Hayley Coupon is a young and soulful NYC based singer songwriter full of personality. Her sound, often piano driven, is decidedly melodic but features a dark and bluesy edge to it, in part reminiscent of early Fiona Apple. Her cover of nu-psych rock messiah Tame Impala’s single "Feels like We Only Go Backwords" – a song that got  her a fair amount of love on Soundcloud – showcases an open mindedmness that bodes well for the future. We are streaming her single "It’s Not" from upcoming EP "Do The Right Thing, Like You Said You Would," while "Bastille Day" premiered on The New York Times’ Lifestyle Magazine blog on November 5. She played Mercury Lounge last week, which is also a good sign, so fans of the genres should definitely keep an ear on her. You can check out last year’s EP "Remeberance" here.

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

From Jake Saunders’ report of Day 5 of the CMJ 2014 Music Marathon. " The first set I caught [at the Exploding in Sound unofficial CMJ show] was Rick Maguire of Pile‘s solo set.  Now Pile might be the king of all Exploding in Sound bands, having possibly been around the longest (don’t quote me on that; Aaron Maine of Porches might’ve been around longer going under many different names since settling on Porches). They’re a band whose live show has more soul and power than I’ve seen possibly ever.  A lot of that energy comes from Rick Maguire, whose songs are like daggers to the gut; honest and thought provoking, he’s got a presence on the stage that’s hard to match.  Pile is a band that has come a long way, and is a band worth researching because they bring something special out in people, take my word for it. ‘

From Jake Saunders report of Day 5 of the CMJ Music Marathon 2014: "Show Me The Body opened for Denzel Curry and Ratking at the Letter Racer/Mass Appeal showcase at Trans Pecos. I missed Geronimo!, Baked, Two Inch Astronaut and Krill as well as Roomrunner, all amazing bands worth looking into. It was a shit show, with two hundred drunk kids packed into the tiny venue where I’m used to seeing weird experimental acts play to an empty room.  My boys in Show me the Body killed it, conjuring the craziest mosh pit I’ve seen since Death Grips.  I say "seen" because I would have died or seriously injured myself had I participated.  SMTB has been pushing their limits further and further, with bassist Harlan Steed adding an immense amount of mass to the sound as he experiments further with looping and pedal mashing.  Keep an eye out for this band; they’ve certainly got a crafted image, but it never subtracts from the attention they pay to the music, always pushing things further, challenging their audience and enjoying themselves on stage.  And by the way, yes I am biased, having watched this band over the past five years or so evolve into what they’ve become, but now they’re getting props form bigger whigs than me.  I had a very firm realization at this show; SMTB is not "my" band anymore… they’ve got a fan base that doesn’t include the friends we grew up with. "

In their Facebook blog, NYC band Teen Commendements appreciates the fact that the folks at CMJ described their music as "Synth Pop to the extreme." Uhm, what’s with that electric guitar and that… wooden stick in the picture then? Well, I guess appearences can be misleading, because (besides the vocals) everything sounds drastically synthetic in these guys’ recordings, and very much 80s influenced too – by the way, I wonder if one day we’ll be able to say that an electronic pop band is influenced by music from a decade other than that one. To their credit though, they keep that era’s cheesiness under control. This sounds like a fun band to witness live, you can party with them at Mercury Lounge on November 11 with Lazer Cake and HITS – two bands we booked for our CMJ 2101 show.

It’s rare to find top notch musicians and producers giving their soul to a musical project that puts edge and experimentation before anything else. Such is Brooklyn band WOLVVES, formed by the Valleau triplets, who forge suspenseful (if not terrifying), noir, experimental electronic rock. We asked a few question to the knob fiddler in the band, producer/multi-instrumentalist Joshua Valleau.

Read WOLVVES’ Q&A about gear and recording.

Expectations for your mid-20s are fuzzy at best, and The Teen Age seem set upon doing what comes naturally. The band creates some of the best locally-sourced, fuzzed out garage rock (although brewed in Brooklyn basements), but what really sets them apart is an ability to seamlessly incorporate styles like doo-woop and surf punk into their sound. Buried under waves of reverb, The Teen Age write songs about an extended adolescence, told through experienced eye. Songs for, maybe not a lost generation, but definitely one waiting for that next band to sweep them off their feet.

– Read Emilio Herce’s interview with The Teen Age.
– See The Teen Age live at Pianos on November 11 and 18, and at Mercury Lounge on 11.24.

God bless the Cake Shop for having carved a performance space in Manhattan for all the DIY, Lo-Fi, garage and punk bands! The venerable LES venue just booked Brooklyn garage-pop quartet Trashbear for a four date November Monday residency that started this week and will continue until November 24. The band plays charming and well crafted, but nonetheless scruffy, pop songs, definitely the kind of chilled but fun music needed to improve the average New Yorker’s late fall Monday nights!

Brooklyn’s own Mesiko will be celebrating the release of their debut album "Solar Door" at Bowery Electric this coming Sunday (11.09). As you can hear from the preview single and opening track "Hamptons" (streaming below) the trio isn’t easily pigeonholeable under one genre, but it owes more to American traditional music than this song may make you think. Throughout the album, Mesiko’s effort to expand roots music’s sonic palette in a psychedelic direction is obvious, and this song – dominated by a dark funk bass line leading to unexpected openings – is no exception.

Born Cages serve their boombastic, anthemic electronic rock-pop with a side of indie attitude. The NYC band is getting a fair amount of attention, and you can certainly blame that on their music’s extreme catchciness. Listening to "Rolling Down the Hill" (the video, streaming below, just premiered on Yahoo Music), generates sudden thoughts of arenas packed with delirious fans, strobe lights and even… fireworks! – it almost sounds as if this song was avtually recorded in a packed arena! Only time will tell if Born Cages will get to play the most capacious of music venues , for now you can catch them at NYC’s Rockwood Music Hall’s Stage 2 on December 2.

From JPs report of Day 4 of the CMJ Music Marathon 2014: "After almost four days of running, and watching live music standing, I actually got to sit down to watch Johnnie Lee Jordan & the Boys‘ set, which was a crazy new concept for me (and almost felt like cheating). I surprisingly had a little time before they went on, so I shut my eyes and nodded off for a quick minute. I awoke to the first distorted licks to a cool, heavy Southern blues style of rock you would never have expected to come out of LI. Having grown up there, I know the vast majority of the Long Island music scene consists of metal bands, emo bands, and alternative weirdo bands. Not this. It started a little slow and heavy, almost desperate. Then it was like a flick switched, and I wasn’t drowsy anymore. What ensued was a most excellent modern variation of old school rockabilly and blues rock that made me question which state, and perhaps which decade I lived in. It was during their third song—a very slowed down, handsome sounding beat — that I thought to myself, “why aren’t there more bands doing this?” Honest love songs rocked gently, and sometimes not so gently, to their ladies of dedication, whoever they may be.

Gowanus, Brooklyn’s local punk rockers EndAnd (a band we booked for on of our CMJ shows two years ago) have been embracing the NYHC punk sound since 2011 while giving it a softer, more melodic edge – somewhat reminiscent of Nightbirds. The trio’s sound is defined by Daniel Fern’s incredibly thick and raw distorted guitar and  by his powerful pipes. They’ve just released a 6-track EP entitled "Fun Times with Shitty People" that was recorded in just 7 hours to really give it that live, underproduced, fuzzy punk-rock feel – but boy, it’s so tight and explosive you wouldn’t think so. The EP’s intro song ‘Art #1‘ is an unrelenting, tense sonic attack with interesting math moments and a chorus that’s borderline grunge, while second track "Choked On Beer" (streaming) follows a more standard (and fun) punk rock script.  The band currently doesn’t have any tour dates scheduled, but after coming off a recent performance at Skate Brooklyn Skate Shop on 10.4, some are likely to emerge so stay tuned! -Michael Haskoor (@Tweetskoor)

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

I repeatedly struggle to find exactly the right words to describe Blow Up Hollywood, a New York-based rock band with over twelve years of music making under their belt. Emerging in 2002 with a self-titled debut release, they’ve since proven to be unrestricted by genre, their listeners, and the pressures of the music industry. While they admit to finding the business a bit corrupt (as their name suggests), they continue to create in spite of it, equipped with a special kind of persistence that has helped them build a loyal fan base over the years. The band offers Steve Messina’s raw, uninhibited vocals atop sophisticated instrumentals, with each album taking shape entirely independent of the others. – Read Jillian Dooley’s interview with Blow Up Hollywood.