New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
Caribou Vibration Ensemble Featuring Marshall Allen by Caribouband
Wow, this is a rather mystic and hi-tech video for a band we perceived as kinda lo-fi! The song is Hooray for Earth‘s new single "True Love", which will be featured in the band’s upcoming album, to be released in June. "The video is an homage to our favorite Russian and eastern-european cult sci-fi. French artist Moebius and early Metal Hurlant were also big visual influences," explains director Alex Takacs. "It’s about mindscapes and the memory of true love."
Even though the L Magazine seems to take every opportunity to ignore The Deli (should we take it personally?), we are not the resentful kind and stick to our mission to do whatever it takes to give deserving local bands some exposure. If this means amplifying the visibility of artists highlighted by a publication that doesn’t like us, so be it!
Every year I am truly amazed by the fact that the L Mag manages to find a bunch of very good local bands we haven’t covered yet – The Deli gives exposure to an average of 20+ NYC based emerging artists per week, but it’s obviously not enough to deal with all the friggin’ wonderful bands out there. The yearly L feature always triggers our curiosity – mostly for bands from the list that we have not yet covered (typically about half of them).
Slowdance (pictured above) play rather laid back semi-synth-pop (yeah because there is sitll a rhythm guitar in there) with that cool almost-epic Morriconian feel to it. The real star here is front lady Quay. Her sultry but in your face vocals combined with her talent for original melodies could take this band far. Oh, and she also sings some tracks in French for an added "cool" factor.
Yellow Ostrich is a band we recently nominated for our poll but for some reason never came around to write about. They play a very interesting sparse and progressive kind of rootsy music (when we say progressive we mean it in a good way). Think about a mellower version of White Rabbits’ solid reinterpretation of blues and folk mixed with Animal Collective’s eclectic vocal arrangements and african influences.
Family Trees could be described as an acoustic, folky version of the "Chill Wave" trend started by bands like Woods and Real Estate. These guys add a good measure of exotic influences to the mix, which makes their sound refreshing and quite unique in the NYC scene. Unpretentious and chilled to the extreme, this is escapist music – did they really write these tracks here in NYC? Close your eyes and – as if by magic – a beach will appear . We can definitely see some value in that.
Grand Rapids (picture below) confirms the impression that somebody at the L mag is a huge Pavement fan – this band’s catchy melodies, casual attitude and twangy arrangements make them sound like a rootsier version of Stephen Malkumus’ ground breaking act. Probably L exaggerates when it says that their sound is "as defiant as it gets", but these guys’ charm is undeniable.
The other 4 artists featured in the L’s feature are Devin Therriault, Radical Dads, Mainland and Luke Rathborne.
Under the name Laurel Halo, Ina Cube has achieved numerous well-received remixes for others, including How to Dress Well and Sébastien Tellier, presenting their music through her own hypercolored lens. But on her “King Felix” EP, the songs evoke the otherworldly beauty of the Cocteau Twins laid over dance beats with ethereal vocals. Cube’s classical music training is evident in the artful cascading melodies in her bustling electronic symphonies. Each of the synthpop tunes could be sectioned into movements, but the seamless transitions are what make the songwriting so awe-inspiring. A follow-up EP entitled “Hour Logic” will drop on June 21. – Nancy Chow
Yourself &The Air will be releasing their new ep Who’s Who In The Zoo on May 24th through Lujo Records. This is the bands fourth ep.
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Yourself & The Air will be performing at Bottom Lounge on April 29th.
Sleep Out is back in the studio working on their next LP which will be called Black Cat Found and will be released later this year on Portland label Badman Recording Co.
Sleep Out will be performing at Beat Kitchen on May 20th with w/ America Hearts (ex-Antelope, Dischord Records) and Coupleskate.
Looking for a good show tonight? The Deli suggests you try some rock ‘n’ roll at The Basement from Shoot the Mountain, The Lonely H and Little Bandit. Show’s at 9 p.m.
For Slideshow go to: http://www.flickr.com/2010domino
Ghostly soulful, rich vocals reverberated out through the sold out Troubadour show for The Airbourne Toxic Event last evening. ‘All I ever wanted’ warmed up the room. By ‘Book of Love’ 5 songs in, the intimate venue matched the eloquent heart felt song. After ‘Numb’ Singer/guitarist Mike Jollett said ‘So we have a record out today, sounded like I was fishing there, but we’re just a small band from LA playing all over the world’. He added how he just spent the ‘last 2 years of my life singing about my ex-girlfriend’. Painful thought. ‘All for a Woman’ sounds like a Irish limerick and as the set continues it’s obvious that the storytelling lyrics are the essence of the band. The mellow crowd started hopping to ‘Happiness’ and dropped back down to hawker mode unfortunately. The band had fun, which was obvious by their on stage antics for ‘gasoline’, they had a violen vs guitar moment, they body checking the equipment roadie who was fixing the mic, and just smiled and laughed more than any band I’ve ever have seen on stage. It’s all good fun which is sweet to witness at the level of success they have achieved. ‘Kids’ according to Jollett, raised the questions in European journalists to ask if they were ‘anti America’ and their response was they are ‘anti lying’. Agreeable concept, but the song seemed, at first, like a forced anthem, like an Indie version of ‘American Idiot’ because it rolled right into ‘Wedding Day’. Their hit song ‘Midnight’ blasted the crowd and really confirms the power this band can generate live. When Jollett said ‘Thank You’, it was the most appreciative moment of gratitude I’ve seen onstage in awhile. Encore ‘all at once’ has a funky surf punk vibe which rocked even though his guitar malfunctioned. He jumped in the crowd and sang ‘Moving On’ much to many fans delight. They turned ‘Misery’ into Springsteen’s ‘I’m on fire’ which sounded a bit country with the violen and sped up two step beat. They ended up the show with Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ which added to the high energy of the night. Being somewhat judgemental of this band being a one hit wonder when I entered the show made me feel guilty as I left with a great appreciation for their diverse musical talents. It was also refreshing to see success worn so well and egos checked as Jollett hung out with fans post show, fresh off the stage. Though their songs gravitate towards anthems, they have a unique blend of songs that gives everyone a taster of damn good, powerful music with a story. Michele McManmon
Milk Machine will be celebrating the release of their new full-length album, Bees on the Vine, at Red Palace on May 7. You can be reasonably certain that this will be the only rock record release in D.C. this month that prominently features tuba bass lines, accordion riffs, and soaring trumpet melodies.
The amazing thing about the sound emanating from Bees on the Vine is how Milk Machine is able to take the instrumentation of a traditional polka band and squeeze out dramatic, legitimitely rocking songs. The songs often carry the edge of a New Orleans funeral march in a very "This is a great show to drink whiskey at!" sort of way. So, come prepared.
Red Palace, Doors @ 9:00, Show @ 10:00, $8
-Jarrett
New Moods is Billy Jones’ new band (besides booking Pianos, Billy played in several NYC indie bands including drone rockers Other Passengers). Started as a duo and currently a quartet, they play a brand of edgy dance-rock that’s at times reminiscent of dark and claustrophobic British bands from the 80s, like very early Simple Minds, The Cure or the more recent Clinic, although the newer single "Playtime" (embedded here) seems to abandon these new wave influences for a more modern tribal-electro sound. Brooklyn Vegan booked them for one of his many SXSW shows and they just landed a rather high profile gig opening for Gang Gang Dance at The Music Hall of Williamsburg on May 4. If you like "serious" party music, this might well be a show you don’t want to miss.
Mp3: New Moods – Playtime