Bending Brains

#48 - Niia

Niia is an American singer, pianist, and songwriter. She submerges herself in deep extremes on her 2022 project, Mouthful of Salt. As if born again in the wake of a tsunami’s destruction, the Los Angeles-based jazz/R&B artist slips in and out of oceanic calm like waking from a delicate afternoon dream. She carefully assembles thirteen tracks buoyed by cinematic ambience, airy piano, and vocal echoes. This album is a turning point for Niia - she made the record mostly alone with her engineer in her LA apartment, an old church converted into a haunting living space. Since trading New York for Los Angeles in 2015, she has quietly enchanted audiences, tastemakers, and peers with albums—I [2017] and II: La Bella Vita [2020]—and the If I Should Die EP [2021]. Beyond acclaim from American Songwriter, WORDPLAY, NOCTIS, and more, Rolling Stone hailed If I Should Die as “some of Niia’s stickiest work,” and Clash declared, “her musical influences span across various countries and cultures to form a sensuous style that’s evocatively smooth.” Along the way, she collaborated with the likes of Jazmine Sullivan, Gallant, Boogie, and Girl Ultra, just to name a few. Following her 2021 project If I Should Die, she evolved once again. “It’s the closest I’ll get to a religious experiment,” she smiles.

#47 - Nez

"Nez" is a Chicago-based Latina artist that specializes in painting, mural artwork and illustration. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is now a freelance artist that enjoys making art that is nothing short of cute. She is best known for her cereal cartoon characters "Fruits and Stars" depicted in many of her recent works. She has worked on numerous community projects throughout the years, from her involvement with the Berwyn Public Art Initiative, as well as the Oak Park Arts Council's mural projects. Lately, she has been keeping busy with art shows, pop-ups, and has recently opened an art gallery "Studio Nez" located in Oak Park, IL, where you can view her recent pieces in person, as well as works of artists in the Chicagoland area and beyond.

#46 - Steve Albini

Steve Albini is an American musician, record producer, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman and Flour, and is a member of Shellac. He is the founder, owner and principal engineer of Electrical Audio, a recording studio complex in Chicago. In 2018, Albini estimated that he had worked on several thousand albums over his career. He has worked with acts such as Nirvana, Pixies, the Breeders, PJ Harvey, and former Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Albini is also known for his outspoken views on the music industry, having stated repeatedly that it financially exploits artists and homogenizes their sound. Nearly alone among well-known producers and musicians, Albini refuses to take ongoing royalties from album sales, feeling that a producer's job is to record the music to the band's desires, and that paying producers as if they had contributed artistically to an album is unethical.

#45 - Stella Got

Stella Got is a Tel-Aviv based musician, producer & sound engineer. Graduate of the Music-Technology department at Bar-Ilan University and was the first woman in the plugins department at Waves Audio. Today she's the house mixing/recording engineer at Assaf Amdursky's studio and an independent producer and sound engineer working with artists from various genres. Stella has released two solo albums, two side project albums (Nexus, Bill & Murray) and collaborated with top musicians in Israel on stage and in the studio.

#44 - Grant Milliren

Grant Milliren is a Midwest touring indie singer-songwriter from the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

#43 - Ayden Reda

Ayden Reda is a Chicago model, photographer, actor, and artist.

#42 - Hana Fujisaki

Hana Fujisaki is an award-winning pianist/organist/composer originally from Japan. She is a performing musician specializing in jazz, R&B, samba, salsa, and J-pop; as well as a choir director and an avid music educator in the city. Her biggest musical influences include jazz/fusion music and movie soundtracks of studio Ghibli, both of which are uniquely reflected in her creation. She is the keyboardist of several Chicago based bands including McNary Experience, Chicago Samba, Los Perros Cubanos, Hitched and Vox Maris. Her newest project with a violist Olya Prohorova, Orihana, features Japanese rock/pop music.

#41 - Mitchell McLaughlin

Mitchell McLaughlin is an indie folk artist from Chicago, Illinois. He currently writes, produces and performs in Nashville, Tennessee.

#40 - Thaddeus Tukes

Thaddeus Tukes is a multi-instrumentalist from Chicago, IL. He is the Jazz Big Band Director for After School Matters and the Vibraphonist for the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. He is a graduate from Northwestern University where he majored in Jazz, Music, and Journalism.  

#39 - Eliy Orcko

Eliy Orcko is a black American lyricist, song writer, and entertainer born in Elyria, Ohio and raised in Coral Springs, Florida. In their later years, Orcko became a solo act putting out singles, mixtapes, and EP’s under multiple aliases until they landed on the name “Eliy Orcko '' in 2019. It was then that they independently dropped their first album Only Human which laid the foundation for their expansive and ever-changing sound and aesthetic. Orcko’s latest release Idiot focuses on their blues and jazz influences while using the blueprint that hiphop lays out for songwriting.

Orcko is an introspective anarchist that embraces their own chaos as well as the world’s and tunes it into their detailed lyricism and catchy melodies. As the years grow, Eliy continues to transform their music into a more cohesive sound, but is always shifting with their musical influences and lifestyle changes.