Brooklyn’s Animal Years released their debut album Sun Will Rise in 2013, then revealing the music video for their song “Forget What They’re Telling You” (streaming below) and opening for Robert Randolph and the Family Band the following year. Now prepping their sophomore effort, the roots rock trio led by singer/guitarist Mike McFadden will open for their artistic hero, the singer/songwriter Martin Sexton, at The Gramercy Theatre this Friday (5.1). – Zachary Weg
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Oh Honey unveils video for ‘Sugar, You’ + plays the Today Show + tours with Ingrid Michaelson
Things are looking good for super-poppy rootsy duo Oh Honey, a band we booked a couple of CMJs ago. After enjoying two EPs and a big single in 2014 ("Be Okay"), the band doesn’t seem interested in slowing down: their third EP "Wish You Were Here" – part of a series called "Postcards" – was released in late March, and just a few days ago they unveiled the video for single "Sugar, You" – streaming below, which gathered more than 50k plays on Youtube in just two days. That number is bound to go up quite a bit after they will be performing on TV at the Today Show on April 29. After that, they are surely looking forward to uplift the spirits of the US masses, while on tour with Ingrid Michaelson, in June.
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NYC band on the ries: Gospels
Admittedly, two years ago we totally missed NYC Gospels‘ noteworthy single "Animal Feelings," an atmospheric ballad full of intriguing textures and soulful vocal lines. In late 2014 the band released what appears to be their debut EP "Greenhouse," consistings of four catchy, well produced songs, blending electronic and acoustic sounds, and vaguely inspired to the electronic, radio friendly pop of the 80s. In opening track "Sleepwalkers" (streaming) we occasionally hear Peter Gabriel from the "So" years, blended with some of that jazzy pop critics of the decade used to call "sophisti-pop." Definitely a fine debut.
We added this song to The Deli’s playlist of Best songs by emerging NYC artists – check it out!
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The Cutting Room on 4.25: Experimental music, live visuals, and haircuts
Internet Radio show Culture Remixed and hairstyle team SUMO Hair are coming together this Saturday evening to present The Cutting Room, an intersection of avant garde music, real time visuals, and haircuts. Culture Remixed DJ/ Subsuelo VJ Julián Félix and seasoned hairstylist Nectali Duran provide an intimate setting for Angeleans to absorb new currents of sound in and around the Los Angeles area. For those feeling particularly adventurous or in need of a trim, Vidal Sassoon/Toni & Guy alumnus Nectali Duran can whip up a fresh look at the event.
Lounge around and take in the sounds of up-and-coming electronic acts. Lawrence Lindell and Gypsy Eyes of DIY art/music collective NoiseMetSound present their own interpretations of futurebeat along with IDM warrior Repeated Measures (New Los Angeles), ambient DJ/singer Lola la Showgirl (Space Circus), and abstract hip hop producer headband (Humble Weight). Experimental musicians/heavy scene contributors Kelly Coats and Kathleen Kim will also be performing a set as the eclectic SheKhan with a variety of instruments.
21+ / Free Admission
Check out footage from the first session below. – Ryan Mo
NYC
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Dirty Fences unveil video for “Judy Don’t Go” + announce sophomore album “Full Tramp”
Although NYC if filled with bands playing garage rock, few local acts pull it off as competently as Dirty Fences, who’s been refining this art since the beginning of this decade. The quartet just released a new video for "Judy (don’t go)," in which they have fun with the oldest form of dressing up (by the way, it’s amazing what a blonde wig can do, even to a man…). Look out for their sophomore album "Full Tramp," scheduled for a May 19 release. We are also digging the more psychedelic sounding opening track "Deep in Your Heart" (also streaming). You can check out two more preview songs here.
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Interview: (the) medicine theory
The Medicine Theory is an experimental rock music trio comprised of baritone guitarist Jeff Irvine, percussionist/vocalist Tyson Schroeder, and cellist Barbara Anndrea Arriaga-Delaney. The two-piece version, drums and guitar—formed in 2007—played a set at Harling’s Upstairs a couple weeks ago and chatted with me afterward.
Schroeder and Irvine met in various performing and visual arts classes during high school and soon began playing in punk/metal bands. A few years later, the two were playing in KC speed metal/punk band Methods of Man (1994-1997). After a few years, Schroeder decided to take a break from music. Soon after, Irvine moved to Philadelphia then Washington DC to pursue his degree. By 2000, Schroeder moved to Cape Cod to focus on painting while working and living at the newly opened museum estate of artist and author Edward Gorey.
“At that time,” said Schroeder, “I was done playing in bands. I was going to play, but only if I was having fun with it like I did when I was 18.” Then he visited Irvine in DC and fun ensued. “It was pretty much, let’s drink absinthe and make noises and record them,” said Schroeder. Irvine recalls, “We did that… quietly,” with his girlfriend, now wife, asleep in the next room.
The two had fun, stayed up all night and a few months later met again in Cape Cod. They set up a mini recording studio in one of the estates, Barns (no absinthe this time, just volume), and set about recording “everything we could,” said Irvine. “It was pretty much the beginning of this band,” recalls Schroeder. And it became the template for how the two would write music.
“We wanted to write like we did when we first started,” said Schroeder, “when we didn’t know what the fuck we were doing… anything goes.” After so many years playing off of each other, Irvine mentioned, “There’s a lot of instinct. Things just happen.” In late 2014 the two-piece became a trio thanks to cellist Arriaga-Delaney.
Schroeder’s percussion is deliberate and big. At times his style and sound somehow lean towards jazz-punk, all the while maintaining an unwavering weight and drive. His vocals expand and retract from the hushed tones of a madman mid-conversation to a shouting lunatic, depending on the story he’s telling or the character being brought to life. Schroeder and Irvine are both visual artists as well as musicians, and this lends nicely to the characters and stories created in their songwriting. Barreling through, over and around all of this is Irvine’s sonic-laced baritone. At times jagged and driving, at others melodic, almost adrift, it is evident he knows how to simply let a song—a story, unfold. Irvine played bass for a long time before picking up guitar and this can be heard in the reserve with which he attacks songs, holding down steady rhythms and flourishes as well as succinct leads.
The advent of Austin-based cellist Arriaga-Delaney started as an experiment on a few songs in 2014. By March 2015 the band had played a few shows together and were set to play the MidCoast Takeover stage at SXSW. “She wanted to just do 2 or 3 songs, like she’d done previously,” says Irvine. Schroeder notes, “But we both really liked what she was bringing to the table.” Irvine let Arriaga-Delaney in on a secret. “We’re going to do a full set with you.” The cellist agreed. “She showed to us that she really wanted to be a part of this.”
There were a few obstacles, though. Less than a week before the showcase, she had injured her hand and didn’t know the whole set list. But she toughed it out. “Six days in a row,” says Irvine. Schroeder recalls 4- to 6-hour rehearsals.
Arriaga-Delaney is a busy cellist. She played in a band calle And The Furies Say, as well as Reverend Glasseye, a Boston-based band that transplanted to Austin, where she got hooked up with them.” According to Schroeder, “She tours around a lot playing solo things, playing with other people. She’s definitely a free spirit—a gypsy lady.” Recently, she worked on a score for a film in real time. “She was out in the desert with them while they were filming it, just coming up with a soundtrack. They put her in the film but they were also recording her live.”
The effect of Arriaga-Delaney’s cello on The Medicine Theory’s sound is as subtle yet decisive. The arrangements haven’t changed but have grown. The mood and tone of songs has shifted. The modicum of levity in Schroeder’s vocal attack has decreased with the infusion of the cello, while the stark melancholy has increased. “Covered Bridge” shifts from dark yet driven to stoic, moody, and downright estranged. The song “Timmy,” a twisted fun house take on a very dark subject matter, maintains a sense of levity. But as Irvine and Schroeder romp through the song, Arriaga-Delaney casually creates a sense of foreboding that wasn’t there before. Like smoke slowly filling a room.
Putting a finger on the sound this trio is creating is maddening, impossible, and unnecessary. Comparisons to other groups don’t quite fit. The sound is uniquely their own, and that is the intention.
–Chris Nielsen
The Medicine Theory plays at The Riot Room on Sunday, April 26, with Ides of Gemini, Sedlec Ossuary, and The Last Glacier. Facebook event page.
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Delicious Audio Q&A with Howard about inspiration, gear and recording
Howard is a Brooklyn band that plays an atmospheric brand of melodic post-rock (although the band, on their Facebook page, refers to it as “Folktronica”), where gentle textural experiments, synths, samples, varying percussive elements and electric guitars blend effortlessly, guided by the mellow tenor of singer songwriter/producer Howard Feibusch. The band has been active since 2009 in various forms, and lately came to the indie rock audience’s attention through single “Money Can’t Buy,", which early in 2015 gathered more than 2 million plays on Spotify in a matter of weeks. We asked Howard Feibusch a few questions hoping to steal some of his secrets in our Delicious Audio Interview about gear, recording and inspiration.
We added this song to The Deli’s playlist of Best mellow songs by emerging NYC artists – check it out!
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Seattle Deli’s Artist of the Month: Cabana
You just found your mom’s mushroom hoard so naturally you steal them, because you don’t really want your mother to be doing mushrooms for fear that she’ll have a bad trip and make you clean your room, even though you’re 28 years old and she really has no authority over you anymore. So you ingest the dang things, choking them down all the way because they’ve been stored next to a bottle of patchouli, and you wait. In the meantime you put on Eric’s Trip and wonder why bands can’t be this good anymore.
All of the sudden you find yourself online, on shrooms, (because it’s 2015 and we don’t go outside anymore) and you start reading the Seattle Deli. You take one look at the banner at the top and you’re all like “who the fuck is Cabana?” So you take a chance and click through. Suddenly, you are sucked into this new ecosystem we’re calling bandcamp, where bands are kings, queens and denizens alike. Where musical theory is the only law and even it can be broken at any moment, and nationwide healthcare means listening binaural beats and a Shepard’s tone.
Meanwhile Eric’s Trip has stopped, but just as suddenly as you clicked through a new song begun -It’s not Eric’s Trip, nor is it the Smashing Pumpkins; it’s not Galaxie 500 either! Your eyes have become deaf and your ears are blind to anything other than this and you’ve become consumed by the new sound that surrounds you: Cabana! And what a glorious sound it is! The guitars are as fuzzy as they are clear, while the vocals make a child of the 90’s want to crawl back into the womb and be reborn so that they can hear those classic songs for the first time again. Thanks to Cabana though we don’t have to do that because they have taken us directly to the 90’s, passing through the Paisley Underground and picking up Jason Spaceman along the way, all while we sit comfortably at home drooling into our macbook retinas.
Blame it on the mushrooms, or blame it on technology, either way if you hadn’t been guided by voices you may have never discovered Cabana. So, thank you oh! Great deities of the Dream Syndicate, for you have guided mine ears to thine great auditory shelter from the coldness of the future of music: ALL HAIL CABANA.
NYC
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NJ’s slack rockers Pinegrove play Palisades tomnorrow (04.24)
Hailing from Montclair, NJ, electric quartet Pinegrove emanates a sound inextricably linked to the lazy tunes produced by the slacker rock bands of the ’90s, but still absolutely original and compelling. The band has been around since the late aughts, releasing since then a series of album and mixtapes that showcase original songwriting and deep understanding of dynamics, like in our favorite track "Namesake" (streaming below). You’ll get a chance to see them live at Palisades tomorrow (04.24).
We added this song to The Deli’s playlist of Best songs by emerging NYC artists – check it out!
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NYC artists on the rise: Chancius
Brooklyn’s own Chancius Drzewuck is a guy who keeps at it, and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty – specifically, on the platforms of the NYC subway, busking. After years of struggling with his early solo releases and with his previous band Automatic Duo, the man seems to be finding his own audience, after gathering a series of positive reviews and interest for his new project simply called Chancius, which mixes new wave sensibility with his rather dead pan vocals, partly reminiscent of early Brian Eno. His latest and second release, entitled "Bando," came out about a year ago, and it’s filled with gentle songs full of peculiar melodies and early ’80s attitude. Check out the record’s opener "Hold On."
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Doomgazers Crisis Arm performing at The Echo with Creepers, Dirt Dress on 4.26
Crisis Arm is really loud. I saw them at a house show once. Everyone who didn’t wear earplugs seemed to be thrown into a stupor. The ones who did had trouble getting to the door. The sound guy broke down in tears. It was beautiful.
This homegrown fuzz outfit from Riverside County has been responsible for widening fault lines and caving in cochleas since 2009. Most of the members live and raise 10 cats together in Hemet, and share a strong love for anime and video games; RPG fans might trace their name to a weapon in the legendary Square title Chrono Trigger. The band’s humble beginnings eventually lead to underground acclaim with their 2014 LP Rend (via Mayfly Records): a collection of diffuse, lo-fi dreamscapes that merged sounds of My Bloody Valentine, loveliescrushing, and Spacemen 3. On stage, Crisis Arm roars with the strength of several fullstack amps, channeling their melancholic guitars through infinite muff and reverb pedals. In the past several years, Crisis Arm has played out DIY shows like the Blood Orange Infoshop (Riverside), dA Center For The Arts (Pomona), Dynamite Vinyl (Fresno), and White Oak Music and Arts (Van Nuys).
Crisis Arm will be touring California for the next few weeks with their other half, San Francisco punk/gaze project Airs. This Sunday, they’re playing a Part Time Punks show at The Echo with Creepers, a psychgaze band cofounded by members of Deafheaven, and veteran LA psych/post-punkers Dirt Dress ($8a/$10d). Listen below to "resemblance," the first song off Rend. – Ryan Mo
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The Clox releases exotic single “Lullaby” + plays Rough Trade on 04.25
Change is one of the secrets of inspirations. That’s definitely something Brooklyn band (via eastern Europe) The Clox knows, considering how different and how inspired their newest single "Lullaby" sounds. While their previous releases offered a sound landing somewhere between alt rock and new wave, "Lullaby" welcomes music influences that sound Arabic to us (we are not expert in the field), and absorbs them in a western electronic rock setting. You can see the trio live at Rough Trade on Saturday April 25th.