Atlanta Soundtrack: Lunar Vacation, The Marias, vintage trans manifesto

Lunar Vacation

Indie rockers Lunar Vacation are lifting the curtain with the announcement of their sophomore album and its lead single, aptly titled “Set the Stage.”

We last met the cult classic five-piece with the release of their bubbly 2021 debut, Inside Every Fig is a Dead Wasp. A pummel of pulverizing harmonies and atmospheric reeling, “Set the Stage” promises a matured and exciting trajectory for the band, with acts like Bjork and Yo La Tengo cited as inspiration for the broader texture of the forthcoming era.

“Set the Stage” is accompanied by a new music video, directed by Stranger Things star and Lunar Vacation’s longtime friend, Finn Wolfhard.

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The Marías

Clearly, the theme of The Marías’ present album cycle is frontwoman Maria Zardoya testing the limits of her endurance, both lyrically and literally.

“I got blisters on my hands shooting this,” shared The Marías in an Instagram post for their latest visual marvel, “If Only.” Lovelorn and languishing, Zardoya is pictured clinging to a chandelier over a misted abyss, its pensive reaches undefined. Zardoya’s hair is still seemingly damp with the sequential elements of Submarine’s last cinematic installment, which pushed the biting isolation of “Lejos De Ti” to its brink in a frigid Lake Tahoe.

Pine in the melancholic throes of “If Only,” and maybe get inspired to check your pull-up bar dead hang time.

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Quavo, Lana Del Rey

It doesn’t get much more Atlanta than country iconography over whiskey-potent trap beats.

Lana Del Rey first cemented her penchant for the fantastically American with her 2012 music video “National Anthem,” in which she and rapper A$AP Rocky reimagine Kennedy family reverie over crackling fireworks and fat cigars. Twelve years later, she and Quavo are revamping the grill-out playlist with a narrowed geographical focus: the “blue collar, red dirt attitude” of Quavo’s Southern roots.

Watch the music video for “Tough,” directed by Quavo, Del Rey and Wyatt Winfrey, below.

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Against Me!

Ten years after its release, “Transgender Dysphoria Blues,” the title track from Against Me!’s 2014 album, remains as relevant and as radical as ever.

A blistering manifesto emerging from Fort Benning-born frontwoman Laura Jane Grace’s own experience with coming out as transgender, “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” rips open the topic of gender dysphoria with critically unpolished honesty. This is seconded by the track’s gritty punk roots, which reckon to Grace’s days as an acoustic solo act and drive home the record’s place as a conduit for accessible, liberatory catharsis. Grace’s voice is both defiant and weary, cutting through the relentless thrash of guitars and drums as she sings, “You want them to see you like they see every other girl.” It’s this line that gets at the thesis of “Transgender Dysphoria Blues,” not only as a title song or album but in its legacy: trans visibility as both risk and safety and the necessity of this risk for the endmost necessitation of safety.

While numerous states across the country are presently rolling back protections for their trans youth, since coming out in 2012, Grace has been joined by a host of passionate trans artists working to broaden the narratives first introduced to many through the rallying advent of “Transgender Dysphoria Blues.” Its enduring impact marks a seminal moment beyond that of punk music history — or even that of music history — unbound by genre.

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Lindsay Thomaston is a photographer and culture writer with a background in media and politics. Her work has appeared in Paste Magazine, Rolling Stone, i-D, Dazed, Fashionista and Immersive Atlanta, among others.