Since releasing debut EP Flowerama this past summer, Brooklyn art rockers HNRY FLWR have been on a roll. The brainchild of songwriter David Van Witt just unveiled a second video for single “Little Brother” (streaming below). While the sound comes across as atmospheric and almost eerily otherworldly, the video is comprised entirely of home movie footage from David’s childhood. The song’s lyrical content reveals an introspective look at the cycle of violence and bullying learned at an early age. “Beating little brothers out of love. There is still a violence that I’m feeding. Compensating for the fear that I’m not tough. Finding tiny little brothers within you.” The video presents a poignant look at childhood innocence juxtaposed against the songs foreboding subject matter.  HNRY FLWR will open for glam-rockers Uni and Blame Candy at the Knitting Factory on 1/19. –Dave Cromwell

Snakeskin started off 2018 with the premiere of “Seize,” a mid-paced fuzz rocker that shows songwriter Shanna Polley embracing collaboration with a full band. It’s still following Polley’s previous path, with sprawling song structures letting her detailed lyricism carve a story, but “Seize” has continued her development from bedroom songwriter to searing rocker. The sizzling guitars and thumping drums build a heavy platform for her voice to stand upon as it gains new emphasis and power. You can catch Snakeskin at The Glove on January 26th alongside Bueno, Milk Dick, and Spowder. – Cameron Carr

 “Please pray before watching” is the disclaimer at the beginning of the music video for “Cocaine Rockstar”, released by rapper Pretty Blackkk. Super-slick flow and some clever rhymes make this track stand out from the crowd. The video itself is quite entertaining, featuring Mr. Blackkk on some sort of drugged out trip through the wilderness with mystical women and some kind of sword. “All I ask is please pray for my kidneys”.

-Mike Dranove

Stuyedeyed is an alternative worldview presented through noisy and loud psych-rock, led by Nelson Antonio Espinal’s exuberant blues-inflected vocals. Their music is grounded in the punk DIY scene and the NYC garage tradition, and their personal revolt against the disingenuous and the gentrified shines through with each howl of rage. With fuzzy layers so thick you can practically wrap yourself up in them, the Brooklyn-based band delivers a serious ’70s guitar rock feel and loads of lo-fi goodness. Our sister blog Delicious Audio managed to catch Nelson before their three week February tour to ask him a few question about gear.

With an appreciation for the jubilance of pop music and the willingness to explore new sounds that NYC is known for, in 2014 the city’s electronic musicians created music that could soundtrack all-night dance parties or pensive nights alone. Beshken captured that contrast best on For Time Is The Longest Distance Between Two People. The album migrates between spacious, simmering instrumental sections and buoyant, pulsing rave-ups. Overcoats played more heavily on thumping, dance-floor anthems with their debut album YOUNG, but lyrically the duo looked further than the party scene. Overcoats’ portrait of inner emotional struggles rivals the tact of many veteran pop songwriters. The electronic genre also took influence from the indie rock world. Guerilla Toss, featured on our cover this past fall, released GT Ultra, a mish-mash of post-punk, psychedelia, and electronica that’s near impossible to accurately categorize. Covering stuttering electronica in a dream pop-inspired haze, Blood Cultures’ Happy Birthday balanced the danceable with the moody. Perhaps not quite fitting into the electronic realm, Sneaks made a post-punky sophomore album using almost only a drum machine, bass guitar, and vocals to craft the expertly concise and individual It’s a Myth. To be fair, that album came out before Sneak’s Eva Moolchan moved to NYC, but since the band’s relocation we’ve proudly embraced them as our own. Belonging to the Electronic realm are also two NYC records we recently blogged about: Torres’ dark and mysterious Three Futures and Standing on the Corner‘s avant-hip hop masterpiece, and recent Deli NYC Record of the Month, Red Burns. – Cameron Carr

Torres‘ musical path could be used as an ideal example of what should happen to a musician who dares to move from Nashville to NYC – something she did in 2015, soon after releasing her sophomore album Sprinter. Her 2017 follow up, Three Futures, reveals a more daring artist with an uber-edgy sound that makes abundant use of synths and guitar pedals. The tracks share a claustrophobic atmosphere that seems like an unavoidable by-product of the transition from the big spaces of Music City to the "coziness" of the Big Apple. The labels took notice (the album was out on legendary 4AD), the critics applauded (Three Futures is one of the top-ranked albums on Metacritic.com with a score of 79) and the fans multiplied. And more recently, the UK newspaper The Guardian included the video for Skin (streaming below) in its Best of 2017 list. Since the release, Torres has been gigging non-stop in the US, Canada and Europe.

Dirty Bird’s latest single, "Towers," will catch you off-guard.  "Towers" is a juicy, upbeat indie folk tune with a striking, purposeful arrangement and stellar vocal harmonies. Melodically, instrumentally, and vocally, this band is getting everything right. The recording is so delightful that I’m intrigued to hear them bring their music to life on the stage. You can catch them live as part of the #WomenCrush NYC showcase, an organization that provides opportunities for rising female artists in the music industry, at Rockwood Music Hall on January 31st. –Geena Kloeppel

Sheetal Singh knows what it’s like to fall apart and have to pick up the pieces again. After her previous band—early 2000s San Francisco indie darlings The Stratford 4—fell apart, she returned to school and even started her own family. Now, she’s returned to music in the form of a new project called Forest Bees—an indie electronica act with intensely feminist overtures. Today, The Deli has the privilege of premiering the opening track “Independence Day” (streaming below) off of the forthcoming self-titled debut EP. The track explores Singh’s experience as a wife and as a woman, which are themes that reoccur throughout the rest of the EP. The rest of the record will be released on January 25th at The Hemlock. – Lilly Milman 

It’s hard to place a firm finger on Standing on the Corner’s latest album, a 60 minute, two-track release entitled Red Burns, but the record – which opens with warm crackling, synth-y harp strums, and omnipotent narration treated with the kind of vocal distortion that sounds as if your cassette’s brown tapes have melted – is wildly innovative, and strangely mesmerizing. The project, headed by Gio Escobar and Jasper Marsalis, a Crown Heights based duo armed with a jazz background and an interest in rap and electronica, is a response to recent political and nationwide events, chronicling them with the distinctive viewpoint of those facing direct oppression, but expressing them through a medium that is widely freeform and experimental. (Olivia Sisinni)

In a DIY scene that often acts as a caricature of angst, anger, and disinterest, indie folk pop duo Loveangelists are fighting back by killing with kindness. The duo, made up of songwriters Nathan Dennen and Lisa Young, specialize in light, melodic ballads about empowerment. They seek to uplift with their music, with lyrics about loving more openly and coming together to make change—a message that comes across through supple harmonies and acoustic riffs. The Oakland duo just kicked off 2018 with a show at Hotel Utah, and are planning on playing more live shows as the year unwinds. Their next booked show at the moment is on January 25th at Neck of the Woods. – Lilly Milman

Listen to our favorite track “Love Out Loud” below. 

Bethlehem Steel is loud. The band’s music commands the room with intensity and force. The group’s most recent album Party Naked Forever, released in November of 2017, brought that music to a new focus with tumbling fuzz rockers and stop-start rhythmic treats. It’s an album that successfully emphasizes the band’s tumultuous live power and serves as a persuasive argument for taking the time to catch the quartet on a stage. You’ll have that opportunity on January 17th when Bethlehem Steel headlines Silent Barn. – Cameron Carr

After a year spent battling vocal chord issues, Brooklyn artist Von Sell has returned with the R&B inflected electro-pop single “Hell No,” a hard-grooving debut for NYU’s Village Records. David Von Sell, the Hamburg, Germany native behind the project, sings with a soft and sly tone that contrasts the on-and-off pump of a dense electronica arrangement. The production shines on “Hell No,” so sleek it’s almost slippery with a thick snare-kick beat anchoring the rhythm down. It’s a marked improvement to his promising 2016 debut self-titled EP and an enticing preview of what we could expect from a new EP currently in progress by Von Sell. – Cameron Carr