Indie rock, hardcore punk, folk, Celtic—Goucher alumnae/i are playing in bands and orchestras and rock operas, and we’re listening. Now you can, too, with this Spotify playlist created by Goucher Senior Graphic Designer Matt Walter.
Click on the playlist title to go to Spotify and listen to each song in full. At the same time, read more about the bands below, including links to Q&As with June Whelan ’62, Michael Habif ’10, Eliot Grasso ’05, and Alice Davenport ’69.
Lauren Lakis
Lauren Lakis ’07 and her indie rock/dreampop/shoegaze songs have received a lot of positive press. Earmilk has said she has “proven herself to be one of the most exciting rock artists with her way of writing raw narratives packaged in mesmerizing musical blends.” She has put out an EP and three albums, including 2023’s A Fiesta and a Hell. Post-punk.com wrote, “Lakis’s work, characterized by its unfiltered, mysterious, and deeply impactful quality, represents a significant shift in the current shoegaze scene. Her latest release … delivers an emotionally charged punch, distinguished by its unadorned authenticity.”
Horse Lords
Horse Lords has also gotten a lot of critical attention. Formerly based in Baltimore, most of the members now live in Germany, including former Goucher faculty member Andrew Bernstein ’08, M.F.A. ’15. The group was once described by The New York Times as “an instrumental dance band—guitar, bass, drums, alto saxophone—with a lining of post-punk energy.” More recently, British music magazine Uncut wrote that “the group draw from a deep well of minimalism, serial composition, free jazz and polyrhythmic folk music.” A Pitchfork review shouts out Bernstein, who plays the saxophone: “Andrew Bernstein’s sax gets caught in a stuttering fit, breaking away from the rigid rhythmic grid. Soon he is full-on wailing, in free-jazz mode, conveying feral individual abandon instead of precise communitarian discipline.”
Bernstein also has put out a number of solo records, including this year’s Shadows and Windy Places. Bernstein wrote of the album, “The music was recorded as part of a daily practice. It shifts from moments of stark austerity to freewheeling openness, at times harsh, at others playful.”
The Washington Balalaika Society Orchestra
June Whelan ’62 is the vice president of the Washington Balalaika Society and plays the domra for the orchestra. More than 50 musicians play the music of Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe on traditional folk instruments like the domra, balalaika, and bayan. The Washington Post reported back in 2010 that it was the largest balalaika orchestra outside of Russia. Whelan was playing the violin in a church orchestra when a friend suggested she learn the domra, an instrument similar to a mandolin. “The transition from playing a violin to a domra is relatively easy because both instruments are tuned the same,” says Whelan. Read our Q&A with June Whelan.
Manners Manners
Manners Manners is a Baltimore-based band that makes queer noise pop, according to their Instagram, with Jes Welter ’99 on bass. The group released the EP First in Line in 2018 and the album I Held Their Eyes, I Kissed Them All in 2024, which the music site These Subtle Sounds called in a Q&A with the band “a great album” that demands your attention: “It’s not background music.”
Tripper
Michael Habif ’10 is dedicated to the Baltimore music scene, running a monthly concert calendar called Baltimore Showplace and helping put together a heavy/experimental music festival called “Subscape” that will take place this October in the city. He is also the drummer in the hardcore punk band Tripper. Of hardcore punk, Habif says, “Anyone who listens to the genre knows that it is a wide spectrum of sounds. I just think our songs are kind of weird and take from a lot of stuff outside of hardcore.” Salad Days Magazine described their music as “[pushing] forth hardcore punk through a modern experimental lens.” Read our Q&A with Michael Habif.
Mothpuppy
Morgan Murphy ’18 formed the indie rock band Mothpuppy at Goucher, and it is still going strong. Of the 2022 album, Limb from Limb, Our Culture Magazine wrote that it was a “captivating album” that contained “unbridled yearning.” Sad Cactus Records, in announcing the release of the band’s 2024 EP, wrote, “As It Goes Down is a remarkable expansion of the band’s oeuvre, and fleshes out the transition of the band from being a project of lead songwriter Morgan Murphy to being a full band collaboration. Their first release as a five piece, and first since 2022’s phenomenal Limb from Limb, these new songs reveal a fresh, vital band that writes rollicking, engaging rock and roll.”
Little Gunpowder
In 2017, Katie Calabrese ’19 started Little Gunpowder while at Goucher with several of her fellow students. The indie/fuzz band with a punk element, as Calabrese described it in 2018 to Goucher’s independent student newspaper, The Quindecim, put out an EP last year called Eloise in Moscow.
Dréos
Eliot Grasso ’05 plays the Uileann pipes with the Celtic band Dréos. The group has released two albums, including Cascade Mountain Aire, which came out in 2023. They also composed and performed music for a production of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow ballet. Irish Music Magazine wrote, “Impressive, infectious music on every track from three masters of the tradition. Their blazing music will warm the heart of any trad gathering.” The Irish Echo said Grasso “is an academically trained ethnomusciologist with an impressive performing resumé. … He’s performed for President Clinton, was a featured artist on Prairie Home Companion, and performed and taught for Armagh’s William Kennedy International Piping Festival. His recording ‘Up Against the Flatirons’ was the first in Na Píobairí Uilleann’s The Ace and Deuce of Piping recording series of master pipers.” Read our Q&A with Eliot Grasso.
Baltimore Rock Opera Society (BROS)
While they aren’t a musical act like the others, we’d be remiss not to mention the Baltimore Rock Opera Society, or BROS. BROS was formed in 2007 by a group of friends, including Goucher grads Eli Breitburg-Smith ’08, Aran Keating ’05, Dylan Koehler ’08, and Jared Margulies ’08. Other Goucher grads have also been involved on stage and behind the scenes. BROS describes itself as “a passionate community of artists who create unforgettable experiences through live original rock theater.” Maryland Theatre Guide wrote that their 2024 rock opera, A Computer That Loves: And Why Not to Build One, “soulfully translates human emotion into well-written and delightfully performed song and dance numbers. The songs steal the show.”
Música Eugenia
Música Eugenia, with Alice Davenport ’69 on vocals and percussion, plays acoustic music from the English and Spanish Renaissance period. The group put out a double album in 2020, with one showcasing some of the best-known composers of the English Renaissance, and the other nine centuries of Spanish song. Their 2022 album, Treasures from the Golden Age, focused on music from the Spanish Renaissance, a musical repertoire that Davenport introduced her bandmates to. Read our Q&A with Alice Davenport.
Craving more Goucher music? Go to Bandcamp to hear Emma Dacol ’10 play drums on Blood Horses. Manners Manners’ Jes Welter also plays in Maze Maker.