Mary J. Blige sounding too contemporary for you? Try Orly, a young diva who could rightfully be described as the soul throwback Queen. The Manhattanite’s fixation with vinyl groove soul shows her capably belting out funk jams (‘Now’s the Time’), love weary power ballads (‘Get Together With The One You Love’) and ladies’ night anthems (‘It’s Alright’) the way you remember them best from dad’s record collection.

Utilizing a timeless blend of virtuosic singing picked up when studying voice in Australia, coupled with revealing lyrics in her debut LP ‘Distraction,’ this old soul is breathing new life into a genre too often distracted with gimmicky props, when really all that’s needed is the right singer to bring it’s grooves to life. Orly will smooth even the most frazzled of Sunday morning nerves, and get you moving at the same time.

See her when she plays The Blue Note on July 13th, and check out ‘Distraction’ here. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

Brooklyn’s avant pop band Conveyor presents a sonic palette composed by an intriguing blend of styles and influences, combining the percussion of afropop with moody electronics and rhythmically patterned vocals. Many of the songs in their upcoming self-titled album are the result of a collaborative writing process, resulting in intricate arrangements reminiscent of Animal Collective’s more melodic experiments. Time signatures out of the 4/4 mold also reveal musicians not content to rely on the safety of familiar patterns. The band will celebrate the release of their debut full-length (under Paper Garden Records’ wing) with a show at The mercury Lounge on June 28. Recommended! – Dave Cromwell

We’ve always had a weak spot for Violens. This brand new song and video "When to Let Go" marries their light shoegazer sound with some kind of new-romantic aesthetics from the 80s.

“Can you picture the armada of Hello Kitty spaceships?” -Gen. Marsupial Takahashi

Someday, Japan is going to send people to Mars. It’s true. I’m pretty sure Gemini Revolution will provide the soundtrack while the astronauts will kick it during their long journey through space.

The Other Side of Yesterday EP is hacky sack music for Asian hipsters. It reeks of patchouli and mirin equally. This is the weird Asian record the Doors would have made had they lasted long enough. It’s kinda jammy, pretty psychedelic, and superbly spacey.

Gemini Revolution takes the Taj-Mahal Travelers playbook, cut out the boring extreme avant-garde randomness, and pop it up a bit. The slow building, eventually lush arrangements feature a mostly free-form rhythm section that provides enough randomness to contrast the layered cheap keyboards. The reverb-maxed vocals come and go sparingly, adding a textural component to music that is clearly focused on the other instrumentation.

The stand out of this EP is the title track “Other Side of Yesterday."  Reminiscent of Modest Mouse, the song goes through many variations of stripping down and being built back up. It also utilizes the vocals the best of any song in this batch, with a pleasant back and forth during the choruses. Mix in the melodic bass work, the Kenny G-esque saxophone keyboard doodling, and the random percussion introduced throughout, and you’re left with a song that tows the ADHD line, yet ends up accessible and groovy overall.

Some might say this sound is dated, but Gemini Revolution has a very specific thing they are going for. It is refreshing to hear a group of musicians just doing their thing, regardless of what is dictated by the musical trends around them.

 -Zach Hodson

Editor’s note: Gemini Revolution released the follow-up EP to Other Side of Yesterday on June 14, entitled Sizuka. We’ll have a review of this album to you very soon! 

Like My Morning Jacket and affiliated supergroup Monsters of Folk, Isle of Rhodes succeeds in combining the musicianship of groove-based jam bands with a folk core that reminds you these guys don’t just know how to play, they’ve got something to say too. For the band’s just-released debut full-length ‘All Rivers and Oceans,’ singer/Rhodes obsessive Rob Farren digs these dreamy statements into some seriously washy reverb treatment, drawing on topographical references to illuminate the thrill of new love in ‘Young Love.’

But his heart really seems to lie in the freedom of life off-shore. From opener ‘Oceans’ (streaming) to the stomping ‘Eyes Like The Sun,’ Farren paints a world of surf and sand where one experience melts into the next, and innocent pleas against change get washed away with the next tide. Wherever Isle of Rhodes take you, it’s usually an elevated place to match the screeching alto Farren has mastered.

Check out their new full-length here and see the band when they play at Don Pedro on June 23rd. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets) – Isle of Rhodes submitted their music for review here.

Daryl Shawn is one of those acoustic guitar gems that can seize you and drag you along with him in an erratic dance in the pick of a string. Blending African, Andalusian and European classical influences acquired in his early years of musical exploration, San Francisco born Daryl Shawn’s vocal compositions bring an unsettling touch to the soothing sounds of his guitar solos. It is clumsy in a Syd Barret kind of way, delightfully disharmonious, and only gets better as the stories unfold in angst and precipitation. The tempos clash as the voice nonchalantly tells the colorful tales of a West Coast white boy, while the instrumentals get carried away in an exotic adventure of their own. Currently based in Brooklyn, Shawn is working on a range of new material which he will be presenting during a tour of the US West Coast this fall. But for now he’s training for a personal musical marathon which will take him to play 5 shows in NYC – one per borough – during Make Music NY on June 21. He picked a hot day for a marathon! Watch out for updates, and in the meantimes, treat yourself to some of his work, both vocal and instrumental, on the website. – Tracy Mamoun

Deli Readers,

In our plans of constant expansion of our coverage towards new music scenes, admittedly Missouri wasn’t the top priority, but since we found some seriously committed partners over there (the awesome people at the Midwest Music Foundation) we decided to launch a Deli Kansas City web page! While working on the site we have actually discovered a very lively scene with some really cool bands. Go ahead and explore it!

The Deli’s Staff

When a band that graced the cover of one of our NYC print issues signs with a record label, it’s always cause for celebration here at The Deli. Brooklyn based female duo Talk Normal inserts itself in the NYC tradition of noise worshippers started in the early 80s by the Brian Eno blessed No Wave movement, and maybe even earlier by Lou Reed’s most uncompromising experiments both solo and with the Velvet Underground. With their previous debut full length released in 2009, a new album by these rad ladies is now overdue, and scheduled for release in October – it’s title "Sunshine". If you can’t wait to get your ears abused and your brain melt by Talk Normal’s dissonant and uncompromising tunes, you can go see them at Glasslands on June 22. Streaming below, the single "In A Strangeland" from their debut album "Sugarland".

Boasting the perfect name for a (rather) dissonant indie rock band, Troubled Sleep is a young Brooklyn based trio whose songs take us on a trip back to the days when guitars still ruled the rock realm. These fellas – who judging from the pictures available seem too young to even enter a bar – already have 1 demo and two EPs under their belt. The trio forges the kind of "underdeveloped" songs we learned to appreciate listening to artists like early Pavement and (also early) Modest Mouse, replacing those bands’ pop element with a preference for droney, borderline depressed and "closed" melodies. The contrasting voices of the lead singer’s alto and the backing vocalist’s tenor add an intriguing element to the band’s sound. There’s definitely a noteworthy amount of talent at work here, and the quality of the material is consistently good, which is always an important sign.

Jeff Litman is having some trouble getting older… he’s spying on his beautiful (and married) ex-girlfriend in his new record ‘Outside,’ taking reckless chances, and rolling in the dirt ’til Someone Got Hurt’. The album finds Litman attempting to move on from the relationship that was the focus of his last record. But like he says in the album closer: ‘Time Heals Nothing.’ Time does however, seem to produce some solid tunes…

Sounding sometimes like Bright Eyes, and sometimes like a mix of Elvis Costello and Tom Petty, Litman borrows liberally from the ghosts of confessional singer-songwriters past, while still retaining a deeply personal reality channeled by his own experiences in and around NYC. Or at least I assume that’s what he’s referring to when discussing chance encounters with the ‘Girl Down I95.’

Check out his new record ‘Outside’ here and see him when he plays at The Bitter End with Mark Radcliffe on June 26, in occasion of the release of his new video for single "Over and Over" (streaming below). – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets) – This record was submitted digitally to The Deli here.

If Dr. Jeckyll’s ferocious alter-ego Mr. Hyde were to take an interest in Hip Hop, Super King Armor would be his favorite rapper. Off-stage King is unassuming, soft-spoken, and quick to laugh. On-Stage, however, he amazes audiences with a transformation into a beast of pure rap magnificence. Performing with “The Werewolf Lullabies Band,” King will bark and howl at you with expert delivery of storytime raps with venomous bravado, at Sullivan Hall on June 20th. The show is “Wrath of the Written,” but knowing this bill, there will be some phenomenal freestyles as well. Stop shaving now, and dig up your plastic fangs. -=brokeMC

(Pictured above: Brodie Rush of Be/Non)

Friday night The Riot Room saw two of Kansas City’s finest take the stage in preparation for the music of Broncho, the evening’s headliner. This reporter didn’t stay long enough to hear their set, but judging by the sound check, they killed it. Without a doubt.

After patiently waiting for Nik Wallenda to complete his historic tightrope walk over Niagara Falls, Soft Reeds took little time to re-establish themselves as one of the area’s leading practitioners of danceable indie rock. Their sound has gotten tighter and more radio-ready with each gig, their covers of Talking Heads and David Bowie songs were most enjoyable, and the new material they presented proved once again to be a tantalizing tease of that which is yet to come. Their next record is being tentatively targeted for an October-ish release date, so in order to save time this reporter highly recommends that you go ahead and put "buy the new Soft Reeds album" on your autumn to-do list. Judging by how they sounded Friday, it’s going to be a monster.

Following this opening set would be a formidable task for any band, but Be/Non was more than up to the challenge. Be/Non led off with "Space," the music behind the brilliant three-and-a-half-minute animated preview of A Mountain of Yeses, the movie based on the album of the same name. Performing their first gig with their new guitarist (who this reporter will refer to as "Nate" because … well, that’s his name), there didn’t seem to be any hesitation about tackling a set filled with Be/Non’s usual grandiose approach to avant-garde rock, with a heavy dose of psychedelic sounds that Messrs Rush, Ruth, and Shank tackled as a three-piece in last month’s KC Psychfest. These two bands targeted their audience with two different brands of music which had the same goal: get the people moving. Judging by the dancing that this reporter witnessed in front of the stage, that mission was successfully accomplished twofold.

Check out Soft Reeds’ video for "This Affair," off Soft Reeds Are Bastards: 

And the animatic for "Space," off Brodie Rush’s upcoming film A Mountain of Yeses. Song performed by Be/Non under this album.

-Michael Byars