A soft-spoken and reflective ballad that features only an acoustic guitar and Erin’s stirring vocal range, “Settle On Down” is a fitting song to play in the background as you sit back and contemplate the exacting rollercoaster ride of the past few months. Tackling a mix of issues that range from economic worries (“You’ve been working all your life, and you still got those bills to pay”) to social unrest (“There’s static in the air and there’s fighting in the streets”), and existential dread (“Your friends are movin’ on, and the moment slipped away”), Erin continuously reverts to the same mantric exhortation to “settle on down.”
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Austin, TX ghoul-pop band Stretch Panic share new single “Vampire Love” at Spill Magazine
Austin, TX ghoul-pop trio Stretch Panic are preparing to release their debut LP, Glitter & Gore, in early 2021. Glitter & Gore is a thirteen track, hook-heavy, kooky, collection of thematically rich tunes, that finds the group exorcising their inner demons while conjuring new ones. READ MORE…
K. Michelle DuBois
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Wolves have long appeared as symbols in songs—spectral embodiments of solitary spirit animals driven by otherworldly passions and a mystical sense of freedom. After all, everyone from Duran Duran to the Los Angeles punk band X has invoked the hungry wolf in their songs detailing their most uncanny allegorical excursions into the night.
With her latest album, titled The Fever Returns, Atlanta-based singer, guitar player, and songwriter K Michelle DuBois pushes the boundaries of her Southern-inflected indie-pop songs toward mysterious new and nocturnal terrain. Throughout the album, unlikely musical bedfellows—highly cultivated guitar tones, boundless pop production, and metaphysical imagery—placed side by side form singularly pleasing and full-bodied combinations.
The album’s opening title track comes to a head with a lingering rumination. DuBois sings: “Broke free from a comfort zone / Was it really that good? / Or were you just hiding / Seeing things you ain’t seen before / Walk right through an open door / You get so excited.”
Her words cast light on a path snaking through songs with titles such as “Heaven,” “Firestar,” and “Baby Witch,” each one finding the earth, the moon, the stars, and the elements taking on deeper and higher meanings amid her bounding melodies.
It’s in the song “Strawberry Moon,” though when the wolves come out. The music builds subtly at first. The sound of wolves howling in the darkness blend with lingering percussion and synth lines, all resonating on the same spectral frequency. DuBois eases into the song, adding texture as she sings, “I was hunted beneath the Strawberry Moon / All told, my sole purpose was finding a place / Finding a place where we could stay wild.” The sound of her voice and the shape of her words stir up a pensive atmosphere. It’s here in the midst of “Strawberry Moon” where she reveals the vital essence of The Fever Returns, and it’s message of looking deep within to make sense of her place in the world.
“It’s about finding your powers and your strengths—honing them,” DuBois says. “Let them be the impetus for you to leave your comfort zone, and to go out and experience new things, and to open new doors.”
The album’s title and its opening number came to DuBois in the Spring of 2019, while she was stuck in bed, fighting a months-long illness. “I was spending a lot of time at home, much like right now,” DuBois says. “I had a horrible fever that was coming and going, and then I started thinking about it in different terms, like a fever for life, or whatever your passion may be, and ideas started coming together.”
DuBois has a long history within the Atlanta music scene. Her affinity for music began when she was a teenager living in Nashville. One year, she was given a bass guitar as a Christmas gift. Composing music has remained a central theme in her life ever since.
After moving to Atlanta years later, DuBois formed the group Ultrababyfat with her longtime friend and collaborator Shonali Bhowmik. With the release of their album Silver Tones Smile in 1998, the band’s sweet and infectious pop-punk hooks landed the group on stage with groups such as Pavement and PJ Harvey and comedian David Cross. In 2001, Ultrababyfat became one of the few female-fronted bands to grace the Warped Tour stage.
Bhowmik moved to New York shortly after and though tempted to follow, DuBois stayed in Atlanta and formed Luigi with whom she explored a more experimental side of indie pop, culminating with 2008’s CD, Found On The Forest Floor.
It was during her time with Luigi that she began working with producer, engineer, and lifelong friend Dan Dixon. In conversation, DuBois describes Dixon as a “sound artist,” who now runs his own studio, dubbed RCDC Studio. Over the years he’s become DuBois’ go-to producer, engineer, and sounding board.
Over the years, Dixon has worked with various artists, ranging from the Doobie Brothers with Zac Brown, to garage rock and punk outfits Biters, Curtis Harding, and his own recent collaboration with the Coathangers drummer Stephanie Luke dubbed Nrcssst.
In 2012, DuBois emerged once again, this time as a solo artist, releasing her debut full-length, Lux Capone. She switched gears to work with producer Ben Price at Studilaroche, who helped her reconnect with her roots as a songwriter. Soon, though, she rejoined Dixon to create the indie-pop hooks heard throughout her 2016 album Astral Heart. DuBois and Dixon continued working together for 2018’s Harness, and again for The Fever Returns.
“Dan is like a brother to me, and knows me so well,” DuBois says. “Each time we record together it gets better.”
Harness and The Fever Returns function almost as companion pieces to one another, and their connection developed naturally.
“I watch a lot of T.V., and a lot of my inspiration comes from things that I might be binge-watching at the time,” she says. “Some of the shows that I really got into—I loved Westworld, which had a melancholy vibe to it—stepped me into the material for these albums. I felt a similar vibe, and it took off like a train. Everything I wrote in that vein inspired me for the next song. One song would inspire something after that, and then another and another.”
In the end, the album is an almost defiantly mature collection of songs with a wide angle focus on two things: DuBois connecting with the more ethereal elements of nature, and the freedom to explore her own creativity without restraint. With The Fever Returns, she has made a terrific, layered record that exceeds expectations. Not only has she found wholly new dimensions hidden within her own voice and songwriting, she lets them howl.
Stretch Panic

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Zombies, vampires, witches, ghosts and other macabre staples — these are the tools that Austin ghoul-pop trio Stretch Panic ultizes for exploring the human condition. Using these beloved Halloween archetypes, this charming three-piece spins haunted tales of characters trapped in nuanced states of emotional limbo. At the band’s core is a tender heart for misunderstood monsters.
That is essentially the through-line of the group’s debut LP, Glitter & Gore. Across 13 hook-heavy, kooky, thematically rich tunes, they exorcise their inner demons while conjuring new ones. Picture 1967’s Mad Monster Party, only with more synth and ghostly harmonies.
“I grew up in a haunted house,” says singer and multi-instrumentalist MJ Haha. “That’s why I love ghost stories and spooky stuff so much. Once I made peace with a ghost by singing to it. It was a song about how I knew what it was like to feel lonely and that I knew it felt very alone. Ever since, the house was a much friendlier place.”
Haha had been daydreaming of a project performed by ghost-girl characters when local Austin music blog The Nothing Song, (run by beloved talent booker Trish Connelly), sent out an open call for new spooky singles. The band’s current line up – Haha, Jennifer Monsees, and Cassie Baker – had been circling for years as friends and collaborators within the Austin music scene, crystallizing as Stretch Panic just in time for Halloween 2016 with their first bedroom recording, “They’re Coming Out For You.”
Spurred by the positive reception towards their first release, they accepted their first show offer without having fully written any other songs. Three months later, (in collaboration with songwriter cousins William Riot and Ashley Woodruff), the band finished a collection of campy haunted tunes. Performing their first set, they solidified the colorful take on Halloween that would come to define the group.
“What we all had in common was a love for silly Halloween kitsch,” Haha says, “and we’ve incorporated that in every way we’ve dressed the music.”
Some tunes are inspired by actual horror films: The atmospheric “Psycho Mama” is a direct homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and the fizzy garage-pop of “Burn the Witch” nods to the imagery of Dario Argento classic Suspiria. But many borrow equally from real life. As Haha puts it: “When Hillary lost in 2016, there were a lot of “nasty woman” slurs being thrown around, and I realized we were still blaming women and figuratively burning them at the stake. Sadly as it goes in the song, ‘This poor martyr can’t stop evil.’”
As they developed their sound, they combined influences from previous girl-band giants such as The Shangri Las, The 5.6.7.8’s, and The Slits, with the playful elements of The B-52s, They Might Be Giants, The Sonics, and The Unicorns. Baker’s infectious energy and Monsees’ steady grounding blended with Haha’s theatrical narratives to create their own candy-coated spin on riot grrrl post-punk, ’90s indie-rock, and doo-wop. By Halloween season 2017, the trio found themselves touring the United States, promoting their garage-recorded debut EP, Ghost Coast.
With the world easing into the political turmoil we’ve come to know since 2016, the Panics aimed to create a safe space with their songs, drawing on their love of fantastical stories, campy horror film classics, and the surreal animated series Adventure Time. “I wanted to share that feeling of delightful cuteness — but also there’s a message we think is important: it’s a wonderful thing to develop empathy for those you might not understand.” says Haha.
Many of their early tracks achieved that goal, marrying poppy melodies with subtly rich storytelling that probes beyond the surface level sonic cartoons. However, the band wasn’t satisfied with the hastily assembled EP; It took a bit more refining — and the musical maturation earned through touring — to hone the more sculpted and cinematic Glitter & Gore.
The album, recorded and mixed by master sound engineer Justin Douglas of King Electric Studios, builds on Ghost Coast’s foundation — revamping many of its songs with cleaner production, tighter vocal harmonies, and quirkier arrangements.
“Justin drew out the potential of these songs up to a completely different level,” says Haha, “Like in adding a prepared piano to the end of “Burn the Witch” or recording one of our instrumentals in half time so when played at full speed, played incredibly slow and spooky. He transformed each of our songs into the most magical version of itself and it would not sound this fantastic without him.”
Baker brought into the recording a brilliant and playful sense of percussive theater using tools like the flextone and slide whistle, instruments from her percussion show for kids. Meanwhile, Monsees brought her vigilant sense of timing, her careful ear for harmonies, and her emphasis on staying true to the emotional core of the music. William Riot returned with a completely fresh chiptune composition for “I Can’t Help It” and to add his vocal talents. The group tracked the material directly to tape and bounced it to digital, aiming for a creamier, fuzzier sound.An obvious songwriting centerpiece is “Vampire Love,” which decorates a tale of uncertain romance with stacked backing vocals and delectable synth whooshes. “I wanted to write a love song about a girl who didn’t realize her partner was a vampire,” Haha says, “but I wanted to use ‘Vampire Love’ as a double meaning: it’s that nuance of ‘Am I in a toxic relationship?’ and then realizing, ‘Oh, I’m actually dating a real vampire'”.
The vampires return again as the record peaks with the dynamic, seven-minute epic “Symphony of the Night,” a song that could easily be interpreted as a woman psycho-stalking her ex. On the flip side is “You Can’t Stay”, a track about breaking up with a demon, that serves as a metaphor for breaking up with someone who messes with your head so much, you feel possessed.
Through the cutesy aesthetic and sparkly omnichord tones throughout their tracks, Stretch Panic doesn’t deny the darkness within the human experience. They embrace it, with kazoos and cathartic energy. You can dig deeper if you please, but even if you stick with the campy fantasy-horror vibe, Glitter & Gore remains a quirky treasure box of Halloween treats.
“Glitter & Gore [combines] saccharine girl-group harmonies, offbeat twee and punk aesthetics, and buckets of blood, finding a perfect balance of campy Halloween style and unexpectedly captivating songwriting.” – Under The Radar Magazine