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COACHELLA 02

Music for being back at the beach having dinner with the boy you've loved your whole life

By  ,   &  Nicole
17 min read
COACHELLA 02

Table of Contents

This is not about anything specific, it’s just, it almost feels like a dream I had and I’m at this beach house. And I grew up going to this beach house with family friends, and in the dream I’m there again but I’m older now, like I am now, and I’m with this guy I grew up with. We’re having dinner, and his hair is kind of… it doesn’t matter. I think it’s a really relatable scenario anyway. Like you’ve done all this growing up, and then she looks back at you and suddenly you haven't, so these artists make the kind of music that really fits that mood.

Sombr

Warner Records Press: Sombr
  • Sign: Cancer
  • For fans of: Late-night voice memos, Role Model, polaroid photos, Mick Jagger as a persona, drinking enough water, any music put out by the cast of Stranger Things

I fell in love. Like, not romantically but in a feeding my soul way, like I think I’m having a spiritual breakthrough. Or maybe I’m just dehydrated? But guys, listen, it was transcendent. His look was like, a haunted Victorian boy going to CBGB. He was wearing leather and lace and when he played “undressed” he took off his jacket and became a rockstar. And then there were ballerinas, obviously a direct slap to Timothée Chalamet’s face. Also he brought out Billy Corgan, the guy from the Pumpkins. I didn't even know they were still, like, a thing but they did "1979" and I was screaming so loud that the girl next to me in line at the coffee shop thought I was having a medical emergency. I had to be like, "No, sweetie, I'm just experiencing art."

Shane Michael Boose, real name Sombr, is the patron saint of pining. On his surface you might think wow, just a fuckboy musician, but listen to him sing and you’ll be like aw! He has feelings! He went to the same performing arts school as WHATMORE and Timothée Chalamet, so he’s like very well read on the theory of music, and he’s not just a “TikTok guy” even though that actually is how he got famous. His songs are often about his feelings and unrequited love, but with all the attention he’s been getting, I think his love life is going to turn around soon.

Ok next!

Gigi Perez

Gigi Perez UMG Photo Credit: Caity Krone
  • Sign: Aquarius
  • For fans of: Noah Kahan, a screen door flapping in the wind in a tornado film, Lucy Dacus, dust, the smell of campfire on a hoodie, Mumford & Sons

Oh my GOD, okay, so I had no idea who Gigi Perez was before Sunday and then my friend Caitlin - she’s so connected - was like, “you HAVE to watch the Outdoor Theatre at four,” and I was like, four?? That’s when I do my golden hour content, but fine. And luckily she meant four pacific, so it really was fine.

And I’m SO glad I did watch because honestly it was really moving. She was just up there with her guitar and she was so raw. I kept thinking, this girl has been through something. You could just tell. The crowd was all singing along and I didn’t know any of the words but I was mouthing them anyway because I’m an actress and I understand emotional truth.

And then at the end she said this whole thing about free Palestine and telling ICE to get the fuck out of America and I literally called my best friend to talk about it because I felt so touched, even though I don’t even live in America, but also in a way it kind of was about me. Like, America affects us all.

I posted it on my story and it got four thousand views which is actually really good for a political post.

Gigi Perez is a singer-songwriter from New Jersey, who broke through to mainstream success with "Sailor Song" in 2024. Her 2025 debut album At the Beach, In Every Life is very infused with the grief of losing her sister Celene, who was an opera singer, and the album even has real recordings of Celene's voice. She’s 22, which is actually younger than me and she’s already been through so much and she’s unafraid to stand up for her values but also to be vulnerable and open, and that makes me wonder… is my cynicism literally killing my inner child?

Ok next!

Alex G

  • Sign: Aquarius
  • For fans of: Coconut Records, the color orange, Mitski, lyrics you don’t understand, growing up in the Pacific Northwest or Canada, a circular saw

Honestly I was only going to catch like the first ten minutes because Addison Rae was on at the same time and I had a whole plan. But then Alex G started playing and I was like, wait. Something is happening.

He was on the Outdoor Theatre stage which I actually think is the stage with the most vitality at Coachella. It has an intimate but also open thing. And Alex G was messy and beautiful and I kept thinking, this is what music sounds like when someone does not care about fame. I think it’s special when a musician has something to say, and that’s so important to me as a person who makes art.

My acting coach always said the best performances make you forget there’s a performance happening, and that is what Alex G does. He doesn’t perform. He just is. I want that for myself someday.

And then I had to Google him after, but no judgment to myself because not everyone can know everything. His full name is Alexander Giannascoli, and he just goes by Alex G, and he’s a Philadelphia-born singer-songwriter/guitarist who started putting music on Bandcamp as a teenager. He built a whole cult following basically through word of mouth, which is so inspiring in this age of bot-run media. Eventually he did sign to a label. He’s collaborated with Frank Ocean, which I did know, I just hadn’t connected the dots until reading it. His 2025 album Headlights came out to like, incredible reviews, and apparently critics were calling it one of the year’s best records. He’s also famously private and mysterious.

Ok next!

floweroflove

flowerovlove
  • Sign: Cancer
  • For fans of: Remi Wolf, blowing bubbles at a public swimming pool, hand-making valentines day cards, Beabadoobee, finding the perfect miniskirt, getting butterflies, good pop production for bouncing along to

I felt this set. I wasn’t there, physically, but I think there are forms of presence that transcend geography and I was in one of them. I had the livestream open on my laptop, I had TikTok going on my phone, and I had the energy of the Coachella desert in my body because it stays with you. Like a spiritual imprint.

BINI showed up and did the “breaking news” dance and I watched that clip maybe eleven times. That moment had joy.

I found out she literally wrote down “I’m so grateful I’m playing Coachella” before she was booked, before she had any contact with the festival at all, and - I do vision boarding, as you know. I understand manifestation. But to create something so big, so specific, takes a mindfulness discipline I wish I had.

I will be at one of her shows. In person. Front row. That is me manifesting right now.

flowerovlove, who was born in London as Joyce Cissé started making music in her garage and posting to TikTok and Instagram. She was tapped to model when she was just a teenager, and has worked with Gucci and Louis Vuitton, but even though you can tell fashion is like, in her bones and really important to her self-expression, she chose to focus on her music and to maintain a sense of “creative control over her image”. That’s really relatable, so I will be stealing that line for my future Vogue interview.

Ok next!

The xx

The xx
  • Sign: Virgo, Virgo, Scorpio
  • For fans of: Kissing, Alt-j, clothes on the bedroom floor, James Blake, going over the Brooklyn bridge in a cab, low light, dry martinis, James Blake

I know this band, and let me say The xx were made for this category. This is music for frantic kissing, and it has been since the days of Gossip Girl. And they sounded so good. The set, which is their first festival in eight freaking years, started out dark and moody, like a funeral. It was at sunset as well, which is the perfect slot for them and perfect for a funeral. I saw a clip of Oliver Sim looking into the camera during “Crystalised”, and I felt like he was looking into my actual bank account and forgiving me for my credit card debt. It was that intimate.

This was so nostalgic and magical for so many people, and even though they’re like, old and most of their fans probably wouldn’t even go to festivals because of their back problems, I do hope their music finds a new audience this week. Like I was drenched in tears. They didn’t play anything new, or announce new music, but fingers crossed something is coming.

When The xx came out in 2009 I remember thinking they sound exactly like how it feels to be thinking about someone in your bedroom after they literally just dropped you off but didn’t come in. They were the soundtrack to my Myspace for forever. Their whole thing is this incredibly silky, sort of whispery mix of trip-hop and dream-pop and dubstep-y bass stuff. And apparently, the minimalism was not even a marketing technique because Romy, the guitarist and vocalist with incredible bone structure, told Apple Music they just kept it simple because they were still learning their instruments.

There were four of them originally - Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim, Baria Qureshi, and Jamie Smith who goes by Jamie xx to sound more chic and interesting, but then Baria left and they became a trio. Sometimes you have to lose someone to find yourself.

They won the Mercury Prize for their debut album, which is a very prestigious British award, and their tracks have been sampled and reimagined by both Rihanna and Drake. But no one can do what they do when they strip everything back and turn the most atmospheric sounds, silences and heart-thump beats into indie pop.

And nobody does silences like The xx. I’ve always been very sensitive to silence. I think that’s one of my greatest gifts.

Ok next!

Royal Otis

Sound of 2026: Reluctant rock stars Royel Otis kick off the ...
Royal Otis (i don’t know where i got this, google i guess)
  • Sign: Scorpio, Sagittarius (UNCONFIRMED)
  • For fans of: Goth Babe, Bumble and Bumble Surf Salt Spray, Wallows, rewatching The Hills, a good road trip playlist, dogs named “Elvis”

Okay so first of all I want to address the big fat elephant in the room… I figured out the name thing completely on my own before anyone explained it to me. It’s Royel and Otis, the two actual people in the band. So clever and also very typical for a band from Sydney, a city I’ve always felt a deep connection to despite never having been there.

They make indie pop and it is so catchy in this way where you don’t realise a song has burrowed into your brain until you’re humming it in the shower and you’re like how did this get in here? That happened to me with “who’s your boyfriend” AND “Oyesters In Your Pocket”, which has this bouncy energy that reminds people, like critics and music people, of a band called The Drums, and it reminded me of that too once I looked up who The Drums were.

As artists, Royel Otis are playful and subtle and refuse to be categorised. “Without U” has funkier guitar moments and electronic elements that feel slightly warped, and “I Wanna Dance With You” has a hook that almost tips over into country. As people, Royel Maddell and Otis Pavlovic are much harder to pin down. Maddell famously keeps his face hidden, which I do get as someone who spent a lot of time and money learning to be seen. They’re so private that even basic details about them are uncertain, including how they met and their actual birthdays.

I debated whether to include this. I honestly went back and forth, because I think it’s important to be a responsible writer and also I would like to be invited to these things still, but I’m saying there are some allegations on Reddit involving Royel Maddell grooming a former music student, which I’m not going to just gloss over because that would be wrong, right? I want to be clear that I’m not glossing over it. I am mentioning it. Which I think most people in my position wouldn’t even do. A California judge already rejected Maddell’s attempt to unmask anonymous users making these claims, and notably, he never actually denied the central allegation in his filing about being involved with a minor. So I’m noting that.

It’s also important to not be the kind of writer who just piles on I think. I’m more interested in nuance. That makes me brave I think.

Ok next!

Blondshell

Blondshell looking cute as hell
  • Sign: Taurus
  • For fans of: Suki Waterhouse, band tees, discussions around the cost of therapy, Indigo De Souza, having a doomed romance, Mallrat

Sabrina was up there in the 2PM sun looking so effortlessly pale and iconic in a bra and skort I think? And I was just sitting in my darkened living room wondering if she’s okay, because I’m not. It was very 90s-grunge-meets-modern-indie-rock. Live she is extraordinary, and I feel like if I had been there in the front row, we would have had a moment. Like, a real, authentic connection through the screen of my iPhone.

It’s really so brave to be that moody when it’s 90 degrees out, you know? Most people can't access genuine melancholy when they're overheated. I personally find it very difficult to feel anything complex above 75 degrees farenheit.

So if you’re reading this and you’re like “who?” I need you to know about Blondshell because she’s so good. Like, I found her before basically everyone. Well, technically “Olympus” had millions of streams, but I found her in a way that felt really personal. She’s an indie singer-songwriter and her whole thing is that she’s confessional and raw but also kind of casual and witty.

She’s signed to Partisan and her debut album came out in 2023 and charted on Billboard’s Top Current Albums, and then If You Asked for a Picture, which has “What’s Fair” on it dropped in 2025 and it’s a little darker but actually I think suits her even more. And there’s this dry humor that makes her stand out and also makes you want to be her best friend. Do you think she wants to get drinks after this?

Ok next!

The Strokes

The Strokes NME
  • Sign: Aries, Virgo, Capricorn, Scorpio, Gemini
  • For fans of: Old people playing guitar, The Vaccines, worn leather jackets, vocal fry, found jeans, Kings of Leon

Wait, are The Strokes actually back? Because I watched the screen-recording of an iPhone video of “Someday” and they sounded exactly how I remember from the recorded version I heard in an episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

The setlist was very much a love letter to the early albums, obviously, that’s what we needed. But they also played “Going Shopping” which is the new one and actually I loved it. It’s more summery.

And Julian was so funny the whole time. Like lol funny. He made a joke about opening for Justin Bieber being a lifelong dream, which is the vibe you should expect from him. It’s so cool to be that bored while fifty thousand people are screaming at you. It reminded me of why I’ve always felt like he and I would just get each other if we ever met. Maybe I’ll send him my number. He also called out the draft thing, which I hadn’t heard of because I’m sort of of the philosophy right now where I think it’s best to not think about world politics. But that was really eye-opening for me.

The new album is called Reality Awaits and I feel like it’s coming at a great time for me during this chapter of my life. They also announced a world tour. Let me know if you go.

I've been thinking about how to explain The Strokes to someone who doesn't already know them, and I'm not sure I want to. Maybe some bands are just for me. But this is an opportunity to speak directly to the next generation of music fans, and so ultimately I know I should do it. So The Strokes are a 2000’s band from New York with a modern take on the city’s musical past. Like they took a bit of The Velvet Underground, and a bit of punk, and then a sprinkle of their own style which is like misunderstood nepo baby starts a garage band.

Is This It came out in 2001 and then Room on Fire in 2003 and together those two albums are basically a perfect object. Concise, alive, a little bratty. Music for and by men who smoke too much and tell you your art is derivative. I will never be over them.

Ok next!

Holly Humberstone

Holly Humberstone
  • Sign: Sagittarius
  • For fans of: Olivia Rodrigo, chasing your dreams to a city with astronomically high rent, Gracie Abrams, sour skittles, The National

Holly went on stage in a gauzy white see-through slip and I’ve wanted to look that effortless my whole life. She’s fresh off an album release, literally out the day she performed, April 10th, and that made it this whole secret release party vibe. People are calling her a hidden gem, but like this is not her first Coachella even, so I’m not sure who was hiding her.

She played the Gobi tent which is the tent where you go when you have taste, and the whole thing was slightly gothic, like it felt like a rainy night in Paris or London. My acting coach says I have a gothic quality that I’ve been suppressing due to commercials. But anyway! Holly!

Her album Cruel World came out April 10th, did I say that? She performed the title track and it was described as “the emotional lag of being away from someone you love“. It reminded me of the time I met Zac Efron at an afterparty at Sundance and he didn’t ask for my number. The reviews are already trending positive, calling her a storyteller and a future leading lady in pop. Obviously her time has come, and based on her set she does seem ready.

Holly Humberstone is a “singer-songwriter”. She records vulnerable, diaristic songs that reveal a wise-beyond-her-years perspective, which is something I also have. Born in 1999 in Grantham, England, she debuted with the 2020 EP Falling Asleep at the Wheel, which used melodramatic piano and glittery pop production as the backdrop to her unfiltered emotional observations.

She expanded her sound repotoire on 2021’s The Walls Are Way Too Thin, playing with hints of R&B and electro-pop. She also lent her tender voice to the acoustic duet “Seventeen Going Under” with Sam Fender. I think collaboration is so important. You have to be able to graciously share your spotlight with your peers in the artistic community.

Should I dye my hair dark?

Ok next!

Interpol

Interpol
  • Sign: Taurus, Libra, Leo
  • For fans of: Interpol, MTV, being stuck in the late 90s, the Big Kiss scene in a sitcom, Bloc Party, R.E.M,

Sometimes you hear a band, and you’re like what do you mean this band has a TikTok? Like TikTok is not Interpol’s aesthetic, but maybe having an account is actually a form of showing that they don't care. Like they're so above social media that they're on social media. So maybe I’ll be cooler if I post more?

I just finished the Interpol livestream and I am, like, changing my profile picture to black and white. They all looked so sharp and structured while everyone else at the festival was basically wearing glittery dental floss. It was such a vibe. It’s giving 'I haven't seen the sun since 2002.' I saw this one clip of the “Evil” and it was cathartic. The guitars were so loud I felt like I was at the spa getting exfoliation on my incorporeal body. Honestly, it’s so brave to wear a three-piece suit in the desert. It was sophisticated, it was gloomy, and it was in my top authentic experiences of the year.

Ever since Interpol’s 2002 debut, Turn on the Bright Lights, they’ve been forever linked to Joy Division, a band I know and have always known. But their sustained success proves that they’re the real deal, I think, because there’s a difference between being influenced by something and copying it. And as Interpol’s discography grew with 2004 sophomore albun Antics and 2007 follow-up Our Love to Admire, they showed that they weren’t copycats, they were just drawing from the same emotional well.

After some lineup changes, side projects, and record label shuffles - and that’s institutional chaos that you just expect when you work in show business like we do - the group returned in 2014 with El Pintor, which translates to “the painter”. I took two years of Spanish so I knew that without looking it up. Critics were not always kind to the band about this albun, with more generous reviews saying it sounds like “a band that really wants to be Interpol”. But I feel sometimes we lose our voices and need to find them again, and even if you don't love the music, you can respect them for continuing to put themselves out there,

Ok next!

Sombr

  • Sign: Cancer
  • For fans of: Encores, men you can trust, crying alone in your parked car, Daughter, Your phone buzzing with a notification right after you sent a risky message on instagram

I couldn’t decide if Sombr should be the first artist or the last artist in this post, and then I was like “first of course”, but now I feel like I left so much unsaid, and sombr is obviously a closer. In my heart he is the headling act of weekend two.

Shane Michael Boose, Sombr - remember the name - did NOT expect 2025 to be his year, and I think that’s something we’ll actually have in common. I also am not expecting my breakthrough year. And anyway, he got two entries on the Billboard Hot 100 before he turned 20, which is a lot, and so deserved. He told Billboard that nothing could prepare him for it.

His two singles, “back to friends” and “undressed”, have over a billion streams combined. Billion with a b, that wasn’t a typo. He’s tall, he’s talented, he writes and produces his own music. Say what you please, but people love him. Anticipating household name status in his future. I just think it would be so fun to collaborate with him on something. Has anyone told him about me?

Remember to tell your friends!

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