Around since 2010, Brothertiger plays quintessential synth-pop, meaning that if Plato was still around he would tell you that the idea of "synth-pop" would sound very much like one of this band’s songs (although we don’t remember a part of his teachings where ideas would apply to musical genres…) Led by Brooklyn keyboardist John J., the project has already two LPs under its belt, and it’s gearing up to drop a new full length record, entitled "Out of Touch." But before the release, Brothertiger will be performing a high profile opening gig at Webster Hall, where he’ll be sharing the stage with  Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr – tonight November 4th.

An initial listen to recently released track “Bubblegum” from Brooklyn-based British-born musician Mark Crozer may give the impression that perky retro pop is the only intended goal. While the melody does speak to the pop canon, complete with handclap percussion and late 60’s sitar string accompaniment, lyrics outlining a dream-trip scenario suggest sweetness overload. The clever inclusion of Munki-era Mary Chain guitar chords embedded within the chorus (the overdriven second verse of “birthday” as direct tonal point of reference) shows the artist in full command of his influences. That song will be included on the upcoming album ‘Sunny Side Down’ which will be out on vinyl (and digitally) in early 2016. Mark and his band The Rels will be performing as part of International Pop Overthrow festival which runs from November 4 through 8 and will feature more than 40 of the best pop and rock bands from New York and beyond. All the shows will be at Bar Matchless with Mark & The Rels performance on Sunday the 8th. – Dave Cromwell

The guys in NYC psych-fusion-pop band Solid Goold may not realize this now, but what just happened to them is priceless: they experienced (and unwittingly orchestrated) a story so absurd that it will spread like wildfire, and be recalled again and again to their friends and family for the rest of their lives. It will change the mood of many people for the better, and also help them promote their music. Legendary stuff…

We will just paste the core of it below (you can read the full version here): 

"Solid Goold would like to regretfully inform all of you that our European tour has been brutally cut short by the ruthless UK Border Force. We went into our trip blissfully unaware of how serious these borders (especially the UK apparently) really are. An unforeseen cascade of unfortunate circumstances led us to being REFUSED entry to the UK, only to be immediately placed back on a plane to JFK.

We were given advice from someone who admittedly has never attempted to enter the UK as a foreigner to just simply claim we were coming to the UK on holiday and had our instruments just to jam. 

But things (and our white lies) quickly spiraled out of control, culminating in the Border officers finding my 500 SOLID GOOLD BUSINESS CARDS which included a link to this page which resulted in them seeing our 2015 SOLID GOOLD EUROTOUR VIDEO (which was outrageously incriminating to say the least, let alone with an air of goofy/cocky/douchiness thinly veiled as a sense of humor i’m almost positive these officers did NOT appreciate) which was incredibly" embarrassing considering we had just LIED about what we were intending on doing.

Notwithstanding the hilarious turn of events, we wouldn’t be blogging about this if these guys’ music wasn’t good. They released eight track album "Alone in the World" in November 2013, and it’s an eclectic collection of genres minced in small bits and reconstructed in the shape of bizarre psychedelic-pop. Opener "Can’t Be Afraid of" (streaming) features a Barrettesque melody swimming in an orchestral arrangement full of pianos, flutes and horns, switching mid way into an odd bridge that sounds as if Elton John and Procol Harum were asked to play four bars each, over and over, for thirty seconds or so. "Right Eye" recycles Supertramp’s electric piano driven melodies (Supertramp, people, that’s a band that needs to be rediscovered!) but takes them for an unpredictable ride. Traces of reggae, classical music and even jazz emerge here and there in the rest of the record, which follows in the footsteps of NYC pioneers of eclectic/quirky pop They Might Be Giants. Not sure the Brits would have liked this stuff anyway (those guards certainly didn’t), but we do!

NYC gave birth to records such as Metal Machine Music and Deadream Nation, cornerstones of the genre known, by the few initiated, as "noise rock." Disciples of this cult sound abound in the experiment-driven Brooklyn DIY scene, and you’ll have the chance to check out three of them at once on November 12, opening for delicious post punk revivalists Future Punx.

The noisiest and most dissonant of the three bands on this bill appears to be Clean Girls, a Brooklyn based trio hailing from Virginia. Their music is pure post-hardcore fury, although luckily enough – according to their Facebook notes – their drummer/screamer is listed to play the part of "common sense." Listening to streaming track "June Girls will reveal that he obviously has none.

Dead Waves often reference the bright, spacious distortion and driving bass lines of Jesus and Mary Chain, alternating them with explosive moments reminiscent of Nirvana at their wildest.

On the other hand, Heavy Birds, with their droney, sparser arrangements and discernible but obsessive melodies, feature a tamer sound that places them in psychedelic territory (a musical land not immune from the noise bug). Their sound is influenced by both The Velvet Underground and the bands from that ’80s US psychedelic wave called Paysley Underground.

Check out these bands’ music below, and if their music appeals to you, be at Palisades on November 12, with a solid pair of earplugs.

New York City’s ASTR is a two-person operation: Zoe Anna on vocals and Adam Pallin handling production. After meeting in a Manhattan yoga studio, they started writing music together. Soon enough, with a shared love of deep house, ’90s hip-hop, film noir and R&B, ASTR was born. Their new single "Bleeding Love" (streaming), delivers one of their most radio friendly tunes, without entirely giving up their atmospheric tendencies. ASTR will release the "Homecoming" EP later this year, and will be hitting the road in November as tour support for Ryn Weaver and Holychild.

In a musical landscape that doesn’t have funds to invest in artist development, and in a city that’s becoming incrisingly unaffordable for struggling musicians like New York, the artistic growth of EMEFE is nothing short of a small miracle. The collective started in 2010 as a horn driven, instrumental project with heavy afrobeat, funk and jazz influences (if you like the sound of that, check out 2012’s LP "Good Future"), and slowly evolved into a more experimental, and somewhat darker sounding hybrid, featuring occasional vocals and synths, as you can hear on their sophomore, self titled album, released earlier in 2015. The record showcases a band more aligned with that tradition of edgy NYC music we like to celebrate in this blog, borrowing from the experience of another local band famous for incorporating world music influences: The Talking Heads. Brand new single "Confess" (premiered below), with its pop structure, memorable melody, and clear emphasys on synths and other electronic effects, represents further evidence of the band’s new direction. A direction that elegantly and compellingly marries the body-moving power of afrobeat and funk with the propensity, typical of the best NYC artists, for cerebral experimentation within the pop and rock realms. 

EMEFE will be opening for legendary NYC Afrobeat masters Antibalas on November 4th at Brooklyn Bowl – a show that should not be missed. – Photo by Austin Hein

We added this song to The Deli’s playlist of Best songs by emerging NYC artists – check it out!

Painted Zeros is a Brooklyn trio devising (rather) lo-fi songs that strike a happy medium between the clean, dreamy sound of dream-pop and the hyper-effected one of shoegazer, without outruling the occasional bursts of feedback-based noise. The band will be celebrating the release of their debut full length "Floriography" at Shea Stadium on 10.30, a few weeks before embarking on a tour with another local trio, Slight, who play a catchy brand of garage pop. Check out the two singles available for streaming from Painted Zeros’ album, below. Their most popular single from their debut EP Svalbard, entitled "Polar Night," can be found here.

Brooklyn indie pop trio Mainland just unveiled this video for single "Outcast," which depicts the familiar two-boys-after-one-girl teenage drama. We fell in the emotinal trap band and director set up for us, reminiscing of our first romantic attempts in our teen years, with all their mixed signals, misunderstandings, and consistently disappointed dreams. But, suddenly, we wondered if – in the age of texting, Facebook and dating sites – this is still an accurate representation of how teens struggle for love. Which made us wonder… is the pursuit of love, in this day and age, and in most cases, becoming too boring to inspire a music video – or a movie, or a book? If so, let’s take the opportunity to enjoy the good, vintage vibes brought by this song/video combo, and remember (with bleary eyes) our first crush, and how mind blowing it was to fall in love for the first time. Hopefully she’s not on Facebook. 

Today, Florist have shared the full stream for their new EP "Holdly," out October 30th on Double Double Whammy.  The band plays minimalistic, super sparse melodic folk, led by Emily Sprague’s subdued vocals, whose delicate whispering is matched by her band mates’ gentle accompaniment. No wonder the original nucleus of the band originates from the Catskills, where silence actually exists. In relentlessly noisy NYC, Florist’s music is as close as you can get to silence. Or rather, it’s silence’s pretty sounding cousin. The band will leave for a two week tour on November 3rd.

One of Toronto’s bands on the rise (it’s not an accident that they are on our chart of Top 15 emerging local artists) HIGHS play a rhythmic, bouncy version of ambient pop-rock, inundated with beautiful harmonies and a playful rhythm section. In their debut, self titled EP HIGHS consistently utilizes a high energy, mellow vibe to bring the fun, blending in a soca beat to bring the danceability that can keep a room pulsating. Opening track Summer Dress (streaming) does that to perfection. Third song “Harvest” – on the other hand – introduces a slower beat, a soft atmosphere and a great build, and acts as a pace break between the other faster songs, emphasizing the space and harmonies and functioning as a beautiful centerpiece to the EP. If you’re looking to maintain a summertime frame of mind into the upcoming winter, these songs are the perfect soundtrack. – Cody Wright

Screw Spotify and Pandora’s automatic discovery algorhythms, that are supposed to find the next band you are bound to like – they never work for us, NEVER! Plus, you can’t even tell them you only want to listen to NYC artists – ugh… The only thing that works here at The Deli is to parse relentlessly through the listings of small local venues like Palisades, Shea Stadium, Cake Shop, Rockwood, The Living Room… at time also Baby’s All Right and the Mercury Lounge. In the latter’s listing we found a really interesting local band called Pollens. They are a quartet with an LP entitled "Brighten and Break" released back in 2012 and a sophomore album ("+=+=+=+=") out earlier this year. Single "Helping Hand’ (streaming) from their debut, is an avant-pop gem, featuring looped harminizing vocals, an arrangement growing in intensity, and a vocal melody that’s as cerebral as it is catchy – and vaguely reminiscent of all time NYC favorites Buke and Gase. The band has grown experimental with the years, and the sophomore record, more electronic, cerebral and textural, rarely gives in to pure melody, emphasizing instead angular drum patterns and quirky arrangements. See them live at The Mercury Lounge on 11.13.

We added this song to The Deli’s playlist of Best songs by emerging NYC artists – check it out!

In the late ’70s, Chandra, the daughter of eminent conceptual, NYC based artist Dennis Oppenheim, showed considerable promise as a songwriter and performer since the age of seven. This inspired New York noisemakers The Model Citizens to approach the young prodigy and become her backing band. An EP entitled "Transportation" was released in 1980, when Chandra was 12, by ON / GOGO Recordsthe, the band’s own label. It has since become a long-lost cult classic. Fast forward 35 years, and Cantor Records, together with Rain Boots, decided to reissue the four-song EP with the addition of four unreleased songs by The Chandra Dimension (her touring band comprised entirely of teenagers). Chandra will be performing live at Rough Trade on November 14, in an adult version of… herself.