To keep the buzz up about the upcoming release of their debut album due on June 4th, Friends just released this new single entitled "Mind Control". The band is on tour right now, and there’s no NYC show in sight.

Rarechild, one of the most intriguing emerging NYC electronic bands, has been releasing a song a month since January, and will continue throughout the year. The most recent track, called "Salty" and streaming below, showcases a group that shies away from current trends and prefers to find inspiration in the brainy melodies and lyrics of early Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel, while re-elaborating them in a minimalistic, all-electronic way. See them live at Brooklyn Fireproof on Saturday April 14 ith Psychobuildings.
 

Sean Bones (who looks a helluva lot like young Ian Brown) sure doesn’t suffer from the Broklyn Depression Syndrome we mentioned in the previous blog post. His music has always been upbeat and often inspired to the "sunniest" of genres: reaggae. This video for the new single "Here Now" – also track-opener of his upcoming full length – confirms the guy’s fascination with ultraviolet rays, but abandons carribean musical references in favor of a more straight piano driven indie pop.

Sometimes I wonder if Brooklyn is really so depressing… Yeah because these days it seems to inspire hordes of really dark and hopeless-sounding bands – like Black Marble. Don’t get me wrong, I grew up listening to this kind of music and love it, I’m just surprised by the sheer amount of it that this wonderful neighborhood is capable of producing. So… if you happen to feel like you had a little too much happiness lately, we recommend you check out this duo, who seem to reference some of the darkest early post punk bands of the 80s, like The Cure and Joy Division. The band released a 5 song EP in January and will be performing at the Newtown Radio party with Widowspeak on 04.21 at 319 Scholes.

Combining beautiful dreamy female vocals with a band of dudes chunking out chimey, grungy guitar chords and distinctive rhythmic bass/drum patterns, Brooklyn’s Night Manager is a rising new force on the NYC indie music scene. Their presence has already gone national, to the extent that their "Ghost" 7" EP (Deli Record of the Month earlier this year) caught the attention of labels Rough Trade in the UK and Big Love in Japan, and have since released it in those countries. Night Manager comes along as a breath of fresh air in a scene that has simply duplicated itself one too many times. – Read Dave Cromwell interview with the band here.

Based in Brooklyn via Chicago, electronic trio Moon Furies is picking up steam after opening for compatible artists like Peter Bjorn and John, Chairlift and Nite Jewel. The band already released 2 singles in 2012 and is putting the final touches on their debut EP, scheduled for a 2012 release and entitled "Not Earth". The twosome’s dark electro-pop reinterprets the dark electronic sound of the early 80s in a personal direction involving – among other things – real drums and a sweeping electric guitar. – Chelsea Eriksen

From singing for Moby, to bringing it home in country, Kelli Scarr is fast becoming the rock world’s connection to the kind of nostalgic Americana found in places like her hometown of Folsom, California. With a voice recalling the breathiness of Feist, coupled with the lyrical fury of Miranda Lambert, Scarr’s music is every bit as approachable as it is powerful.

Her new single ‘Dangling Teeth’ is gently lulling, taking it’s time and offering the listener a preview of what’s to come on her sophomore LP of the same name due out June 5th on Silence Breaks. Take a listen and see her live when she plays a Brooklyn residency at The Way Station next month.

Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

Jon DeRosa has been through multiple transformations over the past decade. An artist’s artist, he’s been involved with many successful NYC projects including Magnetic Fields and Aarktica. His upcoming release, ‘A Wolf in Preacher’s Clothes,’ set to drop today April 10th, finds the artist reconnecting with his Americana singer/songwriter, penning material that grabs you by the throat the way Tom Waits or Nebraska-era Springsteen will take hold of you. This is a record demanding multiple listens, with each revealing a different journey… not unlike the wandering bicyclist featured in new video ‘Anchored’ (below) from his forthcoming LP. See him at his record release party tonight at Rockwood Music Hall at 9pm.

Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

If anything, Violens might be one of the more straightforward shoegazer bands around Brooklyn. In a town awash with wash, the band stands out for their adherence to pop earworms even while dousing their ensemble in buckets of reverb and delay. Their latest 7" ‘Totally True,’ continues to the band’s growing songwriting concision and couples the track with the brand new "Something Falling."

It’s all in preparation for their pending May release of ‘True,’ an album appropriately titled for a sound this honest.

See them when they play Le Poisson Rouge for the record release party on May 16.

Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

New York’s answer to doo-wop, Lily and the Parlour Tricks raise their seductive shuffle to a higher bar with their new video for ‘The Poison Song.’ Lily Claire shimmies around in a changing cast of black-on-white-on-black backdrops that cast the barroom brawl of the single in its most sensuous light. Taken from their latest self-titled EP, ‘The Poison Song’ will get you on your feet and keep you there until Lily says otherwise.

Shana Keegan produces.

Catch the band when they play Cameo Gallery 11 pm this Tuesday, April 10th.

Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

Dueling, clean guitars, raucous drums, and sentimental vocals, The Lounge Act makes a lot happen from seemingly almost nothing. With songs that take plenty of twists and turns before arriving, tracks like ‘Julie’ and ‘For What It’s Worth’ reveal an often ignored potential for straightforward rock ensembles. Lounge Act seems to make the effects we usually hear from stompboxes come out instead directly from singer Simon Guzman’s epic tales of heartbreak and disappointment. With all the possibilities granted to recording these days, it’s refreshing to hear such an honest means used to tell a story. Lounge act has found this formula, by reinventing rock music’s familiar terrain for their own purposes. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

See them April 28 at Bar East.

This band submitted their music digitally here.

Rob Jennings might have some spooky images on his bandcamp, but his sound goes down like butter. This is dance music that pairs freaky psychedelia with swirling, dense organs and obscure samples, all brought home by Jennings, whose tenor rivals even singers like Omar Rodriguez-Lopez on screamer tracks ‘Invisible Walls’ and ‘Shy Nobody.’

The Jersey band takes psychology to places it’s never been before on debut full-length ‘Shy Nobody.’ An album replete with dance-a-licious power grooves fueled by cerebral madness… a fantastically demented achievement if you ask me.

See them when they play live at Bardi’s Bar & Grill in Pequannock, NJ on June 1st.

This band submitted their music digitally here.

Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)