The First Flute

1999 | Indigenous

“Every people and culture has folk arts, expressions that have been passed down intergenerational and over time [which] portray universal human values of beauty, balance, symmetry, unity. I have found that folk arts have universal validity and appreciation that transcend the vortex of pop culture. It is as if our ancestors are calling out to us and enabling us to offer these gifts as contributions to an emerging global civilization.”

El Ruido del Agua / Observations On...

2022 & 2023 | Classical

“We are actually finding our own voice in the orchestral realm by providing recordings of music by underrepresented composers, Latin American composers. Yeah, we're not doing Mozart, Beethoven, or Haydn, but who cares?”

Over Emotional

2022 | Pop, Country

“I mean, my ultimate goal is to go on a stadium tour and play Madison Square Garden and stuff like that, but I don't necessarily feel like if I don't do that I won't think I'm successful, you know? I want to be on Billboard, I want to have number one songs, I want to win Grammys, but more than anything I just want to make connections with people and write really good music. And be happy.”

Hurl

2022 | Rock

“You'd wake up at god-knows what time because you haven't seen the sun. We'd all go like, ‘Oh man, what time is it? Oh, it's one in the fucking afternoon,’ and we all just woke up, and Ryan's like, ‘Alright guys, get your coffee, it's time to record.’ And you'd do that until, I don't know, 3am the next day, for six days straight.”

Slow Fade of an Endangered Species

2022 | Hip-Hop

“I'm old school, man. I'm all about breakbeats and sampling. I know a lot of cats are not into that anymore, they want to do something more original, which I'm cool with, I don't have any problem with that. But that's how I started out, that's my roots, is with sampling and digging in the crates. I've got over 5,000 records in my garage because I've been collecting since I was like 16 years old.”

Crystal Visions

2022 | Rock

“The recording experience was great. We recorded it in the basement of my house in Flandreau. We call it Shitty Abbey Road. It's a little, small space. When I think of it, I think of Jacob covered by blankets, and bugs, and spider webs, in our little tight space. [laughs]”

Joiebyrde

2022 | Pop

“This new one [Joiebyrde] it's a little bit more like processing, right? Processing this crazy few years that I've had, and releasing some of that, but also still manifesting and hoping for things to keep getting better.”

Portraits

2022 | Rock

“I wanted to come here to Rapid City to hole-up, and be by myself, and figure out what I want to sound like.”

South Dakota, 1st of May

2018 | Folk

“Billy was like, ‘Alright, here's what we're gonna do: We're gonna meet once a month on Saturdays, and we'll record one song every time, and that's how we'll record the whole album.’ And I was like, ‘Okay.’ Well then I found out I was pregnant again [laughs]. So we did that, and it was funny because the album is 9 or 10 songs, and basically we recorded the last song the week before my daughter was born.”

The Whitechapel Club (B)

2022 | Rock

“All I ever really want is for one kid on the internet to find it, and for that to inspire them to make something better than what I'm doing [laughs]. Because I think everyone has that one band where you and five people know about it, and it's the coolest thing in the world to you. But the rest of the world ignores it [laughs].”

When We Were Young

2009 | Rock

“The place was packed. The plan was for us to begin the evening with one high-energy song to get things started with a bang while people just arriving had time to find their seats. Our song ended and then it was my job each night to get the show underway. ‘Good evening everyone,’ I’d say. ‘Now — direct from American Bandstand — Dick Clark.’”

Those Flowers That Fix Me (2021) / Everyone’s Family Is Okay (2022)

Rock

“And then during the pandemic we couldn't practice, so Joe started sending songs. He would drop it off on my front door, I'd wait for him to leave and pick it up, and then I'd go to my drums and put on headphones and try to play something to it. And then Amy would take it and try to play something to it without knowing what I'm playing. And of course, you just play differently in that environment. We're not looking at each other in the eyes. We're not listening in real time. I'm just trying to get through the song, really. And then when it came together it was like, ‘Oh, that sounds really cool.’”

Boyz N The HUD

2022 | Hip-Hop

“I was recording in a car. The job I have is — in Wounded Knee they found some bones, and the dates on them are all over the place. They're telling us that some are older than 300 years old, some are 100 years old. So I got a security job where I sit six hours a day watching them. That's where I actually recorded my album, while I was working there. “

Thrill Me

2022 | Rock

“We all like spooky shit. Who doesn't like spooky shit?”

A Theory of Syria (1987) / This Is Normal (2022)

Rock, Experimental

“And I think this new one, [This Is Normal] — bands always say this kind of stuff, but I think that this new one is probably the best thing I've done since Here’s Your Change. So, I mean, that’s going on 30 years ago.”

Dewey Lynore

2022 | Folk

“And it comes to a point — not just in a marriage relationship, but in different, difficult parts of your life where you're hearing the internal voices telling you to give up — whether that's on life, or on your marriage, or whatever. So that's why I called it ‘Don't Listen’ because it's like, you hear all that stuff and you want to give up. But don't. Don't listen to it.”

axel

2021 | Pop

“‘Should I be somewhat afraid of actually trying to own up to these feelings still?’ Especially so publicly. That's still a very real fear in our communities, especially here in South Dakota, just with how much anti-LGBT rhetoric is still being promoted and pushed here.”

Green Altar

2022 | Metal

“But we'll hang outside, and there's this big garden, and I just see the dudes, and I just think, ‘With all of the crap out there, we're constantly putting out things to try to help our Earth and Mother Nature.’ I don't know. I like kind of balancing between music and playing with dirt. They coexist for me.”

Hot Freaks

2013 | Pop, Rock

“If you look at the videos that have our song in it on TikTok, it’s people doing all kinds of different stuff, it’s just random. People just liked the song and used it in their personal little videos. I think the song is up to 23 million plays on Spotify [39 million as of June 2022]. And the music video is up to 102,000 views [268,000 as of June 2022].”

The Carrion Crawlers

2022 | Rock

“It honestly felt like we were in the Nirvana music video: We were in a gym, there was three of us, there's a left-handed singer/guitar player and he's wearing a flannel just like Kurt, and right when the song kicked into the chorus, people jumped down from the bleachers and started jumping around and stuff. They went wild. So that's when we became a big deal on the rez.”