Earlier this month, Brooklyn-by-way-of-Texas singer/songwriter Buck Meek released his Heart Was Beat EP. An understatedly beautiful collection of five country-folk tracks, the album has the smooth-voiced guitarist telling stories of drifters and loners over a calming blend of trailing strings and soft drums. Listening to tumbling songs such as “Misty” (streaming below) and “Fog Rolls,” one may recall Phosphorescent or Iron & Wine, but Buck Meek’s sheer musicianship and vivid writing prove his own promising, exciting talent. – Zach Weg

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

DC’s indie rockers Shark Week released their debut album on NYC’s Paper Cup Records on May 19. The band is about to depart on a East Coast tour that will see them play the Northside Festival in Brooklyn and Toronto’s NXNE. Check out single "Why Did I Let you Go" streaming below.

Active since 2012, NYC’s collective Motion Studies produce what they call "Weird Disco," which sounds to us like post punk inspired electronic music with a beat. Funky bass lines, bizarre sounding distorted guitars and samples flirting with industrial music are reoccurring elements in their music. Their latest single "In Our Days" (streaming) represent the peak of their reportoire so far, and it’s a driven tune full of sonic surprises that work within the context of the song. Definitely a band to keep an eye and two ears on, check them out at Mochmore’s on June 13 within their label’s Godmode’s three year anniversary party.

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

Let’s admit it, most true rockers feel a little uncomfortable whenever they read the words "Christian" and "Rock" next to each other – we do too. It’s probably time to get over this impulse, forget the past struggles with the church (and the permanent divergencies with the rising tide of bigotry in the US), and just enjoy the music. Besides, if we can tolerate lyrics like The Sex Pistols’ "I wanna destroy passerby," we can probably also deal with "Great is Our God," the title of one of Young Oceans‘ most popular songs. This band is a worship project that evolved from hymns penned and arranged within the Trinity Grace Church community in New York City. We are really enjoying the band’s single from 2014 entitled "Only You" (streaming below) which falls entirely in the dream pop category – dream and religion are themes that feed each other in a big way. And if you really can’t take the religious content in the lyrics, you have no excuse anyway: the band’s latest album "Steady the Stars" is entirely instrumental.
Young Ocean was recently included in New Music Seminar’s list of "Artist on the Verge 2015."

While we were blogging about a million other NYC artists, a relatively unknown local band we booked at our Best of NYC Fest in 2011 (as an opening act) kept working hard at their music and live show. Fast forward four years, and we find the group signed to Epic, putting out records produced by Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine fame), shooting awesome videos inspired by Western movies (streaming below) and… playing arenas in Europe opening for The Who! We are referring to alt rockers The Last Internationale, a band that deserves huge kudos for their achievement – and also a little apology from The Deli for not seeing it coming. The band released their debut album ‘We Will Reign‘ last year, a powerful record that combines blues rock and Morriconian influences with their politically aware story-telling.

Deli readers and magazine eaters,

The issue #42 of The Deli NYC is out digitally – it’s the Best of NYC 2015!

READ IT ONLINE HERE

The Deli’s Staff

Over the past few months, Brooklyn-via-Maryland singer/songwriter Keenan O’Meara has released admittedly heavy but undeniably beautiful folk songs on his Soundcloud. The more recent track “Mania,” for example, has the Berklee-educated musician telling of pained lovers over a slowly involving mix of guitar curls and ominous background effects. “Might As Well Swim,” (streaming below), a nimble yet resolute guitar-based song that recalls Department of Eagles’ great ‘In Ear Park’ LP, is similarly striking in its imaginative lyrics and apparent subject (a troubled “child of privilege the world will never need”). Like a great tragedian, O’Meara offers the possibility of redemption with his harsh but gorgeously-rendered dramas. See him at Rockwood Music Hall this Sunday 5/24. – Zach Weg

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

A simmering dark menace pervades the latest release from Massachusetts ex-pats, now Brooklyn-based Boom Said Thunder, who’ve been active since the early ’10s. Their deep and heavy guitars share a similar sonic texture with fellow Brooklynites (and champions of the current noise rock scene) A Place To Bury Strangers. Most notably when their sound focuses primarily on the lower guitar strings. Those similarities end with female vocalist Abby Bickel, whose overall timbre is slightly reminiscent of Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries. The band’s two latest tracks, “Summer Twin” and “Carnivore” (streaming) were recorded at Converse Rubber Tracks, successfully merging a live-in-the-studio feel (frequent loose drum fills) with state-of-the-art sound quality. – Dave Cromwell

This artist submitted music for coverage here.

If you wonder why videos of summer in the big apple "feel" always so much better than summer itself, the answer is "NYC humidity:" cameras don’t capture its unberable stickiness. Therefore, we might as well say that what you see in the video of single "Breezy," by tropical-indie-pop band Scooter Island, is as good as NYC summer gets. The song’s mellow guitars, beachy percussions and casual vocal melodies will also enhance this experience… but if we were you, after enjoying this misleading protrayal of our city’s hottest season, we would get out of the house and revel in the gorgeous May weather (which is actually breezy), before the killer heat of the summer will force us in a (tight) air conditioned place for months… it’s just a few weeks away!

Jennie Vee is a rather – shall we say – glamorous looking  NYC musician and singer songwriter who plays a brand of dream pop that flirts with modern rock. The young lady is obviously good at getting into the right "circles" – apparently she’s become Courtney Love’s best friend, if not "muse" (whatever that may mean!), which led to the two touring together. Jennie released her debut EP ‘Die Alone‘ in 2014, and she recently unveiled this video for the cover of Echo and the Bunnymen’s legendary single "Lips Like Sugar." The song will be featured in Vee’s upcoming EP "Spying," due for a middle June release.

Some records have the ability to plunge the listener into some kind of alternate reality. Annique Monet‘s uber-psychedelic debut album ‘Phantom Letters‘ will do that to you. It took a few notes for opening track "Salt, Veruca," (streaming) to hypnotize us with its haunting beginning: a simple electric piano part, whistles, a fake horn section and a droney verse slowly led us towards a celestial chorus, which was quickly fogotten – for good – in favor of a baroque, droney outro. The following track ‘Voodoo‘, a grottesque and dissonant waltz, took us to a really weird (and scary) place: we saw the devil looking at us through the speakers, from Vienna. With a beautiful melody, the first few bars of "Nowhere"  brought back some hope for a return to light, but the song didn’t go anywhere – we should have expected it, considering the title. ‘Relapse‘ delivered another waltz – a more subtle one – but filled to the brim with eerie and decadent melancholy. From its plodding intro, Turtlenecks in July resurrected the ghost of The Beatles’ psychedelic pop, although sounding nothing like it, while in ‘52,’ Greek mermeids lured us with the most ghostly of lithanies, asking us to join them – and drown. The following two songs on the record kept this beautifully absurd, elusive dream going, with noteworthy track "Unchange" closing the collection.

Although we often praise structure in songwriting (many songs here would benefit from more of it), there’s very little structure in a dream – which is what this album is. In a scene that seems to have lost the imagination of its peak years, this is a record that will hopefully inspire other NYC artists to be more daring. You can catch Annique Monet live at Baby’s All Right on May 26.

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

This Friday May 22nd, Brooklyn’s Pavo Pavo will play their first ever show at Mercury Lounge. As heard on debut singles “Ran Ran Run”(streaming) and “Annie Hall,” the Yale-trained quintet offers spacious yet tight pop that is immediately pleasurable and continually intriguing. Their preference for mid tempo, fully arranged tunes enriched by lush vocal harmonies puts them on Grizzly Bear’s musical path, although this band is not afraid to take unexpected turns – like in Ran Ran Ran’s unpredictable bridge (minute 3.12). "Annie Hall" is a slower, soaring track that would find itself at home in a rock’n’roll opera’s bittersweet finale, and confirms the group’s remarkable musical sensibility. Cerebral and warm music like this is cause for excitement. The group’s debut album ‘Young Narrator’ in the Breakers is scheduled for release later this year. The band is scheduled to open for Deli favorite Lucius at Celebrate Brooklyn on 06.13, which is also a very good sign. – Zach Weg