This week, we hear from Greg Adkins, who regularly books gospel brunches at Threadgill’s and runs The Gospel According to Austin, an organization that aims to discover and celebrate religious music in a city much better known for its rock & roll and country music scenes.

He describes how he found his way to gospel after growing up in the Methodist church, and one of his favorite places to hear music on Sunday mornings. He says it’s always best to get there early.

The Austin Music Map team will be attending a few gospel services over the next couple of weeks and producing a story about one of them. If you have suggestions for places we should check out or stories about your own experiences with religious music, let us know.

If you’ve been to an Exploded Drawing event, you can’t miss him–a giant red bear spinning songs. Butcher Bear is fast rising up the ranks of Austin’s beat scene, and not just for his original electronic music. The man behind the mask is Ben Webster, a founder of Austin’s Insect Records (which releases most of the city’s beat music) and along with Andrew Brown, he’s one of the co-founders of Exploded Drawing. His punk rock past inspires his music as well as the DIY nature of the scene. On this edition of The Loop, Webster talks about his unusual inspirations, his record label, and how his distrust of computers sets him apart.

Even though Justin Ford now calls Austin home, his Gulf Coast past often seeps into his music. Ford grew up in Seabrook, Texas before moving inland and taking up the name Lo Phi. He’s a frequent participant in Exploded Drawing’s high-energy live events, but Lo Phi’s recordings are often as dreamy and languid as a night spent on the beach. On this edition of The Loop, Ford talks about his moniker, losing himself in live performances, and overcoming the perception that electronic artists just push buttons.

Andrew Thaggard grew up on a steady diet of hip-hop, but it wasn’t just the words he fell in love with. He developed an ear for the underlying rhythms, and under the name BoomBaptist he’s chased that muse repeatedly, either on his own recordings or live at Exploded Drawing showcases. His songs are chameleon-like, shifting rhythms and styles in the blink of an eye. On this edition of The Loop, BoomBaptist talks about the musicality of hip-hop, the unlikely source of his moniker, and his mother’s influence on his art.

Nathan Piñones takes the name Ntropy from his love of physics and mathematics, and it shows in his music. As part of the Exploded Drawing collective, Ntropy’s compositions are complex and precise, but there’s a soulful quality that bubbles up as well. On this edition of The Loop, Ntropy talks about his beginnings, the state of electronic music, and receiving inspiration from some unlikely sources.

Beat music is a form that has grown out of various strains of electronic music, but the beat artists aren’t just DJs. They construct their own original songs using samples, laptops, synthesizers, drum loops—the possibilities are endless. Many of the artists give away their music for free, but the emphasis is on live performance.

Several local collectives are going strong with monthly showcases and online compilations, and Texas Music Matters wants to shine a light on the scene. Each week, we’ll highlight a different artist and their music, and we’ll let them tell their own stories in order to put beat music into a Texas perspective—we’re calling it The Loop.

For the first installment, we invited Andrew Brown—otherwise known as Soundfounder—into our studios. True to his performance name, he helped create Exploded Drawing, a collective that aims to stimulate conversation among electronic artists and listeners. Exploded Drawing hosts monthly “sessions” where six new beat makers, sound collectors, and electronic composers perform live in front of an audience. Brown talks about the collective, his own music, and the story behind his name in our first feature. Take a listen below!