San Jose’s Xiu Xiu performs live at the Chapel on March 19th. This legendary Bay Area will be playing all over the country in support of their new album, FORGET.
FORGET was recorded during a period of epic productivity for Xiu Xiu. While writing FORGET, they released the lauded Plays the Music of Twin Peaks, collaborated with Mitski on a song for an upcoming John Cameron Mitchell film, composed music for art installations by Danh Vo, recorded an album with Merzbow and scored an experimental reworking of the Mozart opera, The Magic Flute. All of this frantic, external activity lead to a softly damaged dreaminess and broadened intent that has not been heard before in other Xiu Xiu works. The album was produced by John Congleton (Blondie, Sigur Ros), Greg Saunier of Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu’s own Angela Seo.
Krust Toons: "Geographycore" by Tedd Hazard – please feel free to drop him a line at teddandthehazards@gmail.com if you dig or have any funny ideas. You can also check out more of his illustrations and animation shorts HERE.
Scattered, volatile, percussion-consuming beats with a defiant punk/hip-hop core, that’s only the start to describing the sonic production that comes from NAH. Now, a comprehensive collection of his output from last year (four cassettes + one 12" LP) is available for streaming and purchase in the concisely titled 2016 Complete Works. Get sucked in through the strangely hypnotic, sonic vortex, and lock into those relentlessly churning grooves. After returning from a stint of European dates, NAH will be performing at the First Unitarian Church on Sunday, April 23 with Wolf Eyes, TRNSGNDR/VHS, and Madam Data.
Dirty, brazen, and barefaced, Barbara Beanna is serving up old-style blues rock that’s not afraid to kick some ass and take some names. Listen below.
Reader Poll First Place: Casey Hopkins Duo The Casey Hopkins Duo are our overall reader poll winners, and with good reason–the band is playing electrifying fuzzy blues rock that immediately demands attention. Check out "Teacher’s Pet" streaming below.
Reader Poll Second Place: Dakota Jones
The NYC-based band is crafts smooth soul rock that’s sure to make it’s way into your daily rotation. Take a listen to "Leave Me Alone" streaming below.
Here’s the list of all the finalists with their Readers’ Poll scores. As always, we’d like to thank all of our artists, jurors, and readers for participating in this year’s polls. Stay tuned and vote for all of our remaining genre polls!
Our Best of NYC 2017 poll keeps rolling and last week, after you-the-people cast your vote, we had the results of the readers’ poll for he Indie Rock category to share with you!
Our yearly poll winner for Indie Rock, Baby Acid, blends and bends generic conventions to create entire sonic spaces. The accuracy of their self-described "grunge-gaze" immediately becomes apparent upon listening. They use the fuzzy, screechy, heavy-weight characteristics of grunge to layer sound, creating sonic atmospheres that eventually take on the qualities of psych and shoegaze. If you’re a fan of noise rock and grunge classics like My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth and Nirvana, Baby Acid serves as the perfect for vehicle for fusion.
Rachel Angel took second place in the readers’ poll this year. She’s the type of artist who makes music out of a sense of necessity. Her songs serve as a form of survival, something solid to hold on to in the overwhelming current of existence. The lyrics adopt the refined aesthetic quality of poetry while the content may as well be pulled straight from personal diary entries, offering a vulnerability that proves undeniably relatable. The sonic niche she occupies rests somewhere between fuzzy indie rock and alt country, with Frankie Cosmos-style guitars resting atop a cushion of atmospheric organ you might hear in the work of classics like Wilco or Phosphorescent.
We probably need to do a copious amount drugs to forget some of the things that we’ve seen in Moon Bounce‘s latest creation. Corey Regensburg stars and hilariously bares all in the Peter English-directed music video, with beautiful animation and artwork by Raymo Ventura. We can only imagine the amount of effort expended to pull this off, and they succeeded tenfold. "Drugs" is the lead single off Moon Bounce’s forthcoming LP Clean House, due out on March 10 via Grind Select.
Bluegrass acts in Austin can’t help but veer into the unexpected. While Sour Bridges features a banjo, violin, and other tell-tale Bluegrass harbingers, they don’t stay inside the traditional lines. With non-traditional themed songs like "Cocaine Lorraine" and "Midwife Crisis", Sour Bridges projects their ‘Browngrass’ which, which in their own words, "Is a little bit dirtier than Bluegrass". While the eclectic influences, like the Beatles and the Byrds, seem to blend seamlessly, its the live-wire energy of the quintet’s live shows that leave their mark on listeners. Its no surprise that Sour Bridges were the Austin voters pick for ‘Best Emerging Roots/Songwriter Act’ because although the band members come from the Pennsylvanie woods, Oklahoma plains, and Texas hills – their sound is uniquely Austin.
Johnny Zachman is the consumate front man, having previously written and performed with bands like Secret Cove, Clam, Twiga, Lofts, and Blow!, Zachman has found his niche curating alternative, psych-infused rock. Becoming a frquent fixture in the Austin live music scene, Zachman has been on a tear playing shows at the Mohawk, Cheer Up Charlies, Sidewinder, Lamberts, and more. While the band lists influences like Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, and Sigur Ros – they also share similarities with 2000’s drone rockers like the Secret Machines. Zachman clinched the Austin voter’s poll for ‘Best Emerging Psych Rock Group’ and their momentum should garner future accolades to come. Good karma seems to surround the band as they also strive to give back, most recently, raising money for the ACLU by releasing their latest single "Park Ave." on Soundcloud.
The brass funk veterans in No BS Brass Band don’t mess around. Their sets are fast, loud, and irresistibly funky. Hailing from the Oregon Hill neighborhood of Richmond, close to Virginia Commonwealth University, No BS’ music comes across as a musical fusion of college pep bands and high level brass funk a la Budos Band and Young Blood Brass.
If you’re in Virginia on March 3rd, or just want to make the drive, go see No BS Brass Band with SOJA at The National.
Devy Metal may be somewhat new as a band, but they come with all the spirit and vigor as seasoned vets. They’ve got a couple singles out now ("Greenleaf," "Baptism" and a cover of "Tempted" by Squeeze), but they’re releasing a mystery single with us all tomorrow as part of their Sunday Sessions at Rontoms with And And And.
As always, Rontoms Sunday Sessions are free, so come here Devy Metal’s new track and some Portland favorites in And And And. Check out Devy Metal’s live recording of "Tempted" for Noise & Color‘s Cake Away Show below.
The Spare Room on NE 42nd doesn’t do many shows but when they do, they’re worth checking out. Tonight’s show will be eclectic, fun and free, which are the three best qualities a show could possible offer.
We’re finally getting The Wild Body EP release we’ve all been waiting for. The cassette will come with quite a few versions of artwork to choose from, so if you find yourself a fan of their experimental post-punkcore dream rock (which you should be), you’ll have your pick of the litter while supplies last, of course!
A bit of fun from Karaoke Star, the improv project from Cat Hoch and Bryson Cone, will be kicking off tonight’s entertainment, with the gazey garage stylings of The Tamed West closing the night out.
Music starts at 9pm, so be sure to show up on time before the place packs up!
For the longest time, hip hop and r&b in Portland were backburner genres to the city’s most popular categories of indie, rock and garage. Things started to change recently, where more artists took to the soulful sounds of rhythm and blues or incorporating the type of woke sensibilities often dropped in bars of hip hop tracks. The results for this round of our poll provide proof of who’s been doing it the best in the last year, so keep scrolling to check them out.
Our top winners, Lola Buzzkill, are a supergroup of sorts dazzling audiences with their soulful croons and rhythmic tendencies. Their live performances integrate incredible makeup and costumes on top of their throwbacks to funky and sultry r&b and disco . They’ve got one of the best interactive live performances in town right now and if you haven’t gotten a chance to see them yet, you’re definitely missing out. Congrats on being our top dogs, Lola Buzzkill!
Next is the Fur Coats, who swept the readers’ poll without a hitch. The Fur Coats have been around for a little while now but have nonetheless been one of more dynamic iterations of modern psychedelic soul and mild jazz, using sax and organs in the most savvy of ways. They’ll be heading off for a long tour of Europe and we couldn’t be more excited for them.
Rounding out our winners are Chanti Darling and Karma Rivera, occupying two different sides of the same coin. Chanti Darling basically ran the last year, coming into it named Willamette Week’s Best New Band. Taking over festival stages and running their own dance nights led by powerful vocalist Chanticleer, Chanti Darling mixeds soul, disco and r&b with electronic elements to produce some of the most danciest tunes in town right now. Karma Rivera is the only actual hip hop artist to place, and she one of the best to represent the genre. Her beats are banging as are her rhymes, and her femme power is much needed in music world typically dominated by men.
