New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
Thompson Springs have released a new single called "Save the Trouble". This is the group’s first single of 2022 after releasing three last year in follow-up to their 2020 debut album Undertones.
This is the Folk Rock of Matt Smith (guitar, vocals), Jacob Bicknase (drums, synthesizer, piano), David Thrift (bass guitar, vocals), Jeff Sullivan (electric guitar), and Anthony Cook (electric guitar).
The group will touring the Midwest all April and you can find all of their dates here.
When I first heard “Forget Me Not” on a radio show a couple weeks ago I immediately thought to myself “Wow, I never knew the Salsoul Orchestra cut a slinky, stripped-down, clavinet-led four minutes of funk with vocals by erotic thespian Andrea True and/or select members of Sister Sledge and/or select members of Silver Convention, with Johnny Pacheco from the Fania All Stars supplying some nice flutter tonguing on the flute (not a bad skill for any guy—or gal—to have ammirite ladies?) plus a groovy solo toward the end and really who doesn’t like a nice groovy flute solo and if you don’t like a nice groovy flute solo then I don’t want to know you until you seek therapy.” This is what I thought to myself.
So there where I thought I’d made quite the old school “deep cut” discovery it turns out, better yet, I’d discovered (random stumbled upon) an entirely new school of lush groovy funkitude that’s centered right here in the borough of Brooklyn NYC, with a significant assist by Loveland, Ohio-based Colemine Records, because “Forget Me Not” is the debut single by the Brooklyn-based-female-fronted-seven-piece-deep-friend-soul-combo-platter called Say She She—a group whose officially ensorsed alternate spelling is “C’est Chi-Chi” given that any perceived similarities between SSS and the disco era’s most legendary band or with the classic LP C’est Chic are probably not unwelcome, nor unfounded, as “Forget Me Not” amply checks off the elegant coquette box of that album’s “I Want Your Love” and next I’m eagerly awaiting SSS’s take on the “Le Freak” aesthetic.
Which isn’t to say that Say She She are mimics, more like the curators of a rich array of influences taken apart and reassembled. Along these lines “Forget Me Not” is what I’m guessing the “parallel universe ‘80s” would’ve sounded like if Jimmy Carter had been re-elected president and if a bunch of drunken meatheads hadn’t burned a pile of disco records on a baseball field and if the nation’s youth hadn’t been persuaded by Music Television to adopt synthesizers, parachute pants, and asymmetrical haircuts en masse.
But enough about alternative realities who the heck are Say She She exactly in real life? The tripartite vocal front is made up of one-time Londonite Piya Malik (79.5, El Michels Affair) whose great uncle was a prominent Bollywood music producer and who met Sabrina Mileo Cunningham (Denny Love) because the two were living in the same Lower East Side apartment building and heard each other singing through the walls and then once they joined up with Nya Parker Gazelle the vocal chemistry was complete.
On the instrumental side of things Say She She is comprised of the wah-wah stylings of electric guitarist Matty McDermott (Black Acid, Coyote, Nymph), the funky strutting keys of Mike Sarason (Combo Lulo), the finger-slapping phat bass tones of Preet Patel (The Frigtnrs, RIP Dan Klein), and the in-the-pocket drive of drummers Andy Bauer (Twin Shadow among many other projects) and Ben Borchers (The Shacks), and last but certainly not least the groovy flute of the multi-talented Mike Sarason (see above).
So if you’re feelin’ the vibe be sure to keep an eye peeled for Say She She’s next moves. And don’t be surprised if one of their next songs is in Hindi or if they come out with a debut album this summer full of more raw analogue slabs of sonically transmitted smooth funkitude which even though I’m trying is not quite as good a tongue-twister as the title of this piece. (Jason Lee)
Brontë Fall recently released the third single, "Beyond The Rain", from the forthcoming album, Winter, which is due out this Friday, March 4th.
This is the project of Chicago Native Teri Bracken who has released a series of single since the release of her debut album Silhouette Dances back in 2017.
Bracken will be performing for Sofar Sounds Chicago along with Katie Pederson and Grace Theisen tonight, March 1st in Logan Square.
Sonny Falls have released the lead single and opening track, "Wringing Out My Brain", from their forthcoming album, Stoned, Beethoven Blasting, which is due out on April 20th via Forged Artifacts.
This is the project lead by Ryan "Hoagie" Wesley Ensley and this is the follow-up to his 2020 sophomore album, All That Has Come Apart/Once Did Not Exist.
You can catch Sonny Falls on April 4th at Sleeping Village with Lightleak and Mol Sullivan.
Sports Boyfriend has released a new single called "Acrobatics". This is a beautifully intimate bedroom pop recording and the first new music from Eileen Peltier since her pair of 2021 singles, "Dollar Beer Night" and "Bluebell".
Photo by Miles Kalchik
Prog Rock group Avantist have released a new single called "Dead". This is the first new music from the group since 2020 and only second single since the release of their 2018 self-titled debut album.
Amira Jazeera has teamed up with local producer and rapper Papi Beatz for her latest single, "Nowhere To Run".
The full single is accompanied by remix from Stefan Ponce and the instrumental and acapella tracks.
This is the first new music from Jazeera since her 2020 single "Done".
The Lo-Fi Grunge duo Atheena recently released a new single called "Bipolars". We first heard "Bipolars" has part of their live performance at DZ Records back in December, but it is now seeing official release.
This is the work of Dominic Malgioglio (Guitar and Vocals) and Oscar Romo (Drums and Vocals).
You can catch Atheena on March 19th at Ashbary Coffee House (8695 Archer Ave in Willow Springs) with Pure Intention and Kill Jane.
Photo by Aidan Zamiri, styled by Tati Cotliar
The mesmerizingly winding road of Caroline Polachek’s musical trajectory had spanned far and wide—from writing haunted house music in Boulder, Colorado to co-founding the indie combo Chairlift and bestriding the Great-Early-21st-Century-Brooklyn-Psych-Pop-Rock Renaissance alongside the likes of MGMT, Yeasayer, and Grizzly Bear; from songwriting collabs with such obscure niche artists as Beyoncé, Solange, and Blood Orange to putting out solo albums under two separate alter egos (the Dario Argento-adjacent dark synthpop soundtracks of Ramona Lisa, and the electro-instrumental ambient drift of CEP); and finally, from her 2019 debut LP released under her own name called Pang to her two latest singles which together demonstrate that Ms. Polachek still has plenty of new musical highways and byways left to explore somehow.
The first of these two singles (“Bunny Is A Rider”) is a song about being “liberated by disappearance, about non-responding, about being unbeholden to anyone” which accounts for the refrain of Bunny is a rider / satellite can’t find her which is a fitting theme for our current Surveillance Age where freedom’s just another word for somewhere left to get lost—a theme mirrored sonically by the stark bassline-led Spaghetti Western musical textures, and their implied wide-open spaces, complete with pitter-pattering rhythms and high lonesome whistling and autotuned trilling and sampled infant cooing plus plenty of tape hiss and chicken scratch and synth swelling all of which makes going off the digital grid sound like escaping to a glitchy Wild West.
The second single, “Billions,” released earlier this month, likewise takes the listener to a place outside of normal experience or social surveillance—the title and the cosmic vibes of “Billions” can’t help but put this listener in a very Carl Sagan-esque headspace—a space comprised of delicately lurching reversed rhythms and skittering tablas that like raindrops dancing off rooftops plus celestial choirs and sub-bass and string arpeggiations and dramatic recitations and a breakdown section with what may possibly be a dilruba solo (but hey I’m no ethnomusicologist) not to mention Caroline’s majestically malleable voice swooping across multiple octave registers and multiple emotional registers and multiple digital manipulations across the song’s nearly five-minute kaleidoscopic arrangement.
In sum it’s a virtuosic arrangement and production and performance overall—with both singles co-written and co-produced by British producer/remixer/songwriter Danny L Harle, best known for his work with the pioneering PC Music collective and for his impressive resume of collaborations, including making Pang and seriously the collaborative work of Polachek & Harle so far is the closest upgraded-equivalent of Bjork and Nellee Hooper’s sublime mid-90s sides that I know of with “Billions” being their “Venus As A Boy” (extolling the virtues of a lover who lies like a sailor but…loves like a painter). The duo have a knack for not only crossing musical boundaries but also for pretty much melting them away entirely, with synthetic sounds rendered vivid and visceral and lifelike, while organic sounds often come off as extraterrestrial, in other words, a near-total meshing of human/physical and machine/technological that’s like “sexting sonnets / under the tables / tangled in cables” to quote Caroline herself.
Oh and the video for “Billions” is cool too just like most of Ms. Polachek’s video (see top of this page, co-directed by Matt Copson and Caroline herself) and after viewing it you’ll probably wanna go grape-picking-and-stomping and then order some cool crazy-straw-style wine glasses and an ornamental blown-glass funnel for bath-taking purposes but sorry no Paul Giamatti. (Jason Lee)
Bitchin’ Bajas has released a new single called "QUAKENBRÜCK" via the 7" singles series from the London label Duophonic Super 45s.
The physical vinyl edition of the sold out in minutes, but the digital version of the song and it’s dub remix b-side can be purchased here.
This is the project fronted by Cooper Crain of Cave who is joined by Dan Quinlivan and Rob Frye.
The trio released a full-length album called Switched On Ra via Drag City back in October.
You can catch Bitchin’ Bajas on March 5th at Empty Bottle with Ryley Walker.
Dreamer Isioma has the latest single and video, "Sunset Drive", from their brand new album, Goodnight Dreamer.
This is the fifth track from the album, and it features production from Saint Lewis along with live instrumentation from Brooklynn Skye (Bass), Dante Swan (Guitar), and Romello (Drums).
You can help Isioma celebrate the release of their album on March 5th at Cinecity (2439 W. 14th St).
Fresh off a nearly three year hiatus from performing in front of audiences, the Knocks arrived in Austin to perform as a funk/dance outlier in an otherwise EDM-dominated lineup at Illfest. The duo comprising the Knocks, Ben ‘B-roc’ Ruttner and James ‘JPatt’ Patterson, were comfortably sipping tequila out of red cups in their backstage camper trying to break into their old pre-show ritual when we sat down with them for a post-pandemic breakdown. The New York based master collaborators spoke on their much-delayed upcoming album, Nu Disco’s resurgence, their Indie-Pop beginnings and why the Knocks might be considered the ‘Nas of Disco’.
Interview by Lee Ackerley
It’s good to have you back in Austin! You came here a lot for SXSW, what do you like doing here?
JPatt:
I don’t know. I don’t think we really have a routine. We just come and kick it, honestly.
B-Roc:
Yeah. Austin, for us, used to be SXSW always, for years.
So a lot of barbecue.
JPatt:
Yeah.
B-Roc:
Yeah. And that’s very cliche I feel, but that was the thing, but we miss Southwest.
JPatt:
Seeing the homies.
B-Roc:
Yeah. Now we’ve got some homies down here. It feels like a lot of people have moved here from places like LA, and New York, and stuff. So we have a lot of transplant friends here.
B-Roc:
But this is our first festival since COVID, and even before COVID, we hadn’t played a festival
JPatt:
I don’t think we’ve ever played a festival here.
B-Roc:
In Austin? I don’t know. Yeah, other than SXSW
JPatt:
Other than SXSW.
I was going to say, have you guys forgot how to play live? It’s been a minute.
B-Roc:
We were just talking about that. It’s like our first time on a festival stage. It’s been so long.
JPatt:
We’re not going to be playing live though. We’re just DJing.
B-Roc:
Yeah. We’re just DJing.
So you’ve had a few DJ sets to tune up, but the tour’s this spring.
B-Roc:
Yeah.
JPatt:
Yeah.
Awesome. Is there anybody here that you’d look around that you’d like to see? I know it’s not your typical group.
B-Roc:
I saw Phantogram was on there, which I really like Phantogram. Besides that, it’s a lot of bass music, which is not totally our thing, more heavy stuff. So hopefully we’ll stick out a little bit by playing a little bit more funky and groovy stuff. It should be fun. But yeah, we’re just excited to just play a festival again. It’s been a while.
JPatt:
Yeah. It just feels good to be back.
B-Roc:
We were just saying, "We were nervous coming over here and it’s like our first time. It’s been so long." But then once you’re back in the trailer, you’ve got some tequila, the old feeling comes back.
JPatt:
Speaking of tequila…
You guys mentioned that, at one point, you wanted to be like the Neptunes, and mainly produce artists. If you had remained on that track, who do you think you’d be producing, or who would you want to produce today?
B-Roc:
That’s a good question.
JPatt:
Someone that isn’t out today. Probably some new artists that were…
B-Roc:
I don’t know. That’s a good question. The cool thing is that we started off wanting to do that, be more producers in the room with artists. And then we got sick of that game, because getting into it, it’s a lot of following the rules of "All right, we got this thing. We want it to sound like Britney Spears meets fucking whoever/whatever."
JPatt:
It’s a lot of call sheets.
B-Roc:
And it’s a lot of pitching stuff and getting let down, so that kind of turned us to "Let’s just make our own shit." And the goal always was, "Let’s make our own shit until those people that want pop songs and stuff come to us for the sound that they know from The Knocks," which has finally now been happening, which is cool. We did that Purple Disco song. We got a song with Kungs coming out that we did for him. So a lot of these other electronic artists are coming to us, whether it’s a collab, or just helping them with records and more pop stuff. We did the Carly Rae Jepsen song.
JPatt:
It’s a long road.
B-Roc:
Yeah, but it’s now that people… They come to us for us, and not try to get… You and 1000 other producers are going to pitch this song.
JPatt:
It’s a long game, but it’s worth it, because now people probably are like, "Oh, we want a song that sounds like that Knocks thing."
B-Roc:
Yeah. So it worked out for the best for sure, but now we’re definitely trying to get back into doing more of that, now that we’re getting older, and not trying to tour as much, and just trying to be in the studio more.
Are there any unknown artists you discovered during pandemic?
B-Roc:
I discovered one, yeah. A girl named Juliana Madrid. She’s actually a Texas local. She’s from Dallas and she’s 20 years old. Insanely talented singer/songwriter chick. So total different vibe, but that kept me very busy.
JPatt:
I didn’t discover anyone.
B-Roc:
We actually met her in Dallas at a show. She came to a Knocks show, was dragged by her friends and ended up… Found her on Instagram and kept in touch, and now signing a record deal and everything. So it’s cool.
Awesome. I know you’re into jazz fusion. You mentioned you’re getting into Tavares during pandemic. Have you geeked out…
B-Roc:
You’ve done your research.
JPatt:
I think the Tavares version of More Than A Woman’s better than the Bee Gee’s version.
That’s a hot take. So you guys recorded the new album two years ago and you’ve had two years to just pick at it and go through it. How’s that process been different?
B-Roc:
It’s been nice. It gives you more time to sit on stuff. Usually it would be like, "We got the single out. We got to finish the album and get it done." So you just commit, which is also something to be said about that, but being able to really live with something, not listen to it for three months and then open it back up and be like, "This is great for me, and change this."
JPatt:
And we got a chance to add new songs.
B-Roc:
Yeah, last minute we added a couple. I don’t know. It kind of makes us want to spend that much time on every album.
JPatt:
You realize guys like Nas take like seven years to put out an album.
B-Roc:
Because we’re basically Nas.
JPatt:
Because we’re Nas. We’re the Nas of disco.
I don’t know. Did you guys read that book? Meet Me in the Bathroom? It’s all about-
B-Roc:
I did, yeah.
JPatt:
Yeah.
If you guys had that group in New York, what groups or artists… I know Neon Gold would be heavily involved.
B-Roc:
Totally, yeah.
But who would be the interviews in your book?
B-Roc:
Oh, that’s a good question. We came in at the very tail end of that scene. I remember going to parties and seeing the Interpol guys and shit. But our scene was probably more the Neon Gold scene.
JPatt:
The Americans.
B-Roc:
It was a lot of the indie pop stuff, like Ellie Goulding.
JPatt:
Yeah, Ellie Goulding.
B-Roc:
Marina and the Diamonds.
JPatt:
Neon Indian.
B-Roc:
Yeah, that kind of whole… It was the bloghouse days.
JPatt:
Or French Horn Rebellion.
B-Roc:
Bag Raiders.
JPatt:
Those are still going.
They’re still going. I read that you’re doing a Cannons collab and a Cold War Kids collab.
B-Roc:
Yeah.
Any other artists that are popping up on the album?
B-Roc:
Donna Missal. I don’t know if you know her. She’s awesome. She’s on the next single. Who else we got in there? Another song with Powers, who was on our big song, Classic. And then Tee. That song already came out. I’m trying to think who else? We did a song with a guy from Coin, the band.
JPatt:
This is our first record without a rap [crosstalk 00:06:18] rap feature.
B-Roc:
Yeah, we always have a rapper.
JPatt:
We usually had Method Man, and Cam’ron, and Wyclef.
B-Roc:
We went back to our roots of more indie dance stuff. We feel like a lot of people right now, between Dua Lipa basically making a new disco album, and Doja Cat, all these people doing disco pop. It’s like, "Wait. We’ve been doing this for 10 years."
JPatt:
A lot of people are like, "Did you produce the new Dua song?" And we’re just-
B-Roc:
When that Dua song came out, I got so many text messages. So we’re like, "Let’s go back and do some of this, because this is our bread and butter." And I feel like for a while, we were almost too early on it. People weren’t ready for it, and now it’s top 40. So now it’s like, "Fuck. Now if we put this album out, people are going to think we’re chasing."
JPatt:
It’s good that our fans have been fans of us their whole lives, so they’re going to know.
B-Roc:
They’re going to know that we’re not jumping on the bandwagon.
JPatt:
They’ll educate the rest of the people.
B-Roc:
But it feels like our first album, in the sense that there’s a lot more features and there’s a lot of alternative features, which is cool.
Nu disco’s had waves throughout the years. Would you say there’s another renaissance now? Because you mentioned Dua Lipa kind of brought it back with Future Nostalgia.
B-Roc:
Yeah, I think that bloggy era is kind of coming back in general. Everything happens I feel like in 10 years, in cycles. But not only just the blog, not the disco stuff even. I think disco’s influence and stuff is just always going to be around. It just never goes away.
JPatt:
Disco is like funk. It’s never going to-
B-Roc:
Yeah, it’s very broad. But I do think that whole electroclash vibe is coming back. I don’t know if you heard that band, Wet Leg.
JPatt:
A lot of faster-
B-Roc:
Where it’s almost like Peaches or some shit, where it’s kind of talky-singy, and punky "yeah, yeah, yeahs" kind of thing, which I love and I’m excited for that. It’s like dance rock, which I’m really into, and our Cold War Kids song reminds me of that. It kind of sounds like a Rapture song or something. That was band was a huge one in New York for us.
JPatt:
Which is still bloghouse. It’s not bloghouse. It’s blog-era.
B-Roc:
Yeah. It was just that era of stuff that didn’t play on the radio, but was still big, and you had to know about it to know about it.
When you guys first started out, you were playing in a band for a guy named Samuel.
B-Roc:
Oh, wow. You went deep.
Whatever happened to Samuel? Didnt he help the Knocks get started.
B-Roc:
He’s in Mexico.
JPatt:
He’s in Guatemala.
B-Roc:
Guatemala, sorry. Yeah. He was actually staying at my house a couple months ago.
JPatt:
Just chilling. Same old fucking Sam.
B-Roc:
Yeah, he doesn’t make music anymore, but he’s actually a tattoo artist and visual artist.
JPatt:
Same old fucking Sam.
B-Roc:
One of the oldest, and we owe a lot to him.
JPatt:
Yeah, he’s the man.
B-Roc:
Finding him inspired us to lean into the pop music stuff and get better as producers, so it kind of broke up stuff. And it was our first time dealing with a major label. I was his manager when I was like 19 years old. We got him signed to Columbia Records. We had no idea what we were fucking doing. We went to LA and we’re like, "We made it!" And then he got dropped. So it was a great learning experience, the whole thing. It kind of prepared us for our career I think. Not to belittle his, but…
Absolutely. Is there anything about touring that you guys absolutely hate that you’re not looking forward to?
B-Roc:
I love that question. I could go on for a day.
JPatt:
Well, there’s touring and then there’s touring.
B-Roc:
I have a dog now, so it’s harder. I got a pandemic dog.
JPatt:
I don’t really love being away from home for that long. I don’t.
B-Roc:
We did a three-month-long tour with Justin Bieber.
JPatt:
I hated it by the end. I was just so sad.
B-Roc:
It was so long. We were in Europe on a bus for three months.
