By Mark Benjamin
Far beneath the glossy surface of trendy lip-sync videos and pop sonnets of the moment, underground West Coast guitarist Tracy Bryant has been quietly perfecting his craft. Now preparing to release his fourth album as a solo artist, The Well (2026), Bryant has steadily built his signature sound—first as the lead singer of the band, Corners (2011-2016), and then as an auteur of rock in his solo work. Corners quickly achieved cult status in the indie music scene in his home city of Los Angeles and later across the Atlantic, bridging the Berlin, London, and L.A. underground music scenes. Traversing into the realms of fashion, surf, and skate, the band drew the attention and lens of fashion designer Hedi Slimane, who is well-known for his support of underground music in cities like Los Angeles. The Well now follows Bryant’s first three albums: Subterranean (2016), a polished gem set in surf rock sensibilities, A Place for Nothing and Everything in its Place (2017), a masterpiece of technical guitar work informed by legendary California bands like the Eagles; and Hush (2019), a sonically diverse album as enjoyable and as it is profound.
A songwriter at heart, Bryant approaches his latest album as an introspective dive that began during the pandemic as he returned to the piano, the foundational instrument he studied as a child. Following his father’s sudden passing in 2022 and the birth of his first-born three months later, Bryant turned to music and produced a prolific collection of songs with longtime friend and former bandmate, Joo-Joo Ashworth. Clocking in at thirty-seven minutes across nine tracks, The Well navigates territory from Bowie to Arthur Russell and Vince Guaraldi but remains firmly rooted in the artist’s richly layered and heartfelt storytelling.
Tracy Bryant wears coat by Maison Margiela and polo by Banana Republic. Photography by Michelle G. Gonzales. Styling by Peiwen Wang. Grooming by Michaeline Becker at 3Plus Mgmt using R+Co.
Growing up, Bryant was surrounded by the cheeky, semi-ironic music of the ‘90s that younger, like-minded generations have recently rediscovered and rekindled. Despite frantic attempts by music editors and, more dogmatically, by online commentators to categorize every “sound,” or more egregiously inaccurate, “aesthetic,” Bryant’s work simply defies such categorization. For Bryant, the music’s complexity is its charm. His references are original, intricately layered within structured melodies, and delivered with real instrumentation—a far cry from the majority of current music production. The effect, which may now be unfamiliar to some listeners, is a sense of closeness between artist and audience; a textural richness that is difficult to match.
It is not only the continuation of a rock musical canon now over sixty years old, but also the preservation of that musical history. Singing over synthetically produced riffs is not only a break with the tradition of the craft, but also a break from its identity, memory, and artistic qualities. While the music world strains to continuously reinvent itself in a relentless search for originality, it risks losing its own know-how and human touch—the very thing that draws listeners to music in the first place. Artists like Bryant have remained true to both the technologies and history of their sound, and this fidelity makes his signature that much more powerful and unique. This rarefied quality has not gone unnoticed. M. Night Shyamalan chose Corners’ single “We’re Changing” for his film Glass (2019) while Bryant’s song “The Background Singer” from Subterranean is featured in Channing Tatum’s film, Josephine (2026), not to mention countless surf and skate films also drawn to his music.
Tracy Bryant, Los Angeles. Suit by Maison Margiela, shirt by Prada, sunglasses by Shady Spex.
With a force arguably rawer than his previous albums, The Well opens with “Cold Floor,” a sobering yet soothing farewell to his late father. “Where have I been until now // What have I been until now” are lyrics anyone who has experienced loss will find solace in. The mood lifts on “Weight,” where snare, piano, and synthesizer frame Bryant’s electric voice over a soundscape laced with emotion. On the jazzy “Meet Me,” perhaps the most experimental song on the album, Bryant goes deep into the well to take on the darkest themes of the album, melding classic noir chords with a shoe-gaze atmosphere made all the more sinister by his haunting vocals. “Meet me there, on a cloud somewhere // treat me fair at the gates when I’m there // meet me there, I’m not scared, I’m brave.” Tantalizing and built for replay, it sets the stage for the title track.
Hypnotic, “The Well” is a punctuated and deliberate track that reminds us a well can be both frightening and nourishing as Bryant intones: “The well of underlying pictures coming through // imagine you.” The seasoned listener will recognize a consistent dose of skepticism in Bryant’s work, one that veers along the edge of playfulness. “The Well” may be the sincerest expression of his yet, making it a favorite not only on this album but across his oeuvre. Taking his previous three solo albums into account, The Well emerges as a stripped-down expression of his artistry—one that some listeners may find demanding, while others will find it indelibly rewarding.
What may now be over-categorized simply as indie music is, rather, what remains of a genre that once encompassed all of rock: artists writing their own music, learning to play instruments, performing live, and recording it with care. Perhaps no one in rock understood this better than the late Prince, who warned us of “sampling the sample,” or more pointedly on his album, Art Official Age—a clever play on “artificial” and “art official” (likely alluding to marketing)—which he later lyrically likens to a cage. It is against this backdrop that artists today compete with vast marketing budgets, award shows, social media, and algorithm-driven preferences, often telling listeners what they like before they have a chance to determine that for themselves. To add insult to injury, musicians are now increasingly in competition with anonymized AI musicians on streaming platforms, further blurring the lines between human and machine—bits versus craft.
Tracy Bryant wears John Varvatos. Coat: stylist’s own. As featured, tie by Willy Chavarria, belt by Maison Margiela.
While the fight to bolster the music industry’s bottom line rages on, the musical tradition continues in quieter places: behind a piano, in dimly lit, seedy basements in London or Berlin, and within small online communities—fragile but intact. Difficult to imagine ten or fifteen years ago, a reality in which maintaining artistic integrity feels like resistance has now arrived. It comes as no surprise that audiences are turning to the siren call of grunge, post-hardcore, and punk music for something real. It is in these crosshairs that Tracy Bryant feels most relevant, as the very act of crafting music reflects the punk spirit—naturally yielding sentimental lyrics in the lineage of the ‘90s bands he grew up with, not aimed at a market demographic but drawn from lived experience, and, like the post-hardcore bands before him, passionately preserving and evolving rock into his own sonic landscape one catchy strum at a time.
Tracy Bryant’s The Well, vinyl edition.
On March 18th, the first single “Cold Floor” from The Well was released on Taxi Gauche Records. As a sign of things to come, the full album will be available on May 22nd. Pre-orders are available in the US and worldwide. Recorded at Studio 22 in Cypress Park on 1/2” tape, a limited run of pressed vinyl, with album art and a corresponding sleeve designed by Kimberly Fitzner, will also be available to purchase.