Pitchfork 2024 Day 3: Joanna Sternberg, Nala Sinephro, Alanis Morissette
Day 3 of Pitchfork capped off the festival with passionate performances from a range of artists, including Akenya, Maxo, Jessica Pratt, and Brittany Howard. Join us as we cover the highlights from Pitchfork 2024’s final day.
I almost cried while Joanna Sternberg fought bugs
Joanna Sternberg live at Pitchfork, 7/21/2024 | Photo by Ian Doherty
Ian - Before Joanna Sternberg’s performance at Pitchfork this year, I think I had only ever listened to one or two of their songs. They have a very distinct high-pitched, nasally singing voice in their music that I instantly recognized when they took the stage. The little bit of their work I had listened to before was compelling, but I unfortunately never took the time to listen deeper. Thus, when I started to wipe tears from the corners of my eyes at today’s performance, I was surprised, to say the least.
The core themes that Sternberg’s work concerns itself with are social friction and isolation. Using indie folk as a medium, they weave the most heart-wrenching melodies into their music, exploring the effects of these unfair restrictions on their life. Joanna’s opining for love, acceptance, and understanding is a universal feeling, something which ostensibly struck a nerve within me. Tragically, their music also struggles to come to terms with the resulting pain, resolving to self-deprecation and negative self-talk at times; this felt like a very realistic depiction of how humans tend to cope with a rattled self-esteem. And to contrast to many of the other expensive and elaborate productions at Pitchfork, Sternberg walked out with only themselves and their acoustic guitar— a testament to their sheer songwriting talent.
It seemed like nothing could derail the train of emotions Sternberg was putting on display… save for a butterfly, apparently, that briefly disrupted the set towards the middle. Sternberg admitted that they have a phobia for the bug, making sure to check their clothing thoroughly. This didn’t halt things for too long, though, and they continued on not long after. Perhaps the butterfly is a good metaphor for one of the takeaways of Sternberg’s music— sometimes beautiful things can make us feel afraid or alone, but they ultimately shouldn’t matter to us, and they shouldn’t affect us in our pursuit of staying true to ourselves.
Listen to their album I’ve Got Me on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3l3xPtGZXUcnQaNlpbjvR0?si=bhaal2MDQl2BNis1Vs-qpA
Nala Sinephro bends space and time with her atmospheric jazz
Nala Sinephro live at Pitchfork, 7/21/2024 | Photo by Owen Cushing
Owen - Approaching the festival, Nala Sinephro certainly stood out from the rest of names on the lineup. As an ambient artist, she has quite a unique setup and approach to music that is quite distinct from the many other acts this festival. In her critically praised album Space 1.8, Nala Sinephro crafts a swirling blend of warm jazzy environments with familiar sounds of harp, saxaphone, drums, and a hefty amount of electronically synthesized tones and effects. I was curious to see how she would reconstruct the unreal sonic worlds as she does on her productions. But seeing all of these sonic elements being presented in front of me with her band, it made me realize how large and vast a sound she can create with such minimal elements, and the devoted support of her band.
As she sat behind her harp and let out the first gentle strums, I was blown away by the vast depth of harmonious sound released. The dense and precise layers of notes and runs that propagated out of her instrument almost sounded under the influence of some electronic trickery, but it was all naturally produced through her delicate motions. As I came to recognize, Nala has great power control over the acoustic and digital realm, being able to blend these sounds into a lush sonic environment with ease.
And as her band members joined in on the first jam, she shifted over to her synthesizers. Sharp and repetitive arpeggiated sequences danced and evolved while a wave of powerful bass hugged my chest. The saxophone melodies flowed in excitement, and tempo sped up into a frenzied drum solo by Edward Wakili-Hick, Nala quickly took back control of the sound, gently motioning to calm the brief chaos back down. It was a simple but powerful moment that revealed that the free and improvisational nature of the set was still under the intentional guidance of the bandleader.
The passage toned down into a synthy reggae groove, with precise powerful hits of bass and warm chords that continued to relax in pace. The sound eventually unravelled into a wall of lush ambience, with Nala showing deep focus and control into her modular synthesizer, while the bass synth player shifted his register up and down into a playful but reverent solo. As the layers of pads continued to melt down into a warm bed, the bouncing high melodies faded out into a single repeated melancholic note. As that final bittersweet pitch chirped out over the crowd, I felt deeply moved and couldn’t help to see many other members of the crowd brought to tears.
Nala shifted once again back to her ornate wooden harp, before summoning swirling synth chords that spun around the stage. It disoriented me for a second hearing proper stereo sound used on the festival stage, especially when used in such contrast to the many static elements of other festival mixes. The hi hats joined in, pushing along the fast paced synth sequences and creating another whirlwind of energy and anticipation. And of course the powerful saxophone from Chelsea Carmichael and bass from James Mollison really crafted a lively moment. Through their expressions and physicality, I could always tell how dedicated each performer was to each other and on the music as a whole.
As the music calmed back down, the tones stretched back out into broad layers of analog atmosphere, with tight powerful punches of bass. In the final moments, a simple cycle of notes mixed with gentle bursts of noise that rose and fell like sweeping waves. As the final notes twisted around, the sound slowly faded and the music laid down to a gentle rest.
Alanis Morissette caps the festival with a passionate loveletter to fans
Concertgoers awaiting Alanis Morissette, 7/21/2024. Media was instructed to not share photographs taken during the performance. | Photo by Ian Doherty
Ian - Alanis Morissette’s performance at Pitchfork was nothing short of perfect. Following a highly influential pop-punk career spanning over three decades and her overcoming of significant personal obstacles throughout, Morisette’s energy on stage was palpable.
Celebration, resistance, and unity were at the forefront of her appearance, recontextualizing these themes in her music to comment on modern-day political struggles for women. The recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade clearly served as an influence in her performance— on-stage visuals like lighting and fog would build tension while female abuse statistics flashed on the screens behind her. Later, fellow Pitchfork performer MUNA, an all-female band, would join her on stage for an impassioned performance of “Ironic.” It was a powerful showing of Morissette’s mentor role within the music industry, always centering feminism and female voices within her music.
As a newer listener myself, it was nice to hear the depth of her catalogue in her performance. While Jagged Little Pill was the clear centerpiece of the night, songs like “Uninvited” and “Thank U” would occasionally pop into the mix, which added a nice amount of depth. The audience was enraptured throughout the night, with nearly everyone singing along at some point. For me, her music is very nostalgic— I remember listening to her in the car with my mom as a kid— so her performance certainly struck that chord within me.
With the end of her performance came the official end of the 2024 Pitchfork Music Festival— a very fitting conclusion, if you ask me.