Note from the organizers: We aim to be intentional in creating a diverse and inclusive popfest, both sonically and otherwise. Rather than keeping within the confines of any sort of strict definition of indie pop, we are rounding out bills with jangle pop, post punk, and other genres where there has historically been lots of overlap. Additionally, in curating Providence Popfest, we sought out/prioritized bands that reflected the (various, multifaceted) perspectives of queer and trans folks and women in indiepop. It is extremely important to us to create an atmosphere where we, and folks like us, can feel at ease, at home, and in community.

We are no longer accepting band submissions.
Questions? Email us!

ARTISTS

THE SOFTIES (CAN/OR)

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The Softies, comprised of Rose Melberg and Jen Sbragia, embody timeless themes of friendship and self-discovery through their minimalist pop soundworld. Since their formation in 1994, they've created uncluttered and fearlessly vulnerable music, contrasting with prevailing trends. The Bed I Made, The Softies’ first new studio album in 24 years, showcases growth while reflecting on life's complexities with lyrics drawn from real experiences. Despite individual pursuits and personal losses, Melberg and Sbragia reunite, channeling grief and rejuvenation into an album that captures the essence of their enduring friendship and offers hope and renewal amid life's challenges. Through their perfectly-paired harmonies and telepathic playing, they navigate the present, past, and future, offering a poignant continuation of their musical legacy, resonating like time spent with an old friend who knows you best.

PYLON REENACTMENT SOCIETY (GA)

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It's easier to explain what Pylon Reenactment Society isn’t than what it actually is. It’s not a continuation or a reunion, because Vanessa is the only member in both groups. It’s neither a tribute act nor a cover band, although they do perform Pylon songs. Led by Vanessa Briscoe Hay of the legendary post-punk band Pylon, Pylon Reenactment Society also features Jason NeSmith and Kay Stanton (Supercluster, Casper & The Cookies) and Gregory Sanders (Casper & The Cookies). Their debut album Magnet Factory and live performances have been met with critical acclaim. Uncut Magazine awarded the album an 8/10 rating, saying “Magnet Factory finds the quartet in scintillating form, shifting smartly between angular noise-pop and nervy punk-funk, topped with Hay’s spiky vocals… a terrific debut from American post-punk veterans.” The Associated Press said, “...Briscoe Hay remains a distinctive, boundary-defying songwriter… Amid the algorithm-driven din that now fills earbuds, ‘Magnet Factory’ sounds as fresh as Pylon first did…the band is an irresistible blend of simplicity and synchronicity, the music both edgy and therapeutic.” Rolling Stone Magazine noted of their performance at SXSW 2024 “…Pylon Reenactment Society dodges nostalgia partially because Pylon was hardwired for the future…” 

MIRAH (NY)

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Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she works as a song writer, performer, producer and mom. In a constant dedication to expanding her tender repertoire of American folk songs into a larger context, her recordings seek to find the magical amity between explorative percussion, orchestral sounds and elements of rock and popular music. Since starting out in the late 1990’s, she has released over a dozen solo and collaborative recordings on various independent labels including K Records, Kill Rock Stars, Absolute Magnitude Recordings, Double Double Whammy and 7e.p., and toured solo and with countless iterations of her own band in concert halls, music clubs and punk basements all across North America, Japan and Europe. Mirah has dedicated her creative process to investigating the complicated intersections between individuals and communities, believing that with deeper understanding of each other, the seeds of a more beautiful and less violent world are planted. “Mirah propels her magical, three-dimensional spaces with her clear beacon of a voice and instrumentation that slips from whisper-in-your-ear intimacy to rushing, tumbling aural avalanches.” - New York Press

Sweeping Promises is the latest sonic expression from longtime musical partners/serial band-starters Caufield Schnug and Lira Mondal. Emerging out of a spontaneous songwriting session in a Cambridge, MA basement in late 2019, SP has since released two full-length LPs (via Feel It and Sub Pop) and toured extensively with their drummer/Boston scene vet Spenser Gralla. The band is now based in Lawrence, KS, where they run their own DIY home studio.

DEAR NORA (CA)

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Dear Nora is an ever-evolving indie-pop band fronted by songwriter/producer Katy Davidson, and features a rotating cast of collaborators. Davidson was born in Arizona and has also lived in Oregon and California. The energy, intensity, and vastness of the western United States landscape imbue the songwriting and recordings. Dear Nora has existed in two distinct eras – 1999-2008 and 2017-present – with roughly a decade break in the middle (the “Lost Years”) in which Davidson fronted various side projects, and played session guitar/keyboards in the bands YACHT and Gossip. Dear Nora’s early music leans more pop-punk, DIY, confessional, youthful. The contemporary music leans more poetic, expansive, genre-bending, wise.The through-lines between Dear Nora’s two eras are: melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, and lyrics about time, space, capitalism, the internet, daily life vérité, ancient things, real vs. unreal or surreal, and all kinds of relationships. Partially because Dear Nora’s early years happened before the rise of smartphones and social media (prior to hyper digital documentation), and because very little content survives this era aside from the analog recordings, the group is often described as “legendary" (as in, "legend/myth"). Rediscovered via streaming platforms and word of mouth, Dear Nora’s music has influenced many young songwriters. RIYL: Judee Sill, Arthur Russell, The Roches, Young Marble Giants, Joni Mitchell.

LINDA SMITH (MD)

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Songwriter and recording artist Linda Smith has a gentle but unconventional experimental style that continues to evolve as she adds new entries to her storied catalog. Her work with four-track production in the late '80s found her at the beginning of a home-recording movement that would set the pace for decades of indie rock that followed. Smith was born and raised in Baltimore but relocated to Brooklyn, New York in the 1980s. There, she played in several bands, including the Silly Pillows and the Woods. She purchased a four-track cassette recorder to make demos to share with her bandmates but quickly found herself drawn to the specific charms and limitations of home recording. When the Woods disbanded around 1987, Smith continued working on solo recordings, eventually collecting some of her earliest material on the 1987 cassette-only The Space Between the Buildings. Her sounds ranged from moody, ethereal balladry to fuzzy proto-indie, all of it bearing similarities to the C-86 movement and the burgeoning K Records scene of the same period. Throughout the late '80s and early '90s, Smith released multiple collections of her songs, including cassettes with small lo-fi labels Shrimper and her own Preference Recordings, her 1995 album Nothing Else Matters, and several 7" singles with indie labels Slumberland and Harriet Records. She continued making music into the 2000s, releasing two new albums, Emily's House and Something New!, in 2001 and collecting older material on compilations like 2014's All the Stars That Never Were. Smith’s early home recordings received a new wave of attention in 2021 when Captured Tracks issued the retrospective collection Til Another Time (1988-1996).

GOOD FLYING BIRDS (IN)

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Good Flying Birds is a jangly, noisy guitar-pop group from the Midwest, USA. The project began in December 2023 with a string of 4-track cassette recordings and stop-motion videos uploaded to YouTube under the name “Talulah God,” accompanied by a chaotic, GIF-filled website. Over the next few months, songs were uploaded regularly, eventually catching the attention of influential punk and DIY label head Martin Meyer. In January 2025, Talulah’s Tape was released on Rotten Apple, compiling home recordings from 2020–2024. It showcased a wide-ranging love for independent guitar music, clever songwriting, and a charmingly scrappy, twee-punk aesthetic. The release found immediate underground acclaim, earning radio play and selling 300 cassettes in under a month. Riding the momentum and building a reputation as a dynamic live act, the group attracted significant label interest, ultimately signing with Carpark and Smoking Room. Together, the labels re-released Talulah’s Tape on vinyl and streaming in October 2025. Their sound nods to lo-fi icons like Guided By Voices, Beat Happening, DLIMC, Talulah Gosh, and The Vaselines, but carries a singular, earnest charm. It’s the sound of wide-eyed optimism in a cracked world—rosy cheeks, a tambourine in hand, and guitars ringing in all directions.  

JEANINES (MA)

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Over the course of nearly a decade making music as Jeanines, Alicia Jeanine and Jed Smith have charted a distinctive course through the history of pop, evoking influences as varied as the 60s folk of early Fairport Convention and Vashti Bunyan, the sunshine pop of Margo Guryan and Laura Nyro, and indiepop touchstones like Dear Nora, Marine Girls, Dolly Mixture, and the post-Black Tambourine projects of Pam Berry. Their new album, "How Long Can It Last," finds Jeanines grappling with themes of personal upheaval and self-excavation, adding weight to their finest set of songs yet. With Alicia’s lyrics incisively interrogating connections, ruptures, and time and its reverberations, songs like "Coaxed a Storm," "What's Done Is Done," and "On and On" combine richly melodic tunes with multi-instrumental producer and co-composer Jed’s crisp arrangements (featuring contributions from longtime live show bassist Maggie Gaster) to stellar effect.

22º HALO (PA)

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22º halo is a recording project/band from Philadelphia. They recently released a new album Lily of the Valley on Tiny Library Records. Will on Lily of the Valley:
"Lily of the valley is about my life with Kate’s cancer. Started out as an album for her and ended up as an album for me. It’s about our love as a buoy during the time of Kate’s cancer diagnosis + treatment. It’s helped me feel less alone in being a caretaker. It's helped me hold onto hope when Kate gets MRI scans every two months to see if her cancer has come back. It’s so hard to see someone’s body deteriorate in front of you and know you can’t do anything to stop it. It’s infuriating to hold your wife as she mourns the loss of her old life, and you can’t bring it back. Her cancer feels endlessly serious to me, and yet when I’m around other people, I can’t stop making jokes. - I’m hoping this album can hold some levity without losing this seriousness. I know me and Kate could talk about her cancer forever, but I fear that I’m coming across as long-winded, or harping too much on the topic. I just want people to see Kate over and over again, because she’s been through fucking hell, and now with a hat on, her scar isn’t even visible. Lily of the valley is about the little things I notice and love about Kate, and letting that fill my mornings. What’s holier than holding onto someone you love?"

TRY THE PIE (CA)

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Try the Pie is the long-running project of Bay Area musician Bean Kaloni Tupou, known for delicate, emotionally honest songwriting shaped, in part, by their Tongan heritage and deep roots in the region’s punk and DIY scenes. Over the years, Try the Pie has moved from soft-edged pop and raw bedroom recordings to a fuller indie-punk sound with the help of Nick Lopez (drums), Bailey Lupo (bass), and Laine Barriga (guitar). Bean has been a member of several Bay Area bands over the last twenty years (Sourpatch, Crabapple, Salt Flat, and Plume). Their storytelling has shifted but has always centered harmony, distortion, and emotional precision. Try the Pie’s latest record, A Widening Burst of Forever, was released on Get Better Records in 2022.

LIGHTHEADED (NJ)

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Rushing in from the shores of Asbury Park, New Jersey, Lightheaded cast a twinkling haze with their sixties-tinged power-pop tunes. Carrying on the long tradition of sentimental/sweet songwriters, Lightheaded distill decades of lovelorn tunes into sounds for modern softies. They have the sunshine sparkle of Margo Guryan, the C86 charm of Dolly Mixture, and the cinematic swell of Belle & Sebastian. Their songs float with a timeless pop charm, brimming with jangle, drama and infectious energy.

OUTER WORLD (VA)

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Who wouldn’t want a break from Planet Earth after the past few years we’ve all had? Kenneth Close and Tracy Wilson created a new universe called Outer World. They layer a century of recorded music, blending the sensuality of France in the '60s, Icelandic art pop, Bond-worthy spy themes, space-age bachelor-pad Moog mayhem, and Broadcast-inspired retro-future textures that shape Outer World’s psychedelic flower-punk - music to make any crate digger’s heart skip a beat.

TOUCH GIRL APPLE BLOSSOM (TX)

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Love is back! Touch Girl Apple Blossom is a twee-rock group hailing from Austin, TX. Formed in 2022, friends Olivia, John, Dustin, and Charles have been going hard ever since, releasing a four-song EP on Run For Cover Records’ offshoot label, Summer Shade in 2023, and touring the U.S. with the likes of Heavenly, Fiddlehead, Snooper, and Hotline TNT. Their sound is a true mix of each member’s musical obsessions and styles. Think jangle pop with distortion pedals. Inspired by Velocity Girl, The Lemonheads and Fishmans. Be on the lookout for their first full-length LP, recorded and mixed throughout 2024–2025, titled Graceful, out on an extremely cool, legendary record label in May 2026.

GALORE (CA)

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Galore released their second full length album, Dirt, on July 25, 2025, on Speakeasy Studios SF. With multiple songwriters, sinuous harmonies, and rock riffs born out of an intensely communal creative process, Galore — bassist Ava Rosen, guitarist Griffin Jones, guitarist Ainsley Wagoner, and drummer Hannah Smith — embodies the spirit of a true musical collective. Three out of four members of Galore were born and raised in San Francisco and Oakland, and all of them cite the Bay’s storied music scene as inspiration. Local favorite Grass Widow’s influence looms large in lead-style bass lines and frequent harmonies on tracks like “Solastalgia” and “Dream Palace,” while tracks like “Bastard” and “Zinger” lean on the rowdy experimentation of early aughts femme punk band Hey Girl.

MESH (PA)

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Mesh is a rock n roll band from Philadelphia who formed in 2019 by members Sims Hardin, Allison Durham, Steve Darling, and Tom Riese. The band released their first EP MESH in 2021 with Born Yesterday Records out of Chicago. Mesh's music is inspired by bands like The Clean, Wire and Velvet Underground. Their debut LP will be out in the Summer of 2026.

STRANGE PASSAGE (NY/MA)

website | bandcamp

Strange Passage is a band stuck twofold: locatively, being split between Boston and New York; and trajectorily, embracing the past while barreling toward the future. The group formed among the shadows of Boston in the pale, early days of 2016 and has been delighting listeners and confounding expectations since. Immediate comparisons were made to Felt, the Feelies, and the Church. The band quietly hammered out an ep (Shine and Scatter) and lp (Shouldn’t Be Too Long) both released on Syncro System Records, and toured extensively throughout the United States, sharing the stage with contemporaries like Tony Molina, Dummy, En Attendant Ana, and Chain of Flowers along the way. The band features Greg Witz on guitar, Ricky Hartman on drums, Andrew Jackmauh on bass, and Renato Montenegro on guitar and vocals. Stalwarts of the East Coast music scene, members have played in The Spatulas, Invisible Rays, Missionary Work, Bummed, Sap, Austerity, Magic Circle, and Cut the Shit, among many others.

BETTY BRITE (NY)

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Born out of a love of off-kilter underground 60’s girl groups, C86 guitar pop, and mid 2010’s indie rock, Betty Brite is Madison Kate Proffitt’s solo project recorded entirely herself in her basement studio. As an active member in both indie pop bands Trinket and Lightheaded, she’s taken the knowledge she’s gained and friends she’s made to inspire her to record and mix a debut EP for Betty Brite called ‘Quikwash’. The EP is sentimental, surfy, and highly twee, nodding to everyone from the Shangri-La’s, Tiger Trap, to the Vivian Girls.

EMOTIONAL WORLD (DC)

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Members of DC bands Flasher, Kid Claws, and Big Hush formed Emotional World in 2018 as an exercise in anything-goes songwriting. Often blending noisy and angular guitars with dreamy landscapes, Owen Wuerker, Emilie Toler, Emma Baker, and Cyd Birch feel most at home combining the introspective and explosive.

ANNA ALTMAN (NY)

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Anna Altman formed in 2016 by Lucia Arias and Christian Billard (Turnip King), blending shoegaze and indie rock rooted in a ’90s college-radio lineage. Their debut album, Freightliner (Exploding in Sound, 2017) was praised for its “minimal ’90s” sound, while their forthcoming album, Annatomic expands that foundation with layered guitars, vocal harmonies, drum machines, and string arrangements. Recorded at Defiant Audio in Port Washington, NY with collaborator Raphael Carleton between 2019–2020, Annatomic channels classic ’60s pop alongside influences like Helium, The Amps, Snakeskin, and Guided by Voices. The band expanded as a four-piece in 2023 with Carleton on guitar and Nika De Carlo on bass. Annatomic will be released March 2026 on Substitute Scene Records.

OLDER BROTHER (RI)

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Indie rock quartet Older Brother has been a Providence DIY staple since 2016. Their most recent 2025 album “The Devil Hangs Around” asks the listener a series of unusual questions: “Do you get overwhelming empathy for characters in TV shows? Do you ever go for a long walk on a short beach after midnight? Do you feel an otherworldly spark on the highways after dark? Is it wrong to be living in a fantasy world of things that may never happen?” Sometimes evoking nineties alt-rock, sometimes sixties folk, sometimes twenty-teens bedroom pop, the music continues with anxious confessional admissions and images of death from multiple perspectives — a plane peacefully leaving the earth for good, a car violently crashing off the side of a bridge on the daily commute. Their songs frequently mix images of the mundane with that of the sublime, pairing their lyrics with enough earworm melodies and catchy guitar hooks for the ride. Older Brother may provide more questions than answers, but at least they offer consolingly to “rinse away the worries from [your] head.”

SUN URCHINS (RI)

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Sun Urchins are a three-piece indie punk powerhouse from Providence, Rhode Island. Their debut album Personal Shell taps into isolation and unease, filtered through blown-out guitars and tight harmonies. In 2025 they released Glow in the Dark, an EP that sharpens their focus with a collection of songs woven together like a dream sequence, knowing when to bite and when to charm. Live, they play with an unpretentious, full-tilt energy that turns a cramped room into a minor revelation. Three friends pouring every frayed nerve into songs that lodge themselves in your brain long after the night is over. For fans of Swearin’, Rainer Maria, and The Beths: they bring equal parts grit and heart.

MALASADA (CAN)

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Malasada is the musical project of Jon Manning (Lost Sound Tapes, Imaginary Pants, Blanket Truth). The name originates from the soft and sweet Portuguese donut-like pastry that is deeply ingrained in local Hawaiian culture. The self-titled EP from Malasada is a food-themed, homespun, lofi-pop sprint comprising 6 songs in under 9 minutes. Recently, Jon has added some of his songs that were written under the name Blanket Truth to the Malasada repertoire. Reoccurring themes within Jon's songs are kindness, simplicity, and unexpected joy. As the founder of Lost Sound Tapes, Jon has celebrated music full of tenderness and passion since 2005. Malaho nui loa.

HIDDEN DRIVER (WA)

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Hidden Driver is an indie rock band from Tacoma, Washington. Formed in 2022, they take inspiration from indie underground heroes of the 80’s and 90’s and New England indie rock from the 2010’s.

FUTURE STORIES (RI)

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Providence-based power trio Future Stories are marking 2026 with their second album, Like Life—a collection of songs for our bizarre times. Sparse guitar riffs and fuzzy chords are anchored by a driving low end that lives somewhere between surf rock and post-punk. But it isn’t just about tightly-wound energy and danceable grooves. Thoughtful, introspective lyrics are the final ingredient, prodding listeners to consider universal questions like: What kind of world do we want to live in? Can self-love truly be enough? And what happens if (or when) the robots prevail? 

BEACHPLUMS (MA)

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Beachplums are an early K Records-inspired indie rock trio from Salem, MA. Their music blends straightforward harmonies with dynamic, witty songwriting about life and love on the North Shore.

CURSOR (RI)

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Cursor is the ‘solo shit’ of providence based musician Lucy Mangelson (bochek, nova one, gymshorts, cindy7). Most of their songs were dreamt up in the place where we all get our best work done; the shower. Following a strict model of ‘love songs’ or ‘songs about being unsure’ their twee sensibilities are on full display. Inspired heavily by the now defuct seattle based label Slabco records, and artists like tony molina & dolly mixture, they’re dedicated to ‘the art of the song’. Listen to their split with loose dirt, ‘some songs’, on bandcamp and youtube.

TIME THIEF (RI)

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time thief was formed in 2024 by James Walsh (DUMP HIM) and Zoë Wyner (halfsour, zowy). Their eponymous EP, released in September 2025, shows the two approaching songwriting in a more symbiotic way than on their last collab (DUMP HIM’s 2016 “venus in gemini”). James + Zoë switch off on vocal and instrument duties throughout, with each song inspired by different records from the pair’s vast collection (including Eddy Current Supression Ring, Dolly Mixture, Boomgates, Henry’s Dress, and the Field Mice); the result is a record that doesn’t sound like it’s quite trying to be anything else other than what it is. In true DIY spirit, the tracks were recorded and mixed by James (with help from Zoë), and Zoë handled the art.