Even though the L Magazine seems to take every opportunity to ignore The Deli (should we take it personally?), we are not the resentful kind and stick to our mission to do whatever it takes to give deserving local bands some exposure. If this means amplifying the visibility of artists highlighted by a publication that doesn’t like us, so be it!
Every year I am truly amazed by the fact that the L Mag manages to find a bunch of very good local bands we haven’t covered yet – The Deli gives exposure to an average of 20+ NYC based emerging artists per week, but it’s obviously not enough to deal with all the friggin’ wonderful bands out there. The yearly L feature always triggers our curiosity – mostly for bands from the list that we have not yet covered (typically about half of them).
Slowdance (pictured above) play rather laid back semi-synth-pop (yeah because there is sitll a rhythm guitar in there) with that cool almost-epic Morriconian feel to it. The real star here is front lady Quay. Her sultry but in your face vocals combined with her talent for original melodies could take this band far. Oh, and she also sings some tracks in French for an added "cool" factor.
Yellow Ostrich is a band we recently nominated for our poll but for some reason never came around to write about. They play a very interesting sparse and progressive kind of rootsy music (when we say progressive we mean it in a good way). Think about a mellower version of White Rabbits’ solid reinterpretation of blues and folk mixed with Animal Collective’s eclectic vocal arrangements and african influences.
Family Trees could be described as an acoustic, folky version of the "Chill Wave" trend started by bands like Woods and Real Estate. These guys add a good measure of exotic influences to the mix, which makes their sound refreshing and quite unique in the NYC scene. Unpretentious and chilled to the extreme, this is escapist music – did they really write these tracks here in NYC? Close your eyes and – as if by magic – a beach will appear . We can definitely see some value in that.
Grand Rapids (picture below) confirms the impression that somebody at the L mag is a huge Pavement fan – this band’s catchy melodies, casual attitude and twangy arrangements make them sound like a rootsier version of Stephen Malkumus’ ground breaking act. Probably L exaggerates when it says that their sound is "as defiant as it gets", but these guys’ charm is undeniable.
The other 4 artists featured in the L’s feature are Devin Therriault, Radical Dads, Mainland and Luke Rathborne.