Kudos to Here We Go Magic for this video they premiered on Biatchfork (that’s how we’ll start calling the Chicago site after they gave a miserable 6.8 to the best band in the world – Buke and Gass). Anyway, I think it’s the first musical video I see that tackles deeply disturbing issues like death, injury and… the (weird) cycle of life and death – that part is towards the end of the clip, don’t miss it! The band is currently touring Canada.

Jesse Malin, Queens-based singer/songwriter has a new album out, “Love It To Life,” and a new band, The St. Marks Social, by his side, just in time for a UK Tour beginning December 2. The new record’s single, “Burning the Bowery” embodies Malin’s classic rock roots, power chord-driven modulations, uplifting nature, and the Southern rock-twangs of his vocals. Standout track, “Disco Ghetto” is danceable and far from rundown. Joining Jesse Malin and his band on the tour across the pond will be A Million Years. These four Brooklynites’ debut full-length album, “Mischief Maker,” caught Jesse Malin’s ear with their tense harmonies, crisp guitars, and flowing vocals. Notable tracks include bubbly “By Yourself,” sultry “Suspicious,” and explosive “California Smile.” Jesse Malin and The St. Marks Social, and A Million Years play off each other gracefully, and the two will certainly leave the UK with a great impression of New York music. www.jessemalin.com www.myspace.com/amillionyearsmusic – Meijin Bruttomesso

Lo-Fi for choice well before the music became lo-fi with the advent of mp3s, under the pen name East River Pipe, F.M. Cornog has made six albums, all recorded and mixed entirely on a cheap multi-track mini-studio, with a bare minimum of outboard gear. These biting, ruminative micro-masterpieces, reminiscent of the more introspective works of Pavement and Robyn Hitchcock, have won Cornog much critical praise, but never fame and fortune. He has painted his America as a neon-lit wasteland filled with deluded losers, cheats, junkies, ultra-capitalist businessmen, freeway-roaming dreamers, and the tragically fated. "We Live in Rented Rooms", the new album scheduled for release in February 2011, continues Cornog’s journey into America’s dark-lands. It is a world that he has documented in minuscule detail since he first started recording in the early nineties, and one that he knows far too well. As a younger man, Cornog’s appetite for self-destruction was Dionysian. Alcohol, depression, and drugs landed him in the Hoboken train station, until Barbara Powers heard some of his songs, took him in, and provided him with the TASCAM mini-studio that would prove to be his new drug of choice.

In late September, Hurricane Bells released the Down Comes The Rain EP. Schiltz (also longtime front man for Longwave) wrote, recorded, played, and produced the EP entirely himself, this time with backing vocals from Hurricane Bells touring mainstay Ashen Keilyn (of Scout). Hurricane Bells are currently on the road in support of KT Tunstall through December 1st, when they will wrap up the tour with a hometown show at Terminal 5 in New York, NY. The band currently has a bunch of contests happening, including one offering a free pair of tickets to each show daily via Twitter and their Facebook page.

Like baseball and hot dogs or Hulk Hogan and steroids, some things are meant for each other. Brooklyn party rappers Das Racist and alt-hopper Homeboy Sandman prove their pairing is as natural as Texas and tacos on the jovial “I’m Up on That”, a three minute romp of free associative word play over jazzy production. “So Wesley Willis, but we’ll kill it on the charts,” quips Sandman, a comparison more apt than it sounds. Like prime Ghostface “I’m Up on That” manages to channel abstract imagery into a meaningful recording that even a casual listener can appreciate. Check out the song here. – Nick Haycock

Das Racist – Homeboy Sandman

Soft Circle started as a solo project of Hisham Bharoocha, the former drummer of experimental rock bands Lightning Bolt and Black Dice, recently became a duo with the addition of Ben Vida (Town and Country/Singer/Bird Show). Soft Circle’s new work is blissed-out minimal electronic music with sparse arrangements that would fit in with the catalog of Bharoocha’s former label, DFA. Earlier this month, Soft Circle released a new track, "Treading Water" a blast of electronic indie pop full of catchy synth loops and a beat so infectious that although the lyrics are about drowning it’s still incredibly danceable. The song is available on "Shore Obsessed", Soft Circle’s new album on the Post Present Medium label. You can also stream it down here. – Nick Haycock

Soft Circle – Treading Water.

This past summer recording engineer and Delicious Audio contributor Shane O’Connor took six bands of his choice into Monsterland Recording Studio in Brooklyn. Each band recorded one song in one day, and the result is Brooklyn Heat 2010, a compilation featuring up-and-coming Brooklyn acts Shark?, Quilty (top picture), Quiet Loudly, Little Racer, Magnetic Island (in the picture below) and GunFight! The compilation features no-frills indie rock that runs the gamut from rowdy rock n’ roll sing-alongs (Shark?’s “You Ignore Me” and GunFight!’s “I Would Be Your Man”), to dissonant and spacey pop (Quiet Loudly’s “Be My Baby Mama” and Quilty’s “In the Guts”), and infectious, angular post-punk (Magnetic Island’s “Shake the Fog” and Little Racer’s “On The Run”). According to O’Connor, the bands were chosen without a specific theme, but simply because they each offer “exciting live shows, [and] were willing to promote themselves in interesting ways, and were open to collaboration with other artists.” Each song on Brooklyn Heat 2010 compliments the next perfectly, providing for an undeniably fun and engaging listen. And yes, it’s free to download, so go grab these tracks right now.

What’s a fella to make of a band that’s described by one blog as being a "…haunting but sometimes playfully fun acoustic Nashville gothic band"? Huh? Whether you tastes run toward the dark and gothic or the happy and clappy, there seems to be something for everyone on this debut album by NYC’s Bobtown. So, are these collective folk a Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, you ask? Check out their site and make your own decision, but consensus would have it that they’re a little of both, as attested by a further examination of press blurbs on their Myspace page: "There is no band in town who sound like them. Mixing elements of country gospel, bluegrass and field hollers with an often macabre Nashville gothic tinge and soaring four-part harmonies…" (Lucid Culture, NYC); "Rich vocal harmonies and influences ranging from old-time gospel to pop combine to create a wonderfully original musical experience." (Muses, Muse, Atlanta); "…moody, rustic songs for the moonlit backroads" (NPR’s All Songs Considered Podcast); "Acoustic, Guthriesque American roots music complete with death references and chilling harmonies" (WMUH, Allentown); "If you’re looking for acoustic gothic-folk-americana kissed with gorgeous harmonies then look no further" (Americana UK).- (as posted in The Deli’s Open Blog – post your band’s entries, videos, and Mp3s here).

Devin Therriault is a Brooklyn based Rock’n’Roller who’s been getting some attention at CMJ 2010 (in particular from Brooklyn Vegan and a couple of UK publications), for his flamboyant stage presence and gritty sound inspired to the 50s. Which brings to mind that when we were all assuming a 90s revival was just about to happen, a bunch of cool artists decided it was time to look back at the 50s instead (Girls and Ava Luna are the 2 examples that come to mind). Honestly, I personally feel much happier about this than a "Nu-Grunge" wave…
Anyway, Devin seems to have the attitude and the songs to make an impact on the NYC scene, and he’s playing with two fantastic NYC bands (The Rassle and The So So Glos) tonight 11.26 at The Studio at Webster. If you are in town craving rock music, that’s the place to be.

Awesome video, awesome song, what else can you ask for? The band is The Death Set.

In constant motion between NYC and his hometown in Arizona, James Apollo touched back down in New York and sang us through the past weekend with shows at The Living Room and Sycamore. James recently released a new album entitled "Till Your Feet Blee" filled with intense rootsiness. As David Lynch is the master in defining interesting and odd film-making, James Apollo is channeling that same mysterious and eclectic style into his music. From gypsy to folk to jazz, Apollo entertains and captivates. – (as posted in The Deli’s Open Blog – post your band’s entries, videos, and Mp3s here).

Meeting in New York City in late 2005, the members of Bridges and Powerlines realized a common love for intricately arranged three-minute pop songs. After releasing the debut EP and touring extensively, in the last year the band has been recording their follow-up album ‘Eve’, which represents the culmination of their thoughts on life prior to the changes of September 11. With producer Kieran Kelley (known best for his work on Sufjan Stephens’ ‘Illinois’) and a host of guests including members of Antony and the Johnsons, indie troubadour Will Stratton, and even their friend Steven Harris of 80s arena-legends The Cult, the band spent 3 months painstakingly creating the record “they wanted to make their whole lives.” CD release party is scheduled at Pianos on January 14.

Stream the band’s song Mirabell.