Night Teacher with Diane Cluck

LILLY BECHTEL is the songwriter and vocalist behind the indie recording project Night Teacher, and her title of her recently released sophomore record Year of the Snake refers to a time for transformation. Bechtel references the molting process of the snake on album standout “Ecdysis,” spinning poetic tension between the animal necessity and human will involved in making change: If you can’t survive it / become somebody different. Bechtel has released two full-length albums as Night Teacher—a propulsive sonic world praised by Atwood Magazine as “a warm, gritty fever dream of heartbreak, transience, and self-discovery" and by Glide Magazine as “an immersive, cascading dynamic that flows around the listener, forcing whoever is in earshot to turn their head and follow along to the mesmerizing songwriting.” Year of the Snake received nods from Stereogum, NPR, Northern Transmissions, MAGNET Magazine, The Current and more, and for Bechtel, is just the beginning of a new cycle. 

DIANE CLUCK is a singer-songwriter who leans on classical piano training in approaching guitar, dance as an inspiration for rediscovering piano, and voice as a rhythm instrument and paintbrush. House Tears, her ninth record, was recorded with Colin Killalea at White Star Sound in Louisa, VA and released in 2025. “Bell-clear and hotly austere, her lithe, dynamic voice hasn’t much kin. Categorizing her as folk is simplistic. (Cluck) emanates something humble but mythic. Appalachia or ancient Athens?” – Time Out New York