Andy Fenstermaker is a music lover, writer, marketing professional, and entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to sharing his passion for music with others. He is the founder of FensePost, a renowned music blog that has been sharing the latest and greatest in indie music since 2006. Andy has always been fascinated by the power of music to connect people, and he started FensePost with the aim of sharing his love of music with others. Andy developed a passion for music at a young age. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Andy grew up surrounded by a vibrant music scene that left an indelible mark on him. He attended Washington State University, where he studied Communication and Business. He holds a BA in Communication and a Masters in Business Administration. After graduating, Andy started writing about music and created FensePost as the outlet. The blog has a strong focus on indie music, but also covers a range of other genres including folk, indie pop, psychedelic, garage rock, and experimental. Andy and the blog relocated to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in 2020.
Summer Babes is a new garage pop band from Seattle featuring Jeff Albertson, who you may know as the bass player of The Lights. “Crack Habit” is a super catchy pop track packed with indecipherable lyrics, heavy lo-fi percussion, loud fuzzy guitars, and a bouncy keyboard riff. The song can be found on the band’s debut EP, righteously titled Babe Summer. Read More »Summer Babes: Crack Habbit [mp3]
High Highs is Jack Milas and Oli Chang of Australia and they produce light pop melodies that, as heard in “Open Season”, are entirely infectious. Soft and pleasant, “Open Season” has the perfect balance of emotive vocals, bouncy piano, and laid-back guitar to be one of the year’s better finds. They’ve been spinning this band for quite a while now over at my old station, KZUU. Read More »High Highs: Open Season [Video]
Fuzzy, dreamy guitars and harmonic female vocals may lead you to think of some pretty notable bands of late, specifically Best Coast, Vivian Girls, and Dum Dum Girls. Others too. Add another one to the list, with Reading Rainbow‘s chill, fuzzed-out pop song “Wasting Time”. Take a gander at “Always On My Mind” and you still get the chill and dreamy nature of the previous song, but things are a bit slower and feature a monotonous, surreal drone that flirts with both instrumentation and vocals. Read More »Reading Rainbow [Feature]
Not too long ago, I posted a list of great videos and on that list was one for “Shyness” by Thieves Like Us. This is notable not only because Summer Camp‘s “Round The Moon” fits nicely beside that band’s critically acclaimed tune, but also because they sampled the same video footage in the creation of these videos. Summer Camp released their Young EP a few months back on Moshi Moshi and it hints of moody European music from the early 80s with plenty of synth and electronics and depressed vocals. Read More »Summer Camp: Round The Moon [Video]
The nerd in me has been getting into comics of late, namely Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, so it’s fitting that the first thing I latched onto in Silver Swans‘ bio is that they pulled their name from the group of super villians in Wonder Woman. Like the evil-doers, “Secrets” by Silver Swans will haunt your nights. And they do it with slow, dreamy pop, swirling with synths and beats by DJ producer Jon Waters, and the vocals of Ann Yu. “Secrets” possesses the ability to tailspin you into a hypnotic trance; the song has an eerie calm, perfect for pitch-black nights broken by colorful lights and warm bodies. Read More »Silver Swans: Secrets [mp3]
Says Jukebox The Ghost‘s songwriter Ben Thornewill about “Schizophrenia”, Years ago I learned that often schizophrenics become schizophrenics in their early twenties after a traumatic experience. So the song is from the point of a schizophrenic who still has the wherewithal to talk coherently about his illness.
Read More »Jukebox The Ghost: Schizophrenia [Video] 
Taking inspiration from the remnants of Sarah Records is The Silent Boys, a band that embodies the term indie-pop. Their music, as heard throughout Princess By The Sea is lovable and twee. Odd, then, that this album would just now be getting a release — it is the band’s oldest work, shelved and tweaked for more than two decades. Thus it should be no surprise that Princess By The Sea strives to be the perfect pop album. Read More »The Silent Boys: Princess By The Sea [Album Review]
There’s an odd calm in the song “Who Will Be King Over All The Dead” by Morrow, which is a bit strange as it’s a full-fledged rock song. It possesses a hypnotic, mesmerizing presence that will sweep you away. And it’s apocalyptic in its emotive nature. Starting soft, almost minimal, the song adds a heavy percussion about 30 seconds in. It’s the dark guitars, the epic percussion (in the heavier moments), and the dreamily morose lyrics and calming vocals that hint of Black Heart Procession. Read More »Morrow [Feature]
I’ve seen New Mexico be slated as garage, but I don’t quite hear it. It’s a little too clean for me to slap on that label. It has plenty of rawness and grit, but not quite enough to cross the line into the garage. It doesn’t matter; their new album, Have You Seen My Friend?, does throw a mighty rock tantrum. These guys are loud, but not too loud. They put emphasis in all the right places, in the riffs they play, the songs they write, and the production that brings it all together. Read More »New Mexico: Have You Met My Friend? [Album Review]
It’s difficult to describe the encapsulating power behind Ham1. The Athens-based band’s latest album, Let’s Go On And On And On With Ham 1, is perhaps most engrossing release in their half-decade career. “It’s Only A Dream Unto Itself” is one of the album’s top tracks, molding together a unique array of rock, folk, country and psychedelic for a sound that hints of wide influences from local friends Dark Meat, to the grunge master J. Mascis himself, to the epic genius John Cale. Read More »Ham1: It’s Only A Dream Unto Itself [mp3]
