From its first track, Dessa’s new full-length Parts of Speech (out June 25, 2013) announces itself as something different. The Doomtree veteran and inveterate wordsmith — having proved her mettle in the fields of creative non-fiction, spoken-word and hip-hop — jettisons all genre expectations on “The Man I Knew” and croons a heartbreaking lament to a disintegrating relationship at an explosively-building clip. From this moment on Dessa — oft–described as “Mos Def plus Dorothy Parker” for the wit and flow shown off on previous solo albums A Badly Broken Code and Castor, The Twin — proves she has truly coalesced as an artist, transcending the restrictions of genre to reveal an astonishing multi-platform voice.

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Parts of Speech owes much of its impact to its diverse production. Dessa got her start as a member of Minneapolis hip-hop collective Doomtree — eventually going on to help manage the group’s business affairs as they launched their own label — and members Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger lend their production to several tracks. The players in Dessa’s live ensemble all contributed to the record, as did several top-flight Minneapolis musicians working in rock, folk, and opera.

Dessa, born and raised in Minneapolis after her parents met at a Duluth music store, was valedictorian of her high school, eventually skipping a year of college and graduating with honors before she could legally drink. Armed with a philosophy degree, the intrepid Midwesterner spent her nights as a waitress and days writing reference manuals used by doctors in the implantation of pacemakers. “Language and verbal communication were important in my family. If I could argue my way into a later curfew, that argument was entertained. My parents may have regretted that policy later but it was a great motivator to help me develop a facility with words.”

Parts of Speech could be made by no one but Dessa, but in its evolution and awareness it is the perfect culmination of the journey started with 2010’s A Badly Broken Code. Middle album Castor, The Twin was in many ways a blueprint for Speech. The earlier albums were praised widely for their focus and depth, but Speech shows a fantastic breadth. By uniting a wealth of different tones and narratives under Dessa’s unmistakable poeticism, Parts of Speech greatly resembles Sherwood Anderson’s modernist fiction classic Winesburg, Ohio. Dessa creates a new world, populating it with complex characters, beautiful sonic landscapes and refreshing, assertive production. An album that can boom out of a car window after its summer release, or soundtrack a November night in, Parts of Speech marks a highpoint in Dessa’s career and demonstrates the crossover power of the rising star’s burgeoning arsenal.

PHOX is from Baraboo, WI which is a place where kids often drink poison and become endowed mutants. This particular half dozen is blessed with madness, illusions of grandeur, and the inability to do the same thing twice. They also play music.

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The 4onthefloor’s new album, Spirit Of Minneapolis, evokes the spirit of American rebellion. That same pioneering spirit that brought us everything from modern aviation to rock & roll. Harnessing that spirit, the band is using it to break down modern music’s barriers down to our basic musical traditions. That ageless sound of rock & roll isn’t what it used to be, but the rumble of stomping feet emanating from Minneapolis is an omen of great things on the horizon.

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The 4/4 beating of the bass drums recalls the American ideal of onward and upward, turning our prevailing spirits to the sky after a reaching the end of the land. The 4-barreled onslaught can be a train building up steam right behind you, the king of the jungle chasing you down, or your wheels on the highway. It’s the soundtrack of America moving forward. Delta blues, classic rock, and a lifetime of attentive listening have produced a sound whose time has come. The energetic and powerful delivery of this band cannot be overstated. Their huge, soulful anthems leave nothing on the floor as Gabriel Douglas’ guttural howl soars through the ether. There’s a readiness to be found in listeners now. The fervor of discovery and innovation is coming back to the American masses and the excitement surrounding the birth of rock & roll is now roaring out of the doldrums with a fury. Let go. Take flight. Indulge in life’s pleasures and stomp with them.

It has been an exciting and exhilarating year for hip-hop and spoken word artist F.Stokes. Theunique and ubiquitous MC released a new EP Love, Always., which features the hit single “My Simple.” He has toured the United States and Europe. He’s performed with Erykah Badu, Matt And Kim, Rev Run, Doomtree, Ledisi, Talib Kweli, MC Hammer and Slick Rick. This summer he will be performing with NAS, Black Star, DMX, Redman and Big Daddy Kane. F.Stokes isfeatured on UK band Bastille’s (Virgin/EMI) mixtape Other People’s Heartache and is currently recording a new project in the UK with Dan Smith (Bastille) and producer Mark Crew. This summer he will be performing at the Essence Music Festival, the Metropolis Festival in the Netherlands and the Montreal Jazz Festival.

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Born on the south side of Chicago to a single mother household. At the age of 12, he and his family moved to Madison, WI – the city he grew to love and consider his hometown. In Madison, he lived in a one-room shelter with his mother and five siblings. Through his childhood and teenage years, F. began to create music, which would eventually become his ticket out of Madison and to the rest of the world. His poetry and music evolved simultaneously and became his escape, his place of solace. Of his music, Stokes says, “From the moment I was old enough to write it became my best friend.” At 19, F.Stokes made the move to New York with $30 in his pocket to pursue his dream and continue creating. He did anything he could to stay afloat in New York – worked as a bathroom attendant, waiter, busboy, dish washer, food runner, bar back, and doorman. Reflecting on his past and present, he continues to write. The negative (his father’s life prison sentence, childhood poverty, drug sales, guns) and the positive (the strong bond with his mother, his belief that we all have the ability to save someone’s life, and his motto “aspire to inspire”) fuel his art.

Today, F.Stokes is bringing his blend of hip-hop and poetry across the globe. His stage presence is simply captivating; attracting and engaging crowds of all demographics and backgrounds, by mixing provocatively cutting edge lyrics, with superb stage-presence and engaging his audience.Internationally, F. has make stops in France, England, Amsterdam, Berlin, Austria, Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland and Australia. In the United States F.Stokes has played venues such as Club Nokia (LA), Chene Park (MI), Bowery Ballroom (NYC), Gramercy Theatre (NYC), Union Transfer (Philadelphia, PA), The Middle East (Boston, MA) and packs The Majestic Theater in his hometown Madison, WI. He feels truly blessed to have made a stop in nearly every state. Stokes lets his experiences shape him, but they do not define him. He uses these experiences to create his art, to reach out to others, to grow. He possesses unparalleled passion and drive to keep pursuing his art. F.Stokes has a long list of musical influences ranging from Patti Smith to Kanye West, but none of these influences shape his music as much as his own life’s journey.

There he was, this musically lucked child of a once-priest and a near-nun, 12 years old and piled high with a Radio Shack combo stereo, stacks of records, and pockets full of dubbed tapes. It was 1984 and Martin Dosh was orchestrating the soundtracks to his junior high school dances, playing only the choice cuts for the budding romantics and perspiring wallflowers: Run DMC, Prince, Devo, the Cars, New Order... At age 3, Marty had started harassing his folks to bone up for piano lessons (after three years of persistence, they gave in); that he'd developed considerable musical taste before hitting puberty should come as no real surprise.

Call him a one-man band, a virtuoso, a gifted collaborator or a family man, Martin, Marty, Dosh or Dad, our subject has gotten to now by what seems an uncanny path (perhaps call it fate). When they met, Dosh's father was a Catholic priest with pile of degrees, and his mother was living in a convent in Minneapolis preparing herself for nunhood. They left the fold for marriage; subsequently the elder Dosh found himself blacklisted from local employment, and so they left Minnesota as well. Martin was born in the greater Los Angeles area, but at age 2, his health problems and the city's endless sprawl delivered the family back into the musically nurturing arms of the Twin Cities.

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Returning to the Midwest, Martin was enrolled in a Montessori school (and piano lessons). By comparison high school was, "academically, horseshit" so Dosh seized his destiny at 16 and moved east to study jazz and drums at Simon's Rock College of Bard in Massachusetts. What followed was a flurry of summer jobs, road trips to see the Grateful Dead, van living around various college outposts in Mass and NY, Zappa-esque noodling in his band Como Zoo, further schooling, the requisite amount of pot, and a little too much partying. But Dosh wanted more for his music and less for his student debt, so he swallowed his pride and returned (at 25) to his parents' in Minneapolis. He figured the move would be temporary -- he'd save up money and practice drums until he became a self-sustaining virtuoso --but Dosh was going to shows every night and meeting more and more people in the local music-rich scene (a collision of avant jazz, freewheeling rock and progressive hip-hop), quickly realizing that what he needed had been there all along. And throughout his dedicated solo drum-and-keyboard sessions in mom and dad's basement, he'd record, record, record, accumulating a massive library of sound. Soon he'd be a touring member of Andrew Broder's Fog, and full-time player in their instrumental counterpart Lateduster.

In 2003 Anticon proudly released Dosh's virtuoso debut, Dosh, a loop-building collage of shimmering Rhodes, atypical drumming grounded in groove, field recordings and spontaneous performance (much of the album was pieced together using the 100-plus hours of tape he'd recorded at his parents'). By then he'd developed his untouchable live one-man show (swiveling on his drum stool between a kit, his modified Rhodes piano, a few pots and pans, and a simple looping pedal with a 12-second recording limit), and took to the road. Back in Minneapolis, the city he'd finally recognized as home, Dosh had been teaching drum lessons to children and falling in love on the side. He formed a family with his wife Erin (who he'd wooed by handing her a copy a song called "I Think I'm Getting Married") and her 6-year-old son Tadhg. Soon he'd be composing a track titled "Building a Strange Child," and so they would. Dosh's second full-length, Pure Trash was inspired by his life's most pleasant turns, and though the album was instrumental (minus cameos by Erin, Tadhg, the newborn Naoise, and his students), it emoted all the warmth and anticipation, fear and relief that comes with building a family. Dosh's third album, The Lost Take, showcases the man's unique approach to sound with an expanded musicality and growing guest-list including Andrew Bird and members of Tapes 'N Tapes.

His Fourth record, Wolves And Wishes, adds to the ever-impressing oeuvre with the explorative wonderment of a debut album. To date Dosh has recorded with Bonnie 'Prince' Billie, Fog, Jel, Odd Nosdam, Neotropic, Andrew Bird, Redstart, Vicious Vicious, Poor Line Condition, Lateduster, Why?, the Interferents, members of Tapes 'N Tapes, and just about any Twin Cities band with a collective ear for good taste and experimentation. He has shared the stage with Andrew Bird, Wilco, Why?, Damo Suzuki, Gary Wilson, Golden Smog, Sole, My Morning Jacket, Tapes 'n Tapes, cLOUDDEAD, Sage Francis, Devendra Banhart, Kid Dakota, Alias, Themselves, Peanut Butter Wolf, P.O.S., Happy Apple, Joseph Arthur, Pizza Boys, the Bad Plus, The Jayhawks, Atmosphere, DJ Vadim and many more.

Madison, Wisconsin’s Brandon Beebe has waited a long time for his debut album, In This Place, to come to fruition. Luckily, the wait was worth it. The self-produced, self-financed collection is meticulously crafted, and the blood, sweat and tears that went into its creation can be both heard and felt. Lyrically, it is often raw and direct, while at other times it is allusive and poetic.

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Beebe’s rich vocals are delivered with both confidence and vulnerability, reminiscent of Cat Stevens, Elliot Smith, Ben Harper, and Ray Lamontagne, but at once all his own. Sonically, its textures range broadly: from acoustic guitars surrounded by cello and violins, to swelling tones from electric guitars and keyboards, to haunting, layered harmonies to afro-funk beats with Brazilian percussion. Songs like “Ghost” provide the perfect soundtrack for a cold winter’s evening, while “She’s the Moon” recalls summer’s sweat and excitement. The album’s diverse stylistic range and depth make it apparent that In This Place is no ordinary singer-songwriter album, and Beebe is no ordinary performer.