South Brooklyn band One Ring Zero know their food – and their celebrities. The orchestral pop duo emerged in 2006 after releasing "As Smart As We Are", a CD featuring original music and lyrics by top novelists including Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Dave Eggers and Jonathan Ames amongst others. The new album takes a similar approach, but replacing authors with top chefs in the lyrics department – isn’t good food a little like poetry after all? One Ring Zero asked David Chang, Chris Cosentino, Mario Batali, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Michael Symon, Mark Kurlansky, and many more chefs for (yummy) recipes. These were then set to music and sung WORD FOR WORD – musical styles suggested by the chef. Here’s a vegan recipe/song called "Peanut Butter Brunettes" by chef Isa Chandra Moskowitz, featuring ex Throwing Muses and Belly heroine Tanya Donelly’s vocals. The CD/book release party will be at the Brooklyn Kitchen on 11.03.

Forest Fire, who played our flagship CMJ show at Pianos on 10.20 with Caveman and The Stepkids among others, just premiered this fun video for the song "The News", the first single from the band’s sophomore album (the first one released under FatCat’s wing) "Staring at the X". The more we listen to these guys the more we think about Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Lou Reed, bathing in a 2010 musical context – this song is particularly reminiscent of the first two on the list. That cannot possibly be a bad thing…

The New York based trio, The Happy Problem, perpetuates the intensity and drive of punk, adding their own gritty and graceful elements on their full-length record, “Head Case.” Aptly depicted by loony clown cover art, the album features a tinge of circus kookiness combined with Sam Shaber’s compelling, heartfelt-meet-heated vocals, slamming drums, and gripping guitars. Not a stereotypical punk album, The Happy Problem place greater emphasis on melody over momentum. Highlight tracks, opener, “Curvature,” frantic “Matador,” softer- edged “The Prettiest Girl,” straight ahead rock title tune, “Head Case,” flowing “Seaweed,” metal-inspired “Wizard,” and heavier rendition of Petula Clark’s “Downtown,” demonstrate that THP cannot be confined to one type of rock. On Thursday, November 3, The Happy Problem will take on IndiePunk Night at the Delancey at 9pm. – Meijin Bruttomesso

We were sorry to lose Emil & Friends from our CMJ bill at The Delancey on October 22 – the show run very late and the band had another show in Brooklyn at like 2 am. The band just released this new video that serves TWO songs ("Let Your Heart / Prescriptions") and will celebrate their CD release party at Lorelay on November 2nd. – read a Deli interview with the band here.

We are often reluctant to publish videos of live bands on the site – they look all the same and tend to sound awful – but we’ll gladly make an exception for Octant, the inimitable Brooklyn based one man + mechanical orchestra. Here’s a video shot (by breakthroughradio.com) at one of the coolest far flung Brooklyn venues – Ditmas Park’s Sycamore, which doubles as a flower shop during the day.

Started by Todd Goldstein a few years ago as a folky solo act after the disbanding of his previous project The Harlem Shakes, ARMS has slowly morphed into a new animal: now a quartet, the band offers elegant, supple pop that feeds itself with a variety of influences and musical ingredients. The first single "fleeced" (streaming here) reveals this transformation: tense electric guitar riffs blend with angular drums and an electronic bass line, while lead vocals and lavish harmonies sing a slippery melody drenched in reverb. This lush psych-prog approach to folk-pop should satisfy those waiting for new Grizzly Bear and Rufus Wainwright releases. Don’t miss the band’s CD release party at Glasslands on November 11.

Brooklyn folky quartet A Locomotive will be releasing their debut CD at Mercury Lounge on November 22nd, and even though their spanking new Facebook account only has 12 "likes", this doesn’t mean they just formed. Recording this album took them 3 years, but from what we are hearing it was worth the effort. The embedded song "Traveling", an intimate and sparse alt-folk ballad that lazily builds in intensity, is contributing to cure our CMJtis (stress induced disease suffered by music industry people after attending the CMJ Music Marathon – similar to SXSW-itis), and other mellow folk-pop gem found on their myspace profile confirm consistent songwriting output and a noteworthy talent for harmonized backing vocals.

NYC based "Hip Hopper" Mag was one of the artists to win a Sesac’s search for the best emerging local artists. As a result he played Webster Hall in the Marlin Room as part of the CMJ Music Marathon together with the other winners, including Little Devil, Headless Horsemen, and Tayisha Busay.

A refreshing change of pace from some of CMJ’s more brawny, electro collectives, Mitten’s more elegant style has been compared to Au Revoir Simone and The Postal Service, who the band themselves cite as a major influence. Their arrangements are neat and chic, with programmed beats, pretty melodies, sweet vocals, twisted guitar licks and various other toys and treats rounding out their sound. Singer Maia Macdonald and producer Joanna Katcher formed under the Mitten moniker in 2009, beginning a process of songwriting via email that led to their debut EP "See You Bye" earlier this year. With all six tracks on that release so fully realized, it’s hard to believe Mitten are a band still very much making their way in the indie world. But chatting to both members, it’s clear they can’t hide their wide-eyed excitement about their fledgling career. – Read Dean Van Nguyen’s interview with the band here.

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a band that can fill you with energetic, upbeat music that you can’t help but move to, and that’s exactly what Ursa Minor provides. Fronted by power vocalist Michelle Casillas and rounded out with a rock star band consisting of Tony Scherr, Rob Jost and Robert DiPietro, the music of Ursa Minor is full of catchy riffs, bold pop rock vocals, and good-fashioned attitude to fill your inner rock n’roll spirit. Their most recent album, “Showface” hit the market running, feeding their fans with new music that was a long-awaited follow up to their 2003 debut. With a healthy mix of sultry, sharp melodies and consistently strong rhythms, Ursa Minor is quickly climbing the ranks as a mainstay band in the indie pop rock scene. – Read Christina Morelli’s Q&A with the band here.

I like dancing. I play and promote a wildly disputed genre of music wherein dancing’s the elephant in the room unless somebody snaps and starts writhing on the floor next to the stage with their shirt pulled over their head, obscuring their glasses. In the experimental stratosphere there are freaks, nerds, theatre expats, guitar teachers aplenty, with Europeans formally delegating from the top of the pile like meringue on pie…but there is no dancing. Unless the dancers are part of the performance and also double as throat singers.
Cracked Vessel makes people dance. I’ve seen it at least thrice. They urge the geeks into jumping and make even the most overdressed oyster-sipping upper-crust civilian wish they had a hula hoop.
Ben Syversen (trumpet, tunes), Xander Naylor (guitar), Jeremy Gustin (drums). Somewhere in the range of fractured balkan hardcore miasmatic sublime dissonant jazz like if Godspeed You Black Emperor played itself out on double speed over three sets of speakers simultaneously, just out of synch enough to make the white noise in your head spill out your eyes and nose and into your seltzer/beer (which you must set down because it is time to dance at this gallery space, 9 out of 10 high school geometry teachers agree). – Valerie Kuehne