Somehow, Someway, We’re Turning 2
A thank you to our loyal readers and a recap from our 2nd anniversary show last week.
On Thursday, October 15, 2026, Hearing Things officially turns 2. We’ve published hundreds of reviews, along with countless artist interviews, blog posts, podcast episodes, and longform features in that time, as the greater media ecosystem continues to warp and crumble around us. Why? Because we believe subscriber-driven, worker-owned journalism is the future, and working towards the goal of self-sufficiency outside of the corporate world is worth the fight.
While editing an upcoming profile with the punk-lifer head of staunchly independent Canadian collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor, I kept returning to this one quote: “Still doing this is a fucking miracle. Still operating collectively is a fucking miracle. Still working with the same people is a fucking miracle.” We are only two years in with Hearing Things as a public project, but already I sense its rarity: Five longtime music critics and journalists who could choose to work alone, or go back to corporate media, instead banding together to present their own idiosyncratic hub of music discovery and taste.
Like constructing a cabin by hand, HT’s growth has been steady and meaningful. Over the last year, we’ve increased our total membership and monthly subscription revenue by more than 30 percent. To our day-one annual subscribers, a massive Thank You. We hope you’ll keep riding shotgun on this wild trip in reader-supported music journalism. To those who’ve been on the fence about subscribing or re-subscribing: We need you, and we have some exciting stories on the horizon that you won’t want to miss.
Two years ago, we started a worker-owned music journalism publication to escape corporate media and blaze a new path forward. And we’re still at it. To celebrate our continued existence and faithful readers like you, we’re offering annual subscriptions at 30% off—that’s just $49 for full access to all of our reviews, features, podcasts, and more.
“Dedicated” is how I’ve often described Hearing Things’ readership, and the same could be said of the crowd that gathered late last Wednesday at Night Club 101 in Manhattan’s East Village for our 2nd anniversary celebration. It was the ideal environment for intimate solo sets from Hannah Frances and Tasha, two of our favorite singer-songwriters of late. And our very own Andy Cush and Dylan Green kept things moving with DJ and beat sets, respectively.
On her latest album, the Chicago-raised, NYC-based Tasha embraced the theme of spring renewal with arms wide open. But the warm acoustic dispatches on You Are Spring! and across Tasha’s discography sounded just as cozy on this slightly chilly fall evening. Her music has a way of making the seasons come to her.
Then it was time for Hannah Frances to play a mix of songs off last year’s Nested in Tangles and 2024’s Keeper of the Shepherd, a power duo of prog-folk records about thorny familial dynamics. “These time signatures are fucking me up… in a good way,” a friend whispered in my ear mid-set.
Hannah Frances performing “Steady in the Hand.”
At the very end, Frances played two songs from her yet-to-be-announced upcoming album. Maybe it was the stripped-back instrumentation, but the new work felt looser and more soulful. She said she got really into the Bee Gees while making the record, and that would become more apparent in the studio recording of the first track she played, set for release soon.
Her final song blew me away. Joined onstage by pianist Damon Smith, Frances premiered “Always, All Ways” and immediately went full jazz-siren mode. The satisfying ups and downs of shifting time signatures and key changes that we know and love about HF’s music were smoothed out but intact nonetheless. Exuding maximum catharsis, Hannah Frances’s voice has never sounded more powerful—hear it for yourself.
Our own Dylan Green ended the night on the main stage with an original beat set. Much like Dylan’s writing for Hearing Things, his live sets are a hip-hop history lesson, rife with loving shoutouts to great rappers, producers, and thinkers.
Thank you to the folks who came out. Thank you to anyone reading this. Thank you for two years. Here’s to many more.
