THE DELI

Hauntingly lonely, Caroline Spence’s voice rambles on through the verses of “Hotel Amarillo” like a lost soul whose all but given up looking for comfort. “Pull on into the Hotel Amarillo with a bottle of wine” she sings, lamenting the lack of a lover to wake up next to; the whole song delivered as if from someone to whom drinking is their only refuge from anxiety.

The despair of the Charlottesville, VA singer-songwriter exudes pure Americana; a sultry but sad voice paired with a stripped-down rhythm section complete with slide guitar and a modestly snarling electric.

After raising eyebrows with her previous releases Trains Cry and Slow Dancer, Spence’s new album Spades and Roses delivers on the high expectations for this young and promising artist. Here’s the music video for “Hotel Amarillo” from Spades and Roses, set to be released on March 3rd.

-Written by Michael Dranove

The music of fr eg e lies somewhere along the crossroads of electro-soul and pop, but to rope them squarely into any set genre would likely be doing the band a disservice. Brooklyn-based by way of Mexico City, fr eg e melds smart pop-writing sensibilities with fickle rhythms and time signature shifts–crafting a dynamic sound that reflects the fractured spelling in the band’s moniker. The oftentimes near virtuosic playing, of course, alludes to the band’s jazz background, but what really make fr eg e stand out amidst seas of incredibly talented, technical players is the electro-flourishes that garnish their recordings. Their latest single, "Golden Ale Showers," is no exception to this formula, pitting angular instrumentals against buttery vocals to craft something uniquely striking, but also immediately accessible. You can catch fr eg e live at their next show on 3/7 at Drexler’s, but in the meantime, get your fr eg e fix by streaming their new single below.-Olivia Sisinni

 photo credit: Elise Swain

Cut Worms is the nom de plume of singer/songwriter/one-man-band Max Clarke, whose spate of releases between 2015 and 2016 transform the lead of past genres into new gold. See him (and his make-shift band) tonight at the Bowery Ballroom, where Cut Worms opens for critical darlings the Lemon Twigs. Back to the recordings: at first, the influences seem easy enough to pin down, as in the case of recent single "Don’t Want to Say Goodbye" (streaming). If it’s all Clarke in the studio, he should proceed to make a video of himself playing every member of Gerry and the Pacemakers on stage at the "Ed Sullivan Show," as musically and vocally he faithfully recreates the sound of like minded bands from that era. B-side "Like Going Down Sideways" is less melodic overall, but infinitely more complex. It starts out like an early seventies acoustic ballad (think Lobo or Rodriguez), then veers into a variety of directions—a sprinkling of Gram Parsons, a dash of the Everly Brothers—which suggest a rather deep knowledge of pop history, and an uncommon ability to write retro pop songs. Then there are the "Soft Boiled Demos, Pt. 1-8," an MP3 offering from mid-2016, which falls somewhere between a set of lost Buddy Holly demos and the more showy retroism of Ryan Adams. Single "Mad About You" is pure allegory: a walk down Broadway, with the wind in his hair, evinces the hidden order of the cosmos. We’ll have to wait and see what ultimately becomes of Cut Worms but for now, we can certainly enjoy his tracks, and let them transport us back to a time when pop songwriting was governed by different laws. – Brian Chidester