New England

Kirsten Opstad — Fear of Swimming

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Somerville alt-folk singer-songwriter Kirsten Opstad’s latest release Fear of Swimming bursts with plucky, quaint acoustic tunes. Following a few solo albums as well as a release from The Crazy Exes from Hell — the folk-punk band consisting of her and Steve Subrizi — Fear of Swimming is Opstad’s first professional full-length collection.

Opstad, like many artists, turned to Kickstarter to help collect funding for the project, and she kept friends and fans updated on the fundraising progress as well as the recording process itself on her blog. While Kickstarter allots 30 days for a project to raise its fundraising goal, Opstad reached (and exceeded) her goal of $5,000 in just twenty days. The album was recorded at Interstellar Records in early November 2011 and was released on January 10.

Magic Eye provides a sunny opening and sets the tone for the majority of the album. Opstad’s chirpy voice and quirky, acoustic, simplicity make it seem like she could easily win over fans of Kimya Dawson. The majestic, Medievally-tinted Unkeepable Oath best demonstrates Opstad’s springy, cute songwriting. Meanwhile, the bond between her and an injured bird attests to her earnest, sweet spirit. Her lyrics are tongue-in-cheek almost as often as they are heart-on-sleeve. Along with all the peachiness of the album is the sense of vulnerability she admits to, in the album title and elsewhere in the lyrics.

Most of the songs are paced similarly, sharing a bright and chipper mood, but that’s not to say that the tracks blend one into the next. And while Fear of Swimming begins with sunshine, it ends with Back to Sleep, a bittersweet lullaby in which Opstad sings, “And I can’t sleep / Knowing you’re out there without me / And I can’t move / Knowing that you’re moving on.”–Sarah Ruggiero

New England

Mission 0 — Bruises on the Map

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There is a strange and almost contradictory type of freedom that comes with the label of pop music. While the title is sometimes thought of as the enemy and opposite of free expression, there are those who take the term as a simple standard of accessibility in their art, a sort of mantra that says “Art is anything that makes people enjoy life more.” In this new age of free media, electronic everything, and D.I.Y ethics becoming more of a necessity than an ethos, pop music has been the favorite vehicle of a large caravan of duos combining programed loops and live instrumentation in order to create a new series of dance music.

Now, in the wake of this mostly New York boy/girl boom, comes New Haven, CT’s own brother sister duo Megan and David Keith and their project Mission 0. The first full length offer from the siblings Keith comes in the form of Bruises on the Map, a ten track spectacle of smart pop structure and electric/trance vibe.

Bruises on the Map acts mostly as a showing of Sister Keith’s vocal ability along with the understated, but extremely well-constructed instrument arrangements of drummer/producer Brother Keith. The album’s tracks act as two sides of the same coin, trading off track to track between 90’s influenced power ballads and trance dance numbers, working as a good  ofwhat the duo is capable of. Bruise’s lyrics work mostly to carry the Sister Keith’s melodies and the tunes are best implemented as mood music rather than for hardnosed analysis. Anyone who is a fan of the boy/girl duo movement being populated by Cults, Matt and Kim, Sleigh Bells, or going as far back as The Eurythmics, would be well off adding Bruises on the Map to their collection and checking the duo out when they blow into town.–Anthony Geehan


Mission 0 — Heavy Boots

L.A.

Take a deep breath with Little Red Lung

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Little Red Lung create melodies that are almost as twisting and turning as saying their name three times fast. Their song “50 Fingers” is as beautiful as it is somber. Zoe-Ruth Erwin, the band’s vocalist and keyboardist, almost dances around Charlene Huang’s eerily bittersweet violin.  Also comprised of Nathan Kondor on drums, Rob Hume on bass, and Mike Agentis on euphonium, they create their own upbeat melody by working as a nice juxtaposition to that lingering feeling that there’s something more going on, which Zoe and Charlene do such a great job in conveying. Close your eyes. Let Little Red Lung immerse you with their dark imagery and chilling atmospherics. Something most bands cannot do these days. The band will be playing at the Echo on January 31st. – Ryan Bussard 

 

 

Chicago

From Our Open Blog: Well-Next-The-Sea

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Later this spring, Wells-next-the-Sea’s new EP "Passenger Side" will be released on Chicago’s Squirrel Trap Records. Right now, you can download the first track, "With Our Eyes Closed", for free below. It’s the sound of cheerful Americana for the perennially bummed.

Hear that song and more when Wells performs an intimate show at Uncommon Ground (3800 North Clark Street) on Thursday, January 26. Show time is 8:00 pm. Lee Ketch of Mooner opens. Seating is limited, but dinner reservations in the music room guarantee seating for the performance. Phone 773-929-3680 to reserve your seats.

NYC

White Hills bring epic psych rock to The Mercury Lounge on 01.24

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Space rock appears to be coming back in a big way, and bands like Brooklyn’s White Hills are at the forefront of this movement. Their latest album "Frying on this Rock," (scheduled for release on March 20th) is a riff-heavy tour-de-force of epic psychedelia. The album was recorded by legendary NYC producer Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Brian Eno, Swans, Herbie Hancock, Boredoms) and features five jam-heavy tracks, with "I Write a Thousand Letters (Pulp on Bone)" clocking in at nearly 12 minues in length. That song presents clever use of distant conversational voices contributing to dreamlike texture as it weaves through industrial sounding guitars and a hypnotic drum patterns. Subsequent cuts emphasize sonorous power chords, rhapsodic guitar solos and and swirling synth tones. The band will be debuting tracks from the new album live at The Mercury Lounge on January 24. Special guests MOFO, which feature ex-members of A Place To Bury Strangers, will also be playing that night. – Dave Cromwell

NYC

Live review: Black Taxi’s sold out album release night at Bowery

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On Saturday, January 14, Black Taxi celebrated their sophomore album, “We Don’t Know Any Better,” at Bowery Ballroom with the support of The Attic Ends, Austin’s Bright Light Social Hour, Lights Resolve, in a sold out venue. Around midnight, the stage went dark, and the men of the hour snuck on stage. Illumination returned and revealed Ezra Huleatt’s body paint of multi-colored hand prints and glitter, which was later sprinkled over the audience, and feathery accessories, as the band launched into an "oldie but goodie," "Don’t Count Me Out." Black Taxi touched on favorites from their first album, “Things of That Nature,” backed by a full horn section, the highlight being "Up Here for Thinking, Down There for Dancing," during which two generous Kickstarter contributors smashed guitars on stage and Huleatt scaled and leaped off the stage holding an umbrella (Think rock star Mary Poppins.). Frantic dancing, wild jumping, and enthused shouting broke out and escalated with the new record’s electro- breakdown-centric "Friend," perky "Do What you Gotta Do," goosebump-inducing "Vultures," and grooving, must-hear title track. An unforgettable night, Black Taxi outdo themselves every show, and fans can only wait with bated breath ‘til the next one comes around. –Meijin Bruttomesso


ComScore

NYC

Lucius wins The Deli’s Best of NYC 2011 fans’ poll, followed by Stephie Koplan and Brothers

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After 12 days of voting, the wondrous, female driven, rootsy-pop band Lucius was voted by Deli readers and music fans as The Deli’s Best Emerging NYC Artist of 2011. We’ve been big fans of this group since we first booked them at our B.E.A.F. party in May 2011 – we recommend you to see them live at The Mercury Lounge on January 25, they put together one of the most fun live shows in town.

In the last couple of months we’ve been talking a lot about Stephie Koplan & The Pedestrian, a female fronted pop rock band with tons of potential that recently moved from New England to the NYC area. Their recent video of their power pop single "Jerk!" – inspired to the atmospheres of the TV show "Madmen" – casts singer Stephie as an adorably sassy housewife and was featured by Spinner as their "Video of the Day" in December. They placed second in our fans’ and readers’ poll.

A band we haven’t covered before, Brothers – 3rd in this poll – play Rock’n’Roll drenched in southern twang (and probably also Jack Daniels). The band is currently putting the final touches on their debut full length, but if you are in the mood for an unpretentious and in your face rock party, don’t wait any longer and check them out live – or at least watch this teaser of their single "Real Long Way to Go".

Big kudos also to Futurist and Merrily & the Poison Orchard, respectively 4th and 5th. Here’s the Readers’ and Fans Poll Top 20, full results here.

The overall results of our Year End Poll (including jurors’ and Deli writers’ votes) will be released very soon, stay tuned!

 
ARTIST

VOTES
 
1
Lucius
 1241
2
Stephie Coplan & the Pedestrians
1071
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3
Brothers
964
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4
Futurist
695
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5
Merrily & the Poison Orchard
362
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6
Chappo
289
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7
Motive
272
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8
Sinem Saniye
265
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9
Hurrah! A Bolt of Lght!
239
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10
Big Wilson River
234
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11
Exemption
213
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12
Apollo Run
203
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13
Mal Blum
196
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14
Bugs in the Dark
189
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15
Deathrow Tull
170
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16
Motherfeather
153
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17
My Pet Dragon
150
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 18
Snowmine
134
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19
Monogold
128
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20
The Third Wheel Band
115
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San Francisco

Download: New Al Lover Mixtape for Austin Psych Festival

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SF’s pioneer producer Al Lover has just released a new album in support of the Austin Psych Festival taking place April 27-29 in Austin, Texas. Download or stream the mixtape, filled with the artist’s trademark chopped up blends of garage and psychedelic rock featuring artists such as Woods, The Black Angels, Psychic Ills and Brian Jonestown Massacre. The artist also just released an amazing new video for his track “Smoke Filled Thrills” from the album Satanic Tambourines, out now on Impose Records.

–Amanda Dissinger

Philadelphia

Heavy Medical Counting Bodies at The Level Room Jan. 22

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The Level Room is playing host to a sonically pummeling lineup tonight with Heavy Medical, L.U.N.A.R. Revolt and Bad News Bats. Starting the evening off will be Bad News Bats, who released their humorously titled latest single “Don’t Run With Pizzas” on NYE. L.U.N.A.R. Revolt just recently finished mixing their forthcoming album, Mind Losers, due out in March. Fans can check out a sneak peak of the album’s lead track HERE, which is a heavy psych/punk jam. Heavy Medical will be headlining the bill, bringing buzz saw bass guitar riffs, blasting drums and impassioned vocals to the music venue on Market St. The group just released an 8-song tape/download with new recordings of material from their Threats EP and four more tracks. So if rock n’ roll destruction and aural assault is your idea of a party, head out to The Level Room this evening. The Level Room, 2102 Market St., 8pm, $6, 21+ – Dan Brightcliffe