This year the RFT recognizes St. Louis' stellar music scene by presenting the STL 77, our list of 77 acts who did big things in the last twelve months. From now through June 17, the date of our huge annual music festival ShowcaseSTL, we'll be announcing two honorees per weekday on our music blog. For more information on STL 77, as well as the complete lineup for ShowcaseSTL, go here.
Pigeonhole Stan Chisholm at your peril. You may have heard him spin at spaces ranging from the Royale to word-of-mouth warehouse parties, or you might have seen his expansive murals at the City Museum. But as a multi-disciplinary artist who performs under the aegis 18andCounting, Chisholm spent much of 2016 working on TheBirdsAtThisHour, the contents of which he doled out over a series of shows last fall. The document itself shows his versatility as a performer, and here he leads TheOnlyEnsemble — a hodge-podge of percussion, violin and didgeridoo — and manipulates beats and synths while laying a sometimes spare, sometimes opulent backdrop for his meditative verses. Chisholm is a hip-hop lyricist at heart, but his collaborative, curatorial spirit elevates 18andCounting into something unique and of a piece.
Recommended if you like: Sprawling and difficult to define art, bricks
Official Website: www.18andcounting.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/18andCounting
Twitter: www.twitter.com/18andcounting
Bandcamp: http://18andcounting.bandcamp.com
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/18andcounting