Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features jazzy pop by Dani Darling, classical-jazz minatures by Timothy McAllister and Liz Ames, modern jazz by Brynn Hilliker, indie pop by Skinned Knees and the Band Aids, and trance techno by Aventar.

Dani Darling, Cazimi EP
Ann Arbor singer-guitarist Dani Darling is taking a break from music, with this six-song EP serving as her swansong. The reason why she's stepping away from the stage—after an appearance at Fun Fest in Ypsi on August 9—and putting down the guitar is that she's dealing with multiple sclerosis, which is making it hard for her to play. Darling's thin, breathy voice floats over the jazzy pop arrangements, which evoke both quiet storm R&B and indie rock. It's a unique sound, one that brought her a lot of local acclaim over the past seven years, and here's hoping that it's not the last music we hear from her.

Timothy McAllister and Liz Ames, Project Encore, Volume 2
In 2022, the Ann Arbor duo of saxophonist Timothy McAllister and pianist Liz Ames released the first volume of "encores," which consisted of 14 short compositions they commissioned from classical and jazz artists to "expand the repertoire." The project was so artistically successful that the duo hit up a bunch more composers for a second volume. This time around the writers include Wynton Marsalis with a chamber work, Lembit Beecher in an Estonian-folk-inspired mood, Adam Schoenberg with a jaunty work inspired by Seregi Prokofiev and Aaron Copland, and 14 other artists. At least two of the composers are professors at U-M, too: saxophonist Andrew Bishop with "The Spaces Between" and pianist Ellen Rowe with "Lost and Found."

Brynn Hilliker, Live at the Michigan Jazz Festival
Brynn Hilliker, Music From Plumb Out of Time
Bassist, composer, and University of Michigan student Brynn Hilliker debuts as a leader across two 2025 releases. The most recent—it was recorded 12 days ago—is Live at the Michigan Jazz Festival, featuring Hilliker and fellow Wolverines Max Welterien (drums), Max McDermitt (piano), and Pink Marlena (aka Marlena Boedigheimer, tenor sax) on a seven-song set. Hilliker wrote three of the pieces, with the other four tunes coming from Ornette Coleman ("Law Years"), Geri Allen ("Skin"), Linda May Han Oh ("Noise Machinery"), and avant-pop artist SOPHIE ("Is It Cold in the Water?"). The live recording isn't the highest fidelity, but the music still shines, and it's another fine example of the high level of jazz musicians who study at U-M.

The April recording, Music From Plumb Out of Time, stands in contrast to the live record because it was recorded in a studio and, rather than post-bop modern jazz, it's mostly old-timey stride piano originals alongside a couple of swinging piano-trio standards by Thelonious Monk ("I Mean You") and Frank Loesser ("If I Were a Bell"). Hilliker wrote three stride-piano pieces and handed them off to Milo Stout and Kevin Payne to perform as a soundtrack for the M-Agination-produced short film Plumb Out of Time. The film is described on its Vimeo page as "A University of Michigan student from 1925 is bewildered to find himself in the present day as he tries to figure out his way back home in this silent fish-out-of-water comedy." 

Skinned Knees and the Band Aids, Existential Cry, Sis EP
Sydney Timbrook is the Skinned Knees part of this band, and the singer-guitarist is joined by Band Aids Brad Premo (bass) and Eric Bates (drums, slide guitar) for this two-song single. The A-side, "Heavy Heart," is a stripped-down indie-pop song that sounds like it could have come out on K-Records 30 years ago. The B-side, "Be Alright," has a gentle country swing beat and slide guitar, and sounds inspired by Patsy Cline.

Aventar, "Tetra"
Ann Arbor's The QR Network label turned to South Korean techno producer Aventar for its latest single, "Tetra," a trance track with big beats, a big build, and, as the press release states, "a style that sits at the intersection of electro house, early 2010s EDM, and modern analog textures."

Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.