MI Local: Spotlights on Dally in the Alley and Strange Beautiful Music festivals

This week on MI Local, I premiered several new songs by local artists, including indie-pop ballads from established groups like soundslikeotto and Reggi Roomers, plus a brand new dance track from a project fittingly called Dancepack.

But for the majority of the show, I directed a sonic spotlight toward two distinct music events scheduled this weekend featuring local artists, starting with Saturday’s Dally in the Alley performers Elephant Den and Olive and the Stoned Fruits.

This week’s in-studio guest is Justin Snyder, creative director for New Music Detroit — a local collective of musicians dedicated to performing groundbreaking musical works from late-20th century to the present day.

New Music Detroit was “founded by members of the DSO, almost 20 years ago,” Snyder said, “in order to fill a gap that they felt was missing in Detroit, which was bringing classical contemporary music to the city. We just wanted to be adventurous, and there’s an audience here for it. And this is year 17 for Strange Beautiful Music. We’ve done it before in different venues around the city, like warehouses, clubs [and] galleries.”

Snyder discussed the Strange Beautiful Music event, happening Saturday at Andy Arts in Detroit.

“Strange Beautiful Music is a smorgasbord of every type of music — and stuff that resists genre as well,” Snyder said. “We’ll have jazz, classical, techno…this year we have electronic music, art-pop, harp music and lots more.”

Strange Beautiful Music performers featured on MI Local include My Brightest Diamond, Ahya Simone and Dominant Hand. See the full lineup and ticket details here.

See the full playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the player at the top.

MI Local Playlist for Sept. 3, 2024

• “All of Last Year” – Elephant Den
• “Born Day” – Olive & the Stoned Fruits
• “Up Late” – Dancepack
• “The Bog Bodies” – Rabbitology
• “Cry Without Shame” – Kind Beast
• “Silence” – Reggi Roomers
• “Bright Blue” – soundslikeotto
• “Cruisin'” – Fishfly
• “When I Left” – The Stools
• “Re(VS)olution” – Na Bonsai
• “G-Force” – Serenemoon
• “Safe House” – My Brightest Diamond
• “Frostbite” – Ahya Simone
• “Before It Turns” – Dominant Hand and Bora Yoon