Printer’s Devil”
3. Anjimile, “Giver Taker”

Bandcamp is an online music platform used largely by independent artists and record labels to stream songs and sell merchandise. It’s also a vibrant virtual community teeming with interesting sounds just waiting to be discovered. Each week, I’ll highlight three releases available on the site that are well worth your time and attention. If you find something you dig, please consider supporting the artist with a purchase.

Ratboys “Printer’s Devil”

Ratboys! Ratboys! Ratboys rule! In last week’s GO! Magazine, I listed 30 — 30! — of my favorite albums of 2020 that are available on Bandcamp, and somehow I forgot the third album from this Chicago-based rock band. Finding a perfect balance between poppy melodies, distorted electric guitars and a twangy undercurrent is a very challenging thing, but Ratboys nails it over and over again. At the center of their highly likeable racket is singer-songwriter Julia Steiner, whose mellifluous vocals poke through the din and head straight for the pleasure center of your brain.

Katie Pruitt

“Expectations”

Katie Pruitt is just incredibly gifted. The Nashville-based singer-songwriter’s lyrics are wise beyond her 26 years, displaying an uncommon mix of tenderness, confusion and growing confidence as she sings about growing up in the religious South, navigating her own shame and self-doubt and coming out as gay in the face of uncertainty. Vocally, she is a powerhouse, capable of staying on top of songs that reliably crescendo in their lovely choruses. And the production on “Expectations” effortlessly slips between folk, pop, rock and country, with equal shouts out to ’70s Fleetwod Mac vibes and 21st century indie-folk. The end result is one of 2020’s very best debuts.

Anjimile “Giver Taker”

There are deeply personal albums, and then there’s this stunning debut from singer-songwriter Anjimile, who is based in Boston and was raised in Texas by first generation Maliwan immigrants. Written mostly while Anjimile was in treatment for substance abuse and in the process of living more fully as a nonbinary trans person, the songs on “Giver Taker” focus intensely on loss, shame, healing and redemption, delivered in a quivering voice that recalls indie-folk giant Sufjan Stevens. “I’m alive. I am not so gone as I thought,” they sing in “1978,” a quiet anthem of grief. “Oh, God, I am loved. I am learning how to receive loving. Are you real? Are you something out of a dream from me? Bold and bright, I could fall asleep in your love.”