New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
Charlie Reed has shared the shared the latest single, "Hold On", from their forthcoming album, Eddy, which is due out on July 21st via Earth Libraries. The new single is accompanied by the Alexa Viscius (of Bnny) directed video below.
This is the work of Luke Trimble, Nolan Chin, Nora Chin, Colin Croom, Nick Beaudoin, Justin Vittori, and Tyler Bixby.
Power Pop trio Thrift Store Halo has released a new single called "White Flag". This is the group’s contribution to a forthcoming POP AID Benefit CD, supporting the work of World Central Kitchen feeding those in war-torn Ukraine. This three disc benefit album is set to be released on August 5th via Kool Kat Musik.
Thrift Store Halo is the work of Frank Gradishar (Vocals, Bass, Keyboards), Scott Proce (Drums), and Brent Seatter (Electric Guitars).
Ax and The Hachetmen have released a new single called "Grace". This is the group’s third single of 2022 and fourth since the release of their 2020 EP "Bear on the Roof".
This is the Indie Rock of Axel Ellis (Lead Guitar & Vocals), Sal Defilippis (Rhythm Guitar), Hunter Olshefke (Bass Guitar & Upright Bass), Kenny Olzewski (Guitar & Vocals), Nick Deputy (Drums), Phil Pistone (Trumpet), and Quinn Dolan (Saxophone)
The group is embarking on a West Coast tour this week, but you can catch them back home at Schubas on August 26th.
Last month, Gabacho released his latest single "Try" and the accompanying Jonathan Lopez directed video below.
This is the blend of Latin Rock and Psych Rock from Siul Reynoso, and "Try" is his second single of 2022.
Gabacho will be performing at Logan Square Arts Festival on this Saturday, June 25th, at 3:45 on Monument Stage.
Yaya Bey is a Queens-bred, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter/storyteller/poet/producer/multimedia artist of West Indian descent whose newest record Remember Your North Star (Big Dada) is a manifesto of sorts but rendered in the most unassuming, intimate, least-manifesto-like voice imaginable.
Structured as a series of 18 musical miniatures stitched together into a musical suite—individual tracks clock in on average at at about two-ish minutes but range from 16 seconds to nearly four-and-a-half minutes—the album comes across as a collage of spectral mood pieces, like channel-flipping inside the mind of its narrator, resulting in a psychological portrait where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Musically, Remember Your North Star is notable for its artfully stripped-down, lo-fi production style that draws upon a woozy mélange of post-soul, neo-jazz, Jamaican rocksteady (check out “Meet Me In Brooklyn”), South African amapiano (check out "Pour Up" below featuring DJ Nativesun), progressive hip hip, and modern R&B—the latter of which could stand for either “rhythm and blues” or “riddim and blunted” with more than a couple lyrical references to the chronic heard throughout—all feeding into a dizzy, mellow ambience that doesn’t entirely mask a persistent underlying tension underlined by the album’s constantly morphing and mutating loops, beats and flows (“I can do this cool shit here all day / switchin’ up flows here all day”) like the ground underfoot is never entirely stable.
This episodic quality reflects a recurring lyrical theme of “just trying to get over/get by/get off” one day at a time (recent statistics show 64% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck so if you can’t relate consider yourself lucky) with Ms. Bey seeking solace, significance, fulfillment, even joy (“Oh baby pay attention to the bassline / yea baby there’s a party at my waistline”) when not simply trying to survive if not thrive under an oppressive capitalist shitstem of hand-to-mouth subsistence (“I done worked my whole life and still ain’t rich”) and a sexual politics dictated by male ego and misogyny (“you lay your hat on the next bitch’s shoulder / then hit my line like baby come over”).
And it stands to reason that even in 2022 America (or make that especially in 2022 America) these themes can’t help but be rendered through the looking glass of race and gender. As explained by Yaya Bey herself: “I saw a tweet that said, ‘Black women have never seen healthy love or have been loved in a healthy way.’ That’s a deep wound for us. Then I started to think about our responses to that as Black women. So this album is kind of my thesis. Even though we need to be all these different types of women, ultimately we do want love: love of self and love from our community. The album is a reminder of that goal.”
So drop the needle on the record and if you do you’ll likely be entirely sucked in by the time “Intro” is over—a title that’s more than just a rhetorical flourish seeing as it deftly sets the tone for the entire LP in 76 seconds flat—where over a moody isolated Fender Rhodes (sounds like it anyway!) Ms. Bey declares you better “keep your head up…cuz the rent’s still due baby / I’m livin’ out the life that I choose baby” going on to drop a couple more multisyllabic rhymes (“groove wavey,” “shoes baby”) that perfectly illustrate how the album combines surface-level straight talk with underlying complexity, a track that seamlessly segues its organ line into an identical guitar line underlying the subsequent 29-second miniature “Libation” about the societal erasure yet enduring divinity of Black Girls and you’ve got the beginnings of a hazy hip hop inflected summertime soul banger long player with substance. (Jason Lee)
We are proud to be able to premiere the new single, "You and Me", from the Indie Rock group Curious Grace & Black Rabbit.
"You and Me" will be officially available on streaming platforms tomorrow, June 24th, and is the group’s follow-up to their 2020 EP "Wonderland".
This is the work of Tom Erangey (bass and vocals), Mary Erangey (vocals), Heidi O’Toole (vocals), John Hickey (guitar), Scott Way (drums), and Bojan Kolevski (keys).
Curious Grace & Black Rabbit will be performing at Homegrown Arts & Music Festival on July 30th in Lisle along with many other artists including Josh Caterer Trio and OK Cool.
Tommy Bravos is preparing to release a remix album, Adonis Imagined, of his 2021 album Adonis. He recently released the second single from the project which is Thair’s approach on the track "Magic Rush".
Earlier this month Bravos recently the project first single which was Moistbreezy’s take on "Romeo".
Eli winter has released the first single, "For a Chisos Bluebonnet", from his forthcoming self-titled album which is due out on August 19th via Three Lobed.
For this album the guitarist / composer is joined by Yasmin Williams, Ryley Walker, David Grubbs, Cameron Knowler, Tyler Damon, jaimie branch, and more.
You can catch Eli Winter at Constellation on August 20th.
Photo by Julia Dratel
Kevin and Hell has released their latest album, Memento Mori. This is the highly unique and compelling intersection of experimental jazz and post punk.
This is primarily the work and project of Kevin, but he is joined by Nadav Simon on drums for this album. Jazz great Angel Bat Dawid also contributes a clarinet cameo on "The Death Cap."
Sports Boyfriend (aka Eileen Peltier) recently released her second single on 2022 a poppy, nearly country sounding, track called "New American Cuisine".
Post Hardcore group Nikko Blue recently released their latest single, "Harder To Breather".
You can catch Nikko Blue at The Promontory on June 22nd with Scarlet Demore, We Weren’t Invited, and The Fundamental Kink. They will also be performing at Reggie’s on July 16th as part of "For The Love"
Math Rock group Snooze has released a new single called "Contingent". This is the group’s second single since the release of their 2020 album Still.
You can catch Snooze at Empty Bliss on July 2nd with When We Was Kids, Origami Button, and In Angles, and you can find all of their upcoming dates here.
