Saturday night, CMJ, the Mercury Lounge: I had high expectations. The bill included Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes, and Ivri Lider who is apparently an Israeli superstar. Unfortunately I missed those two bands, but FWWTW and Akudama closed the night with a mighty pairing of aural delicacies which sweetly capped my CMJ experience.

Food Will Win the War is a seven piece indie outfit in the vein of Magnetic Fields and Xiu Xiu. Vaulting seemlessly between uplifting dance jams and haunting melodic dreamscapes, FWWTW’s set was a cornucopia of musical flavors. They even fired up a high energy cover of an Eastern European folk tune called “Ostře Sledavoné Vlaky” that had the crowd whirling around in a frenzied dervish. The fact that several of their songs featured accordion solos was the butter on the bread, the gravy on the fries, and the icing on the cake.

As I refilled my pint to help digest FWWTW’s set, Akudama took preparations to achieve the proper ambiance for their show. Only after various table lamps, stuffed animals, and other assorted bric-a-brac had been carefully arranged around the stage did the band tune up and begin their line check. Then they started rocking; beautiful harmonies and sprawling rock guitar work wove a brilliant sonic tapestry which blanketed the enthralled crowd. A friend of mine had described their music as “perfect indie rock,” and I have to agree. I became an instant fan and by the time you read this, I will have downloaded their entire bandcamp repertoire.

Though the bands’ sounds didn’t necessarily complement each other, their musicality and talent was enough to qualify their juxtaposition. For me they were the final two sets crowning a rich CMJ experience. However, I am left only temporarily satiated, and am already eagerly anticipating next year’s menu. – BrokeMC

There are a lot of ways to write a rap song; you can tell a story, you can boast about how ridiculously ill you are, you could even just string clever rhymes together in such a tongue twisting fashion that everyone will be too dumbfounded to realize there’s no reason to the rhyme whatsoever. In “Bars and No Bull,” Jesse Abraham tests his penmanship in every form. He’s clever, light-hearted, and an adept rhymecraft. The beats are a little inconsistent, but the production is clean, and the cameos (Premonition and Albert Rhymestein) are killer. A lot of MCs claim to have written the book, but Mr. Abraham demonstrates that he can edit it down to its raw essence. Download it free here. – BrokeMC

The peeps at the NYC based blog Big Ugly Yellow Couch sent us a blurb about their favorite CMJ 2010 bands – here it is

"After our CMJ haze fueled by slices of bodega pizza, lack of sleep and Pianos margaritas was lifted, we realized we’re actually even more obsessed with the three bands that played our showcase than we were before. Santah, compadres of ours from back home in the Midwest, played the best shows we’ve seen, and we’ve been in the audience for years. We forgot how much fun Dinosaur Feathers‘ songs were in an acoustic setting, too, and like seemingly everyone who was at CMJ, we’re totally hard for LA’s Young The Giant." – Dinosaur Feathers in the picture.

Chappo was featured by Apple in their iTouch ad before Brooklyn Vegan wrote anything about them (they still haven’t by the way, just the usual mention in their listings that everybody gets…) This is something the electronic giant deserves credit for, because Chappo not only has the ability to write (more than one) incredibly catchy indie pop gems, but has also a super-fun live show – frontman Alex is a true performer. Just to give you an idea of how much we enjoyed their packed show at Spike Hill, we’ll say that they looked and sounded a like a new, non acoustic version of Violent Femmes… You must not miss their show at Coco66 on 11.17. P.S. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge Apple fan, quite the opposite actually… I’ll never forgive them for being so successful and for murdering lala.com. – Read The Deli’s interview with Chappo from last spring here.