Tonight at 8pm Baby TV presents Marissa Nadler live alongside Hilary Woods who is a sound and visual artist from Dublin. Rumor has it that a fog machine has been acquired especially for this gig so you know they mean business. (Jason Lee)

It’s been said elsewhere that Marissa’s music “is deeply unique music rich in atmospheric harmonies and ambience paired with songs that evoke a surreal, hypnagogic versions of reality” and we here at the Deli heartily agree. Just don’t call her or her music “haunted” or “haunting” because she kinda hates that according to an interview a couple years back (we luv ya anyway Pitchfork).
 

Plus, Ms. Nadler recently covered vocal duties on a cover version of an early Journey song (“Of A Lifetime” see above) with the Two Minutes To Late Night guys (hello Saint Vitus!) and it’s heavy as hell. Anyway tune in tonight and decide for yourself or just check out her music in general.

"I lost my mind on a cross country bus 

King of the Road packing it up "

On their new single called “Greyhound” Petite League take a self-described bus ride to hell but as Bon Scott once put it "Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be" and I can believe it after listening to this rather wistful and lovely song which does still rock don’t get me wrong. In contrast to the AC/DC Aussie-rock classic where there’s a woman who “pours my beer, licks my ear," on Petite League’s cross-country bus journey things are a bit more circumspect where “we might have kissed like a blurry dream in the backseat” with “the rest stop lit by your cigarette at dusk” and honestly the latter sounds a good deal more romantic and maybe even more sexy as well. Even if the aforementioned only “might have” happened there’s still a compelling Wild At Heart road trip vibe at work minus Sherilyn Finn with her brains spilling out of her head and also there’s nobody putting their tongue in your ear but that’s fine if that’s your thing of course.

"Greyhound" takes the listener on a shambolic-sounding journey which is usually the best kind of journey. Over-planners are such a drag. I mean maybe sitting next to Lou Barlow for 40 hours would be tough because I’m getting hints of Sebadoh or is that Folk Implosion on this song, but “Greyhound” clocks in at under three minutes so you can handle that. Itinerary be damned just pay your $127 and settle in as you travel across this vast nation stopping at every Stuckey’s along the way (wear the damn mask folks!) and falling in love with someone who may or may not be a hallucination because none of this is going to happen in coach on Spirit Airlines. 

Petite League’s last album Rattler was their fourth and their first on their own Zap World Records imprint. According to songwriter Lorenzo Gillis Cook’s very own social media liner notes it was strongly informed by Daniel Johnston, suicidal urban cowboys, and "a quarter-life crisis." Their upcoming album, Joyrider, is due out in early 2021 and looks to be strongly informed by Lee Hazelwood, Roger Miller, and Antifa. Mr. L.G. Cook and drummer Mr. Henry Schoonmaker keep upping their game with every release so it’s probably a safe bet to pre-order the record but don’t ask me for your money back if you’re disappointed come January. 

Finally, see below for a song about New York Girls called “New York Girls” from their last record. This is the one that made them bigger than the Strokes which is pretty good for a band that started in a dorm room in Syracuse. Just so you’re not too confused I should mention that the video features Gaby Giangola aka “Goth Girlfriend” lip synching the vocals and she quite convincingly portrays a cleaned-up Nancy Spungen type or a lo-fi Harley Quinn type, take your pick, and also she has a music thing of her own (talent everywhere you look!) which you should probably check out too. (Jason Lee)

Deep Divine is the “coming out” LP or EP or whatever you want to call it (seriously these terms mean next to nothing today) from the rock combo Pretty Sick. Regardless, both the band name and the record name are spot on. Deep Divine is the sound of teenage kicks colliding with the imperative to “just grow up, be adults and die” in the words of one Veronica Sawyer–a deep dive into the muck and the majesty of teenhood and early adulthood. 

Lead singer, songwriter, and bassist Sabrina Fuentes self-reportedly wrote the songs heard here between ages 12 and 20 and the intensity of these transitional years bleeds into every note. Pretty Sick are indeed pretty sick (double-entendre no doubt intended) and appear to be influenced by early, ground-breaking releases on labels such as Sub Pop, Matador, and Kill Rock Stars–a sound that even a generation later is effective sonic shorthand for surviving adulthood with some degree of mental functioning, passion, and sick humor intact. 

Deep Divine not only captures but updates these sounds and sentiments from the past–for one thing the gender fluidity at play in Fuentes’ lyrics is a clear marker of the contemporary moment (he’s and she’s are pretty much interchangeable). The cover image of the record too is a clear riff-on-cum-update-of a certain iconic album cover for this one old record you may have heard of by some band or other, but minus the dollar bill on a hook seeing as record labels aren’t handing out too many million-dollar contracts these days.

Finally this is also a New York City record to the core. The grungetastic 54-second-long instrumental intro called “Comedown” (perfect place to start!) merges straight into “Allen Street” with its subject staring “out on Allen Street at 7:00 in the morning” the song turns into a mini-travelogue taking the listener from the titular LES location to the “Bowery at midnight in the summer” finally ending up “back in Harlem now you won’t even call me / cut myself up now it makes me feel more holy.” Punny-ness aside this last line captures the tightrope act that Pretty Sick has already mastered: balancing hookiness and grittiness and lower bodily stratum and spiritual elevation. (Jason Lee)

Alex Mali is a native Brooklynite of Trini-Jamaican extraction whose music advocates personal empowerment on the lyrical tip all the while seducing listeners into self-surrender with its flowing syncopations and overall underwater ambience. This weekend Mali was featured as part of the online (is there any other kind?) Adult Swim Festival performing a tight twelve-minute rooftop set recorded as dusk turned to dark over the city. The resulting ambiance speaks to our current moment–isolated and ghostly, defiant and self-possessed. After a triptych of songs in which our narrator fends off gossip mongers and sketchy suitors and broke-boy hanger-on-ers Mali finally achieves release on “Good Good” (“I can feel it in my lungs / I can feel it in my body / Oh it got me speaking in tongues / I can feel it and I want it”) adding touches of melisma and other vocal embellishment to the version heard on her 2020 EP Phenom which is already itself quite high on the ecstatic-o-meter.

Finally, for dessert, check out the official video for “Good Good” below wherein Mali and a cadre of coordinated dancers take Grand Army Plaza by force. And then if that’s not enough, tomorrow, Wednesday at 3PM EST, you can watch a livestreaming video premiere of "Fighting Words," the first number heard in the set above, on the YouTube with preceiding livechat. Speak your peace directly to the artist or forever hold your peace. Peace out y’all. (Jason Lee)