I’m just gonna say it right off the bat. The new album by Queen Kwong (aka Carré Kwong Callaway) under the title Couples Only (Sonic Ritual) is an instantly worthy entry into the pantheon of classic "divorce albums" seeing as how it takes elements from past divorce classics like the bittersweet melodicism of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, the sexy psychotherapy of Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear, the heartbroken lyricism of Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, and the harmony-laden fatalism of Richard and Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out The Lights and remakes them in Queen Kwong’s own image.

Because Couples Only doesn’t sound like any of those albums but it does take some of their broad contours and rearrange them into a modern sonic architecture like on the opening track “I Know Who You Are" which is a glitchy, twitchy, glam-damaged ride into the emotional heart of darkness that beats to a clattering, martial rhythm and a pulsating two-note bass groove overlaid with waves of fuzzed-out guitar and squealing feedback and withering dissses.

The next track “EMDR ATM” opens with hovering horror movie strings laying a tense foundation for layer after layer of sonic embellishment that builds to a crashing wave apex matched by lyrics that go from hushed epiphany (“you nearly had me convinced / that I am to blame for this shit”) to caustic taunt (“play your violin / say I’m a mean bitch”) to full-throated fury (“GIVE UP MY BABY AND THE HOMEWRECKER WON”) and it’s kinda like watching an A24-style situation-spinning-out-of-control movie unspooling in someone’s head.

But here’s the probably more relevant point of comparison when it comes to indie films and Queen Kwong’s album and that’s the quasi-"method acting" process undertaken to create Couples Only, quoting here from the press release: 

"Couples Only was entirely improvised and recorded on the spot—nothing was pre-written lyrically or musically. For three weeks, Carré and longtime producer Joe Cardamone (The Icarus Line) crafted about one song a day, which would eventually be whittled down to the final 11 songs. A primal scream of freestyled lyrics that contain the anger, fury, frustration, and sadness that was dealt to her in a quick succession of events that started with a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis in 2018, the dissolution of her marriage two months later that left her exiled with nothing but a suitcase and two guitars. “I was homeless for nearly a year, just living on friends’ sofas, and I’m still in the process of rebuilding my life," she says, “but it’s reassuring that we can survive things that feel unsurvivable.”

So, first of all, WOW, it’s no wonder this album is so full of rage and remorse and gallows humor but don’t worry Carré seems to be doing quite well now and speaking of gallows humor, the next track is a Leonard Cohen-esque number called “Sad Man” that takes satirical aim at the kind of aging hipster who may be prone to lamenting “I’m too old for this shit / paying rent by selling guitars / and DJing shitty bars” with no bigger ambition than being "another sad man in a sad band.” (blog reader, know thyself!)

The next number, "Death in Reverse," is dare I say the most sultry track on the album, in the vein of early Porthishead perhaps, that fills in some of the backstory of the still in-love lovers ("nothing was planned , nothing rehearsed / with the lights off it was death in reverse") while copping to some co-dependency ("we were floating / I felt complete / your chemical imbalance / balancing me")…

…and from there, dear reader, I’ll leave the rest up to you to explore but not before mentioned a couple interesting twists-and-turns like the Twin Peaks Season Four featured (one hopes!) “On The Run” and the major-key dream-pop closer “Without You, Whatever” and not before filling you in on the album’s musical personnel with Queen Kwong "assembling a notable cadre of contributing musician friends including the Cure’s Roger O’Donnell, Swans’ Kristof Hahn (lap steel), and Blood Red Shoes’ Laura-Mary Carter (backing vocals) who appear on assorted tracks, Carré worked closely with friends and allies, including Joe Cardamone of The Icarus Line, and Tchad Blake (Arctic Monkeys, Elvis Costello, Fiona Apple), who mixed the record." (Jason Lee)

photo by Akaer Studio

Having witnessed a couple live sets by the Brooklyn-based three-piece Pamphlets recently there’s one word that comes to mind to describe their songs and their stage presence and that word is “urgency” because here’s a band who instill every note and every syllable with an urgent sense of, well, urgency, that makes you feel like somehow you should be doing something about the desperate state of the world, or the desperate state of your soul, or heck maybe they’re just trying to remind you that you left the oven or the iron on at home. But whatever it is, it’s damn urgent and you better take care of that shit right away.

It’s a general vibe that’s very much in keeping with these urgent times, times equivalent to a dumpster fire being doused with a tanker trunk full of gasoline (expensive gasoline!) and Pamphlets are like the “End Is Nigh” street corner guy who thrusts a pamphlet into your hand where “every ounce of passion is calling for a reaction” and here I’m quoting from Pamphlet’s new single “Somehow” which is put across with a Gang of Four (Gang of Three!) level intensity and urgency by vocalist/guitarist Jeremy Marquez, bassist Ben Griffin, and rhythmatist Daniel Pemberton.

And hey I’m not even gonna try to interpret “Somehow”’s lyrics minus any input from the band because that’s beyond my pay grade but safe to say there’s plenty of intriguing lines about redlining and polished politicians and defiling palms and submissive gods and “taking medicine to ease myself from all of your relevance” which come across equally acerbic and anthemic as underlined by the spiky-as-a-porcupine postpunk sonics guaranteed to get your heart pumping even when they slow things down like on “Flowers.” 

So check it all out and then check out Pamphlets live if you’re able to cuz they’re really something in a setting where their livewire energy comes across most directly and luckily you’ve got two chances to do just that in the coming days since the three gents are slated to appear at Bushwick’s Hart Bar on Friday and then out on Rockaway Beach on Saturday as part of the Rock! Away! Summer Fest so get up and boogie down with urgency! (Jason Lee)

As this music-loving blogger’s birthday fast approaches I’m drawn to a couple songs—one new and one from 2017—both by Black Light Smoke, aka Jordan Lieb, a Chicago-to-New-York transplant who’s been billed elsewhere as a “producer, songwriter, and Daytime Emmy Award winning film and tv composer [who] spans house, techno, minimal synth and post punk” and yes I’m pretty sure this is the Deli’s first ever blog entry about a Daytime Emmy Award winner.

Staring with the older song first, “Take Me Out (Tonight)” which features Léah Lazonick on vocals, is something like a disco-nap-wet-dream built around a conversation between two horny dating-app bots that captures that perfect mix of anticipation and desperation that’s likely to spawn a memorable night out that you won’t remember in the morning. 

In other words, the perfect birthday song. And the remix by Cabaret Nocturne ups the ante further with a propulsive coldwave beat that’s something like the dead-eyed seductive stare of a vampire as she/he/it slowly caresses your neck whilst sizing up your carotid artery. So check it out, yo.

The newer song is “Work” and it’s the leadoff track from Black Light Smoke’s new EP of the same name. This one has more of a rigorous house music meets electro feel with no shortage of synthetic 808 hand claps and features the same Brooklyn-based Léah Lazonick mentioned above who sternly declames lines like “I don’t have time for other people’s shit / I don’t have time to listen to your DJ mix…get to bed wake up and work / keep the baby ‘cause I work” etc. etc.

And seeing as there’s nothing like a birthday to make one realize one needs to get one’s shit together (all due respect to Tommy Wiseau) "Work" actually feels just as B-Day appropriate as “Take Me Out” does if not more so. And so…now I must get back to work. But don’t worry I will find time to listen to your DJ mix/mixtape/new single/rock opera because that’s kinda my job. (Jason Lee)

photo by Bosheng Li

 More than once I’ve seen Beau’s music described as “cinematic” and it’s an apt descriptor but with their most recent clutch of singles they’ve upped the ante even further, moving past the merely cinematic all the way to being flat-out “Bondian” to the extent it wouldn’t be surprising to learn the duo is on a secret quest to get one of their songs placed as the oepning theme song of the next Secret Agent 007 opus…

…because their recent material is fully imbued with sense of the “epic grandeur” one expects from a good-quality James Bond theme (plus, Beau is likewise a single-syllable four-letter name starting with the letter ‘B’ so maybe this has been their game all along) with their three most recent single in particular starting off as slow-burning torch numbers before building and building to a point of emotional intensity that’s likely to tap into whatever’s caused your heart to ache lately or not so lately…

…but with any potential pain overlaid with an equally intense pleasure, given the duo’s way with a swooning, sultry hook like the one that arrives 37 seconds into “Even If You’re Gone,” before building up to an epic crescendo and riding off into the sunset with a final soaring chorus that easily outdoes any Bond theme written in the 21st century thus far so put that in your pipe and smoke it Adele, Billie, Alicia, Jack, Sam, Chris (RIP) and Madonna…

…and it’s the gosh dang truth that I just now googled the song title and came across a Beau profile posted just yesterday by American Songwriter focused on “Even If You’re Gone” in which Beau’s Emma Jenney (the other half to musical partner/childhood friend/fellow lifetime New Yorker Heather Golden) reveals that the song’s working title was “The James Bond Song” which is something I honest-to-Allah had no knowledge of before starting this writeup so hey I feel vindicated even if it means The Deli got scooped by another publication oh well…

…but my point stands that “Even If You’re Gone” is hardly the only wistful, pining, seductive, hyper-emotive, fetchingly melodic song addressed to a seemingly mysterious, elusive, magnetic, hypnotically alluring one-time loverman who may or may not prefer his martinis shaken, not stirred, the duo have put out lately—just listen to “Hardly Breathing” and, well, “Loverman” above, the latter of which is especially sublime and can be found on Beau’s Forever EP from earlier this year and later released in remixed form…

…and if you’re so inclined you can play Beau’s songs in tandem with the Bond opening credit sequences also handily posted above with the sound muted on the latter and tell me they don’t fit perfectly with the montages of silhouetted hotties and phallic gun barrels which is not to overlook that Beau’s own music videos which are already suitably cinematic with the video for EIYG in particular being an epic-in-its-own-right short film directed by one Alessandro Zoppis who even just by his name alone sounds like the next Albert Broccoli to me.

Beau’s next EP, Life Twice, comes out in September 2022. (Jason Lee)

pictured: 79.5

CLICK HERE to hear the brand new Deli playlist Bans Off Our Bodies and read on for more deets…

Over the past 1-3/4 years you may’ve noticed that yr humble musical servant and scribe, who happens to possess one Y chromosome. has been oft inclined to write about music featuring strong, uncompromising female voices (caveat: some of whom may not identify as female)…

…which is less by design and more b/c of all of the kickass indie/underground music routinely produced by those who are “marginalized” by entrenched power brokers due to whatever set of factors one of which of course being gender…

…factors such as the SCOTUS ruling on abortion which stripped roughly half the populace of bodily autonomy, a right to privacy, and a good measure of human dignity or at least attempted to do so…

…which is beyond infuriating and beyond this writer’s ability to fully comprehend in terms of the sheer horror show this must be for those most directly affected…

…and so as always I turn to music, which isn’t going to directly fix any of this but which at least is one of the best salves for trauma out there, not to mention a potent source of inspiration, a motivator for action, a path to understanding, a means to express fury and grief and all the feelings…

…ergo the 73-song playlist (over 40 of which have associated music videos, keep scrolling below!) which isn’t made up of “protest songs” per se (not mostly, anyway) but rather songs that could be helpful in the aforementioned ways. Or hell maybe you just need to rock out for 4 hours solid so please enjoy and thanks to all the brilliant musicians. (Jason Lee)

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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)  

photo by Yoshiki Murata

Eagle-eyed readers may remember how last June there was a Deli column re: the unofficially designated Official Song of the Summer™ (even if it was observed to be a “hackneyed premise” at the time, but hey we’re not above a little hackery) and thus you may be wondering why The Deli has yet to nominate any entries for Summer Song of 2022™ because summer officially starts in only four days and what are ya gonna listen to come 6/21 without our sage advice?

Ok, since you asked nicely (!) we’ll get you started because there’s a song that just came out today that happens to check off a good number of the requisite summer song boxes and that’s “Virgin Suicide” by Lizzie Donohue. 

 

But how is this song "summery" exactly you may ask? (good question!) For one thing, it opens with a sprightly drum beat, and sprightly drum beats have been associated with summer since at least the Summer of 1969. And then the bass guitar plays the notes one-by-one of a major triad, and major triads have been associated with summer since at least the Summer of 1963. And then, still just a few seconds in, the intro culminates with a spirited shriek, and shrieking has been associated with summer since at least the Summer of 1964.

So right from the start “Virgin Suicide” sets a beach blanket “let’s twist at the beach” vibe musically, but the opening stanza tells another story: “Oh sweet baby / you’re doubling down and going ‘round / I can’t take this roller coaster ride / little virgin suicide” and as Lizzie herself put it to us, “Sonically I love a song with dark lyrics and catchy, happy, dance-y music” which actually fits perfectly with the longstanding summer tradition of mixing the flavours—both the light and the dark, the sun and the shade—during the longest days of the years.

RIP Julee Cruise…

Case in point re: mixing the flavours: the book and the movie The Virgin Suicides which both in their own ways mix a sweet-as-apple-pie-hazy-lazy-languorously-sensual vibe with the tragedy of, well, virgins committing suicide—a book which Lizzie had self-reportedly been obsessed with since the age of 13 which is an important number symbolically in the book so isn’t that interesting? Also interesting is that none other than The Criterion Collection is putting out a deluxe edition of the movie on home video later this summer so hey I smell a cross-promotional tie-in opportunity for Miss Lizzie here just sayin’.

Clearly, neither the book nor the movie would work at all if they were set in the dead of winter, or any other season besides summer really, so isn’t that interesting too, but not nearly as interesting as drunk kids getting their kicks in the bathroom and your tongue getting so numb that you’ll talk to anyone to paraphrase from the lyrics. And to quote again from Ms. Donohue: “For me the story represents the fetisization and dehumanization of young girls—particularly sad young girls” and if someone doesn’t start a band called Sad Young Girls after reading this I shall be terribly disappointed. 

And would you like to know some backstory re: the creation of “Virgin Suicide”? Sure you would! Again, straight from the source: “I recorded the guitar and vocals in my bedroom. I really wanted that DIY Julien Casablancas tube-effect vocal sound. The bass and drums were done over at The Creamery in Brooklyn (shoutout to Quinn [McCarthy] who engineered) with Dylan Kelly and Jensen Meeker who played on the track.”

And finally, for this critic what really takes the cake (by the way Lizzie describes “Virgin Suicide” as being the musical equivalent of vanilla cake flavored ice cream but not equivalent to an (inevitably stale) ice cream cake) is the sweet vocal harmonies that come in near the song’s conclusion which is overall the song’s most summery quality in this writer’s humble opinion, and also adds extra oomph to the song’s concluding sentiment: “I don’t wanna die a little virgin suicide / and it might be rad / I just don’t think my mom and dad / would like to find me like that.” (Jason Lee)

photo by Michelle LoBianco

There’s a self-described “creative salad” take-out joint where I go to grab lunch sometimes when I’m working my day gig in midtown Manhattan (yes “The Deli” has a desk jockey job…so much for 24 hour rock ‘n’ roll hedonism!) and when I visited the other day and ordered my go-to order with spicy shredded chicken, warm grains, black beans, cotija cheese, avocado, scallions, tortilla chips, and marinated kale topped off with a drizzle of Mexican Goddess dressing I informed the “salad artisan” that while their menu is solid overall, this particular menu item is my fave and he sagely offered, “yeah, it just hits different” and I thought “wow, what an apt phrase for that certain je ne sais quoi that sets certain things apart in some difficult-to-articulate but undeniable manner whether it’s a salad or a sandwich or a song.” 

 
And so when I listen to the band Parlor Walls they remind me of this salad because their music just hits different in a way that’s hard to pin down—at once dread-inducing and ravishing—with pungent flavor notes like musically-marinated kale with cotija cheese and scallions as heard on their most recent EP Belly Up—an evocative title phrase that can mean either the act of sidling up to something appealing (“let’s belly up to the bar and enjoy a cold brewski”) or being in a state where one is hopelessly ruined or defeated (“my stock portfolio went belly up after the pork belly future market collapsed”) and it’s a paradoxical dynamic that’s perfectly apt for the band.

Belly Up opens up with a tune called “In Knots” (shot off, limb for limb / just another day when / belly up, belly up / eyes are peeking, through your hands / it is in knots, it is in knots) that sounds like a sweater or a mental state or a lifetime of accumulated inhibitions just about to unravel but somehow remaining precariously intact for the durations of three minutes at least, a song that opens (and closes) with a few seconds of mellifluous vocal harmonies before launching into a buzzy sub-bass drone backed by tribal tom-toms and the sound of a smoke alarm with low batteries overlaid with thick gelatinous guitar chords smeared across the song’s surfaces.

So maybe you see what I mean by just hitting differently but if you don’t just keep listening. The next track “Work!” combines an undulating melody line with woozy, seasick textures and the titular exclamation to create an upside-down rewrite of “Whistle While You Work” updated for the neoliberal workplace while “The Lock” is chill-out music for paranoiacs and “Hour After Hour” is the perfect dance soundtrack for those same paranoiacs after ingesting a decent dose of electrolytes and vitamin C and who knows what else. Which are all just my own subjective song interpretations of course because Parlor Walls are likely to hit everyone a little differently you see… (Jason Lee)

For fans of: Guerilla Toss, Spirit of the Beehive, Portishead’s Third

Parlor Walls are: Alyse Lamb: vox, guitar; Chris Mulligan: drums, samples; Andy Kinsey: bass, synth

Belly Up recorded at Marcata Studios & The Brick Theater; engineered and mixed by Kevin McMahon & Ernie Indradat

Upcoming live appearances: 6/23 Our Wicked Lady rooftop show
Live score for Nitehawk Cinema "First Nasty Women Feminist Shorts"
 

OK, quick question. Do you ever find yourself becoming so chemically imbalanced that you kind of accidentally push through to the other side and start role-playing and acting and presenting yourself kind of like an everyday, rational human being making everyday, rational human being decisions?

Hmm, yeah, you know…me neither! — Katie Ortiz

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As a pithy thesis statement for Debbie Dopamine’s debut single “Eat Cake” (released today!) the quote above really does take the cake, as it should since Katie Ortiz happens to be vocalist, guitarist, lyricist, and real world doppelgänger for Debbie Dopamine—both the persona and the band—which is exactly why I’ve opened with this quote and also quoted directly from Katie/Debbie throughout this piece (of cake!) taken from an interview provided exclusively to the Deli so “eat it!” other music blogs! (just joking, we love you other music blogs!)

KO/DD: Debbie has been a figment of my imagination for years. She is the part of me that embraces a cynical outlook on existence. She drags me down, but she does it so good. She’s your depressive episode personified in the internet age, sweet and sharply sour, wrapped in a dirty-bubblegum aesthetic. 

DELI: Much like Codeine, Morphine, and Viagra Boys, Debbie Dopamine perfectly embodies her/their chosen nom de drug on “Eat Cake” with its prowling palm-muted guitar and spectral piano and chiming arpeggios and tremulous single-note sustains, producing a frisson that’s not unlike the musical equivalent of goose bumps whether produced by pleasure or by anxiety or by both at the same time as reflected in the song’s lyrics which describe “making out with all the empty in my bed” and “making out with all the empty in my head” (hey, we’ve all been there!) not to mention “I’m not gonna pinch on my thighs anymore / I’m gonna eat the damn cake!” so there’s your pleasure/anxiety right there…

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KO/DD: I wrote the track in the midst of lockdown [lyrics quote: “I don’t even go outside anymore / what if I never come back] when I was discovering how much of my life until that point I had spent trying to avoid being alone with my thoughts. Depression can have this negative feedback loop where you feel so completely disconnected from the world that being around anyone feels uncomfortable, so you isolate yourself to get away from that feeling. But when you’re trapped alone with your most cynical thoughts, they play tricks on you.

DELI: And here’s the funny thing about dopamine is that even thought it’s a neurotransmitter known to produce a euphoric “natural high” that can be triggered by anything from a vigorous jog to vigorous nookie to, well, vigorous amounts of cake, it’s also a prime culprit in provoking the opposite of pleasure because, well, euphoria makes a person wanna come back for more and if mommy doesn’t get her medicine it can lead to all kinds of emotional issues (e.g., anxiety, insomnia, addiction, irritable bowel syndrome, etc.) and this is what’s know as “ironic” (pleasure = pain) so talk about yr mind playing tricks on ya…

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KO/DD: Zach [drummer Zach Rescignano] and I started workshopping and playing music together out of necessity. We were stuck at home unable to practice with our various bands or get any kind of catharsis or release through performing. It started as just that, an expression, and we slowly realized that we had something really special going. 

These songs had moments of aching fragility and cutting bleakness unlike either of us were exploring in our other projects. We knew we wanted to bring someone else in who was sensitive to that. I thought of Dylan [bassist Dylan LaPointe] because of his dynamic range with his other band, Tetchy. He was the perfect fit front he get-go, helping us tease out these nuances in the music. The three of us collaborated a great deal in the arrangement and development of these songs. I may have written them, but our collective fingerprints are all over them.

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DELI: Like all neurotransmitters, which are basically chemical messengers, the whole point of dopamine is to “get the balance right” (take it from me, I’m a doctor!) so when those little buggers aren’t working right you get a chemical imbalance in the brain which is what happens when your grey matter has either excessive or insufficient chemical transmitters. Likewise, assembling a new band is all about getting the balance right which is exactly what Katie describes above.

And here’s a little more info about the musical ingredients: Zach is the drummer for a band called Awful Din who self-describes as being “for fans of Lemuria, Saves The Day, Sebadoh, Remo Drive, The Get Up Kids, Prince Daddy & The Hyena” so we’re talking indie/alt rock with dashes of emo, pop-punk, and post-hardcore. (plus, Zach is a live sound engineer about town!) And as mentioned above, Dylan lends his snaky bass guitar lines to Tetchy—a band that self-describes as “very very loud and very very quiet” and of course you already know all about them already because you’ve memorized my review of their single “Backyard” from last December. (another Deli premiere!)

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And as for Katie, well, she plays in a band under the pithy moniker of Bats Bats Bats Ghost Ghost Ghost (formerly Mean Siders) whose live performances are like a torrid, mind-altering ritual along the lines of a snake-handling ceremony without the snake, performed by three very, very lapsed nuns and I’m looking forward to when these ladies put out a record cuz I’d love to debut that one too. And as if that’s not enough, Ms. Ortiz also keeps herself busy with her band booking/promotional collective Booked By Grandma alongside her partner Shannon Minor who’s also in B3G3.

Got it? Phew! So anyways put all these ingredients together and you’ve got the musical soufflé known as Debbie Dopamine.

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KO/DD: My mind is this unstable and magical place that I return to sequester myself in again and again. There’s something liberating (even relieving) about giving into its pull, but once I’m there, I’m terrified that I’ll never get out again. Because that’s what it tells me: this is the real you. That’s what the video is about. You might feel that it’s safest to stay inside, only to find that all your most persistent monsters are inside your own candy-colored mind.

As regards the rather cool music video for “Eat Cake” (dir. Jeanette D. Moses) I’ve just give a capsule listing of elements to expect if you haven’t watched it yet (warning: spoilers ahead!): whimsical domestic confinement anxiety, rolling across the floor, fainting couch, bunny ears, straight-jacket sleeves and a prescription pill-bottle crown (kinda surprised no googly eyes tho!) all culminating in a fun-looking house party show timed to the song’s climax as Katie sings: “If I’m going under that just fine / it’s my birthright I’m a water sign.” So from one water sign to another…The Deli says check it out! (Jason Lee)

photo by Cori Schimko

 

photo by Max Lakner

A confession: There are some nights where I’m forced awake with a start in the wee small hours by urgent question that sits helplessly in my cerebellum until the sleep paralysis lifts just enough for me to force the words from my tremulous, perspiring lips: “WHERE IS THIS GENERATION’S GREAT PUNK POETESS?!?!” and specifically a New York punk poetess (though the “New York part" is practically taken for granted) because, I mean, we can’t expect modern-day Romantic punk poetesses like Patti Smith and Lydia Lunch to live forever even though it’d be nice of course and true both of these esteemed poetesses are still out there recording and “kickin’ it with the kids” at live shows but nonetheless I can’t help but ceaselessly prowl this city’s dark streets and its dens of musical iniquity like a tortured Byronic hero seeking out the perfect Romantic punk poetess ideal like a vampire searching New York City’s back alleys for sources new blood with a frustrated but unrequited desire to settle the matter once and for all.

And that’s why I’m so delighted that my atheistic/aesthetic prayers have been answered because there’s a young artist out there who gives off more than a strong whiff of “punk poetess” and that’s Leah Hennessey (ok there’s at least a few others too but please I’m trying to stick with my original conceit here!) otherwise known as (in classic single moniker form!) “Hennessey” who’s also frontperson of the musical collective known as Hennessey and leave it to a punk poetess to mess around with ontological boundaries in this manner but hey I’m grateful because I’m terrible with names. And without a doubt Hennessey’s most recent release “Byron Is Dead” (a-ha!) certainly fits the Romantic punk poetess bill, an artist who self-admittedly writes songs about “the feeling of being a freak or a failure for holding on Romantic dreams of a poetic sort of life” and who admires the work of ’80s NYC punk poetess Cristina…jackpot!

“Byron Is Dead” (see the video at the top of this page and/or better yet LISTEN HERE) opens with a low, humming throb provided by bandmate/producer E.J. O’Hara over which Hennessey growls in a mesmerizing half-whisper: 

What are doing now? / sighing ensuant now / rhyming and wooing / half dirt, half demon / harlequin in uniform / masking and humming / guitaring and strumming / sound of the sleepless

And I’m hoping that I got at least 90% of the words right above but either way you get the idea. [n.b. I’ve since been informed that the one line is "signing and suing" but Hennessey complimented "ensuant" as "beautiful and archaic" and hey I know how to take a compliment and put it into my blog!!] Anyway it’s pretty heady stuff but equally visceral too—describing what sounds like Lord Byron himself rising from the grave and getting his seductive anti-hero groove on, all delivered with an implacable insouciance but 110% entrancing and alluring all the same and I think you’ve got most of your basic “punk poetess” boxes check off right there and that’s why Hennessey gives me hope for curing my night terrors or at the least providing a perfect soundtrack for them. Plus, apparently, she’s currently working on a dramatic presentation called “"Byron & Shelley: Illuminati Detectives" so there you go.

What’s more, the song “Byron Is Dead” was composed for, and in close conjunction with, Hedi Slimane who’s a big time fashion designer (according to GQ magazine “no other designer inspires this [much] ire, or excitement” which sounds pretty punk rock to me) in order to musically accompany the debut of his 2022 CELINE collection when it was unveiled in ol’ Gay Paree earlier this year (ergo the prowling models in the video above) and Hennessey had this to say about Slimane’s collection: “I love the billowing Byronic cloaks and the juxtaposition of the aggressively casual denim with the 18th-century environment and aristocratic detachment” and who in the world would say such a things except for a punk poetess, not to mention once who’s mastered the extremes of Romantic-style self-expression with vocals that range from a whisper to a scream and at least 50 shades in between, and plus Patti Smith is into high fashion too and both her and Lydia Lunch are indisputable fashion icons so there’s another box checked off I tell ya!

But don’t these take haut monde associations at face value either because, much like those other two aforementioned punk poetesses, Hennessey’s music has a strong component of social critique (final check box!) that ranges from astringent to subtle to playful, like on her single “Eight Men (Still Have All The Money)” (the former) as compared with the opening track of her HENNESSEY EP.01 extended-play from 2020 titled “Let’s Pretend (It’s the 80s)” as in “let’s act like we’ve got money” (the latter).

And really you should check out the entire EP with its four mini-symphonies of Romantic fervour—songs that range from being about being a user (“Use”) and about being used (“ No Transformation”) all culminating in the final track, an epic cover version of “We Will Not Be Lovers” which crosses the Waterboys with Donna Summer and Diamanda Galás, this being the track that led the fashion designer to dial up Leah and say “hey wanna fly out to Paris?” a meeting that must’ve been something like Lord Byron hanging out with Mary Shelly and we all know how that meetup resulted in nothing less than everyone’s favorite novel about “The Modern Prometheus” i.e. the destroyer (and potential preserver) of worlds with bolts in her neck. (Jason Lee)

 

photo by Andrew T. Jansen

P.E. doesn’t sound a whole heck of a lot like Public Enemy but they do make music “designed to fill your mind” with a unique assemblage of far-out sounds for in the in-crowd and deep grooves in heavy syrup, equal parts Chuck D cerebral and Flavor Flav flamboyant. In other words, this five-piece makes contemplative head music that still knows how to get your booty moving, mashing up dub, funk, ambient music, new wave and No Wave, into the musical equivalent of a potent 50-50 blend of indica and sativa strains of sonic reefer madness. 

And if you don’t believe me you can just check out their sophomore LP, The Leather Lemon, released on the always-compelling Greenpoint, Brooklyn-based Wharf Cat label, or check them out playing live tonight (06/05/22) at the also always-compelling Sultan Room appearing with Gold Dime and Personal Space, the latter of whom are celebrating the release of their Still Life EP (Good Eye Records).

And just in case you were wondering PE is made up of Jonathan Schenke (synths, beats, bass, percussion, voice, production), Veronica Torres (voice, lyrics), Jonny Campolo (piano, synths, bass, percussion, voice, artwork), Bob Jones (beats, samples, synths, bass, voice), and Benjamin Jaffe (saxophone, synths, voice), three of whom will be familiar to eagle-eyed readers as members of Pill and two of whom comprise the band Eaters (Pill + Eaters = Pill Eaters, hmmmm) ergo the snappy P.E. moniker and so The Deli says check it out, yo. (Jason Lee)

Recommended for fans of: Tom Tom Club, Liquid Liquid, ESG, MSG, Lydia Lunch, beat poetry,saxophones played outside on rain-slicked city streets reflecting the neon lights of nearby drinking establishments, Vangelis, Henri Matisse, Massive Attack, Portishead, ParquetCourts

Photo by Pooneh Ghana

01. The title BROKEN EQUIPMENT refers to the notion that “things that are broken reveal” (SOURCE) such as, for instance, physical pain revealing the need for bodily healing, civic upheavals revealing the widening fault lines of society, or glitching tech revealing the hidden SCHEMES behind their own SCHEMATICS, but where such “breakages” may lead one to “break away” from outmoded MODES OF BEING AND KNOWING alongside transformations in personal and collective consciousness. You can listen to BROKEN EQUIPMENT in its entirety on BANDCAMP or SPOTIFY or wherever records and tapes are sold.

02. On an episode of “Carpool Karaoke” that aired several year back hosted by late night funnyman JAMES GORDEN, the members of BODEGA addressed their long-running feud with TAYLOR SWIFT alongside allegations that BODEGA had poached several members of TAYLOR’s backup dancer troupe (MS. SWIFT if you’re nasty!) from her LAS VEGAS residency dates, which led to the band penning the hit song "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!" as heard on their debut LP ENDLESS SCROLL.

03. The first track on BODEGA’s BROKEN EQUIPMENT opens by name-checking KANYE WEST and JAY-Z’s WATCH THE THRONE but in homonym form (i.e., “watch the thrown!” as in watch out for all the s*** that gets thrown your way in today’s accelerated culture) in a song (“Thrown”) that’s basically about achieving self-actualization via consumer choice among other topics.

And the similarities don’t end there either because Broken Equipment just like Watch the Throne addresses themes of power and paranoia, disaster capitalism, entrepreneurial ambition (“Doers” equals “HAM”?), religion (“Statuette on the Console” equals “No Church in the Wild”?), and sexual politics (“Territorial Call of the Female” equals “She’s My Bitch”?) all put across with a TWITCHY MUSICAL INTENSITY and EJACULATORY SPRECHSTIMME VOCALS traded between two frontpersons.

04. Percussionist/vocalist NIKKI BELFIGLIO once triggered a news-cycle dominating scandal during a live appearance on MAD TV when she tore up a photo of GEORGE BURNS playing the part of GOD in the 1977 cinematic sensation OH GOD despite claims elsewhere that she holds a "certain reverence for the symbols of religion."

05. BODEGA grew out of an earlier band called BODEGA BAY that likewise featured co-frontpersons BEN HOZIE and the aforementioned NIKKI that released one full-length record titled OUR BRAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE (2017) whose title is a pretty great pisstake on indie rock piety while not denying its charms.

What’s more, Bodega Bay is a REAL PLACE best known as the setting for Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS, which is fitting since both BODEGA BAY and BODEGA were/are fixated on the porous boundaries between fact and fiction, reality and virtuality, art and commerce. Also, in addition to being a musician and songwriter BEN is also a real-world filmmaker and his films—such as 2020’s PVT CHAT starring JULIA FOX of Uncut Gems fame and guess what we have a second KANYE WEST CONNECTION—deal with many of the same themes as his songs.

06. The shortening of BODEGA BAY to BODEGA (alongside a lineup change that established a new creative approach based around a set of twelve musical commandments with one rule being “no references to garage rock”) is equally fitting because another of BODEGA’s major fixations is NEW YORK CITY itself.

Just listen to “NYC (DISAMBIGUATION)” if you don’t believe me with its nuanced depiction of the city’s past and present in all its dialectical complexity—both the land of immigrants and of craven opportunists—and truly there’s nothing more QUINTESSENTIALLY NYC than the CORNER BODEGA STORE. Thus BODEGA’s Broken Equipment provides a perfect soundtrack for picking up a package of Swishers, a dusty tin of cat food, a package of UTZ PICKLE CHIPS and maybe even some unregulated SEXUAL SUPPLEMENTS at 2:30 in the morning.

07. Anyone who’s seen BODEGA play live knows that they’re a juggernaut on stage and knows it’s impossible to pry one’s eyes from the interplay between “stand up percussionist” TAI LEE and NIKKI BELFIGLIO’s ferocious assaults on a hi-hat cymbal (no one in this band sits down!) tho’ it should be noted former percussionist Montana Simone is featured in the video below. When I caught BODEGA at MARKET HOTEL a few months before The Great Lockdown began (with SURFBORT and WEEPING ICON no less!) TAI somehow bloodied her nose early on and spent the rest of the set with the red stuff pouring down her face and turning her white tank top crimson whilst still pounding on her drums like a bloody banshee so that by the end of the show she resembled the female protagonist of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and it was a glorious thing.

08. BODEGA recruited current bassist ADAM SEE thanks to his role in a book club band members had formed to discuss heavy-duty philosophical texts whilst writing and recording Broken Equipment with some sample titles including Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, Between Past and Future by Hannah Arendt, and The Question Concerning Technology and Building Dwelling Thinking by Martin Heidegger.

The penultimate song on Broken Equipment is called “Seneca the Stoic” which applies the teachings of its namesake Roman philosopher to the life of a touring musician and truly if this song doesn’t make you wanna bop around your bedroom during its anything-but-stoic buildling-but-never-releasing cascading chord progression then I don’t know what will. And finally, after all the high-wire musical tension and philosophical ruminations of the preceding eleven tracks, Broken Equipment‘s album closer “After Jane” is a startlingly stripped-down, emotionally direct and quite touching tribute to BEN’s late mother.  

09. Broken Equipment was co-produced between the band and live mixer/producer/songwriter/friendly neighbor BOBBY LEWIS (formerly of TEENAGE OCTOPUS and MUSTARDMIND) who also has a recent production credit on KID LE CHAT‘s Hey Sunny. This is likewise the first BODEGA record to feature noted Baltimore-based “guitar maestro” DANIEL RYAN although he’s been playing with BODEGA live since 2019.

10. On June 10th and 11th Bodega opens for THE KILLS at BROOKLYN STEEL. And not for nothing THE KILLS formed in 2001 which is the very same year that THE KILLERS also formed but admittedly this writer prefers THE KILLS to that other band (sorry, BRANDON!) and I couldn’t really see BODEGA opening for THE KILLERS so let’s just hope BODEGA don’t get their wires crossed and end up opening for the wrong band.

11. The final “jaw-dropping fact which may surprise you” has more to do with your humble blogging correspondent than with BODEGA specifically but it’s still a "jaw-dropping fact which may surprise you" and hey I’m the one writing this damn listicle so I’m including it anyway. The first number of times I listened to the advance single “Doers” it totally sounded to me like BEN was singing, “This city’s made for the doers / the movers, shakers / helpful reviewers,” and I was so happy to be indirectly referenced in a cool BODEGA song that I was originally going to write about their new album the day it came out.

But then it turned out that the last line of the lyric above is actually “health food reviewers” and not “helpful reviewers” and ain’t that a kick in the head (guess I shoulda consulted the LYRIC SHEET!) so me being a typically petty, small-minded music blogger I waited a couple months to write about Broken Equipment despite its considerable quality and did it in the form of a FuzzBead piece like you have befeore you here even though I’m not a HEALTH FOOD REVIEWER. (JASON LEE)

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And now, with no further ado, here are the FIVE SIGNS THAT YOUR CAT MAY BE A WIZARD:

1) YOUR CAT keeps several HOUSE-ELVES as servants; 2) YOUR CAT fervently believes that OZZY OSBOURNE’s HARMONICA SKILLS are vastly underrated; 3) YOUR CAT advocates a SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE based around WATERY TARTS DISTRIBUTING SWORDS to future absolute rulers; 4) YOUR CAT is to this day upset that SELENA GOMEZ “wrecked her career” by breaking up with THE SCENE and donning a NEON-HUED BIKINI for HARMONY KORINE’s indie sleaze cinematic sensation SPRING BREAKERS; 5) YOUR CAT plays bass in a WIZARD ROCK BAND