I absolutely adore this artist. I guess he played on-label in a eponymously named band called 'Welles' for a while probably 10 years ago, but it never really took off and had a distinctly different sound. Last I checked their most popular song on yt only had ~100k views, most of them significantly less.

That makes it so much more exciting that he's getting so much traction now without a label, and while writing songs that so obviously come from a place of earnest feeling. I saw an interview with him a couple weeks ago where he said he had gone home after touring with his old band and thought he was gonna quit music altogether, but came back to it after his dad had a heart-attack. It's really only been a year since then, writing and playing songs on tiktok/yt until eventually getting enough attention that he put together 2 albums and started selling out shows.

I'm just so hyped for the guy - he played a few shows in my neck of the woods but they sold out so damn fast I wasn't able to see him play. On his new album I really like 'Rocket Man' and 'War is a God', but the whole thing is honestly so good. His other album 'Helles Welles' has all of the more pointed topical songs like 'Fat' and 'Genocide Cake', which are also bangers.

Him being un-signed makes me happy to have bought both of his albums, I can't recommend them enough.