From 1998 until 2005, Chris Richards led the truly great Washington, DC post-hardcore band Q And Not U. These days, Richards has a different calling. For about a decade now, he’s been the music critic at The Washington Post, where he does great work. (I’ve only met Richards once, so this isn’t a case of me stumping for my friends, though he did strike me as being a very good dude.)

Every once in a while, though, Richards will get the bug and make some new music, usually in the grand DC tradition of the band who makes one record and then disappears forever. In 2017, Richards and Pissed Jeans drummer Sean McGuinness formed a duo called Street Stains and released a really good EP. And now Richards has another new band and another new EP.

Richards now leads TK Echo, a DC band that features three other veterans, including members of Supersystem, Orthrelm, Protect-U, Et At It, and Meltdown. On their self-titled debut, they make spiky, idiosyncratic guitar-pop that reminds me a bit of a DIY version of XTC. It’s good! Stream it below.

You can buy TK Echo at Bandcamp.