Bowmont ended up on our CMJ 2014 Electronic Stage at Pianos at the last minute, and we couldn’t have been happier to have them, since their put on a great show. The band has coined a very personal, moody brand of pop that could be defined impressionistic, if not pointillistic: it’s as if their songs emerged from silence like a sonic mosaic created by the combination of many tiny fragments of sound. The quartet just unveiled this video for their song "Hovering," featuring Shilpa Ray (who also played at Pianos that night on our Indie Stage). Check it out below and don’t miss them when they play live at (soon to be closing) Glasslands on 11.13 with like minded Brooklynites Mon Khmer. –  Photo by Fabrizio Del Rincon

Anthony D’Amato is best known for soft-spoken, sepia-toned folk tunes. More recently, though, he’s added a few vibrant hues to this sonic palette. From the facepaint gobs flecked onto his suit for the cover of the upcoming "The Shipwreck from the Shore," to an unexpected symphonic vision on several new cuts, D’Amato is determined this time to add everything, including the kitchen sink. The Jersey artist comes closest to Springsteen’s anthemic reach on "Was a Time," but manages elsewhere to keep things intimate on sleepers like "If It Don’t Work Out." With a little help from friends like Matt McCaughan (Bon Iver) and Sam Kassirer (Langhorne Slim), he’s brought in all the the hard artillery. (Jeepers! That’s a lot of metaphors!). We had the chance to see him at our recent Deli Roots’ CMJ Stage at Rockwood on Stage 1 in a stripped down set that charmed and lulled us. He recently signed a touring deal with a major agency, which should bode well for the future. You’ll have plenty of chances to see him live before he lives for a EU tour, since he’s playing Rockwood tomorrow (11.04), City Winery on 11.13 ands Bowery Ballroom on 11.16.

We added this song to The Deli’s playlist of Best NYC songs by emerging NYC artists – check it out!

From JP’s report of day 1 of the CMJ Music Marathon 2014: "The PC Worship show (a band featuring members of Parquet Courts), was actually a solo performance: a dude sitting in a lawn chair, playing a tinny-sounding guitar, moaning out his heart. This lawn chair was positioned in the corner of the outside patio area at Silent Barn, and started pretty much immediately after Broken Water finished, so, especially in my mildly inebriated state, I wasn’t the quickest to get out there. But when I did stumble out there, what I saw was heartfelt, and meaningful and pretty. It might have seemed like filler to some (some people were actually heckling the dude, and I just couldn’t understand why, or how), but it was more important. To him, and to me—a guy alone at a show. The last song of his actually got stuck in my head. At least until Dream Police came on."

From Jake’s report of day 3 of the CMJ Music Marathon 2014: "Virginia’s Malatese (from Harrisonburg, which JUST makes it into the area of our coverage) plays something that may be referred to as post-no-wave-pre-post-pre-punk music.  Their melodies/jams/grooves/whatever you wanna call ’em are dissonant and aggressive, drowned under a wave of distortion and Travis’ noisy vocals.  Their music is already a little strange and head-tilt inducing, but Travis adds this extra little element of weird that brings it to a level of ingenuity.  First of all, he runs his vocals through a 404 sampler, using all the weird delay or pitch bending effects to add this monstrous ambience.  He’s also got a generally hilarious stage presence, what with this funny shake dance that he does, all the weird noises he randomly spews out and the funny faces. He’s not afraid to look like a little stupid up there because he’s having good ol’ tortured fun, which in turn means I’m having fun; if he brought it to an even further level of crazy he could be a regular Iggy Pop. "

From Jake’s report of Day 5 of the CMJ Music Marathon 2015: "Next was Nashville-based, post-hardcore trio Gnarwhal.  They put out an amazing four way split EP with Ovlov, Woozy and Ex-Breathers, which I highly recommend you listening to.  They’re a loud-ass math rock band, bringing me back to the days of Fiasco and Tera Melos.  They’ve got a very Nashville atmosphere to them as well, with their long hair, playing everything twice as fast as it needs to be played, and stopping maybe once during the set to tell people who they were.  They’re a powerhouse, that’s for sure."

From Jake’s report of day 5 of the CMJ Music Marathon 2014: "Next was one of my main highlights, "Grass Is Green," also from Boston, whose album, "Vacation Vinny," has been on repeat in my room for the last couple weeks.  Grass is Green reminds me of Kal Marks in that they go to very unexpected places in their songs, dipping into no-wave influenced jams.  They’ve got the signature EIS distorted bendy thing that all the bands do with their guitars (see Kal Marks, Krill, Ovlov, Pile….they all do it!), another indicator that all of these bands wholly embrace their influences.  Sometimes they remind me of Primus (again. I just really love Primus, ok!), other times it’s Dinosaur Jr., but regardless of what they sound like, they have an uniquely aggressive energy.  They killed it that night, it was an epic performance.  

From JP’s report of day 4 of the CMJ Music Marathon 2014: "After Johnie Lee Jordan & The Boys finished, I made my way over to Muchmore’s to see the Mama Coco’s Funky Kitchen showcase, featuring an insane twelve bands. I arrived at around 7:30, and saw the stage, but nothing on it. This was to be a floor show. Bands and gear were setting up on the floor. Cool. A drag queen MC started things off and introduced the first band, Toot Sweet. They had an accordion. Need I say more? Accompanying the instrument of instruments were keys, bass, drums, and two lovely backup singers. They played an obviously French-infused slow pop that was catchy and deep. Their third song sounded like something you’d hear on the soundtrack of a pirate movie directed by Quentin Tarantino. Midway through the set the mademoiselle on accordion hopped on the keyboard, and the dude on keys hopped on a trumpet! Things turned kind of synth-funky, proving these guys’ uniquely cool versatility. Oh. And this guy on trumpet? He could play. Take it from a so-so ex-trumpeter. The pace picked up a little towards the end of the set, and it was hammered home that this was a fun group. There was unbelievably enough seating for just about everyone, though people were standing, and those who were standing were dancing. Everyone bopped. Essentially, I came to this showcase for something different. I believed I was to achieve perfect diversity.

We wonder if the mass media’s renewed focus on Monica Lewinsky in her new role as an anti-cyberbullying advocate will have any effect on Brooklyn band’s The Harmonica Lewinskies, besides getting their youngest fans to realize where that name comes from and what kind of outrageous imagery it conjures. The band certainly embraces this provocation, and this is why they deserve to have their new video for "Sitting on My Hands" (streaming below) premiered here, on The Deli’s blog, on Halloween, the most provocative of days. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that said video also features people in weird costumes, and is, in essence, a cacophonous rebellion against the boredom of work – in particular the one you don’t care about. And isn’t that the core value of all parties, Halloween ones in particular, when anything ordinary is banned? The jazz/funk collective uses their horn section and electric guitars as weapons, while Roberto Bettega’s blue voice leads the song from almost silent breaks to the climax of sonic explosions. The band released a new album entitled "Dad Rock" with a party at The Knitting Factory on October 1st.

From our CMJ Music Marathon Runner JP’s Day 1 report: "I could tell right away I was going to like Dream Police (featureing Mark Perro and Nick Chiericozzi of The Men). I can’t wait for their debut record. Their drum machine test was so loud and in your face, people flocked back inside just to feel it. The band is a 12-string guitar, bass and keys trio + drum machine. Choral synths backed rock rhythms and extremely infectious guitar riffs, gorgeously layering and blending together, getting louder and lulling everyone to a numbing sleep. There was a beautifully long intro to their set, but you never wanted it to end. Chord progressions were perfect and intense. Their second song included a cellist’s bow on the guitar, a la Sigur Ros, jabbing erratically at first, but then the pretty breaks through, backed by organ sounds, bass throbs and serious tones. The set was cut WAY too short due to power problems. They finished simply, and humbly with “Sorry guys…we’re done.”

Sci-Fi themes, even though central to a very influential band like The Pixies, are not exactly the most common ones among emerging indie bands. Space-pop group The Landing (brainchild of Brooklyn musician Jon Bell) sounds nothing like Black Francis’ band, but shares with him a fascination for anything intergalactic and extraterrestrial. Or at least that’s what you gather from new video "We Are," whose title is the answer to the question "Are we alone in the universe?" – although the answer gets mischieviously confounded at the end of the song with the tiniest "not." The song is a well orchestrated, hypnotic electro-soul ballad, in which liquid synth pads play the part of space, arpeggiators and sparse guitar notes play the stars, and Bell’s falsetto plays the absence of gravity. "We Are" is the title track of the band’s latest EP.

We noticed (and blogged about) Brooklyn’s Ziemba and her track "Phantom See" this past April and were impressed with her Femme Fatale attitude and that beautiful, sparse song. The young lady (aka René Kladzyk) obviously didn’t shy away from that observation, delivering this remarkable video (for that same track) that doubles down on dark seduction and comfirms her confidence – also in front of a video camera. You can catch her live at Cake Shop on Sunday November 2nd at 8.30pm.

 Anthony Pirog may be the best electric guitarist on the East Coast, and his new album, Palo Colorado Dream, is his best work yet. The album covers as much ground as the electric guitar allows, and is impossible to describe in just a few words. One could call it "avant" something, like "jazz" or "indie," but what it really is is Anthony Pirog incarnate. The guitar has become an extension of the man, his technical brilliance limited only by his fantastic imagination. How Anthony found time to craft such a gem is a mystery, as he’s the most in demand guitarist in the area, part of countless other projects. Yet craft this he did, and it’s gorgeous, and he made a video to go along with it too. Check out the video below, and follow the link to the album above for more. Take some time with it; you wont be disappointed. –Natan Press