Shenandoa Davis is very talented.  Her vocals are reminiscent of the quavering, fragile, about-to-break delivery of Joanna Newsom, and the compositions of her pieces are no less complex.  This is orchestral pop at its finest.  When Shenandoah allows her music to breathe a bit, when she’s not taking the direct path of pop and instead flirting with beautiful fills, arpeggiated piano and violin trills, she is perfect.  "Sewn up Tight" is an absolute gem.  If it sounds like I’m raving, it’s because I am.  Her music is full of cheese-free longing and a precious sort of nostalgia, and these are the moments I am in awe of- her ability to inject these genuine floating/hanging moments often and without a tinge of artifice, demonstrates her deft skills.  I’ll let you know when she’s in Seattle again, because damn, I really want to see her live!

    •    Sep 18
 Mad Planet – 
Milwaukee, WI

    •    Sep 21 
Whistler – 
Chicago, IL

    •    Sep 27 
Spoonful – Records
 Columbus, OH

    •    Oct 05 
Kungfu – Necktie
 Philadelphia, PA

After signing to NYC’s own Kanine Records (which provided a lot of material for the covers of our NYC mag, from Grizzly Bear and Chairlift to Professor Murder and Zaza) Zambri is obviously going to look forward to an exciting fall of 2011. To begin promotion of their debut EP "Glossolalia", out on November 8, the band launched this video today showcasing a sound way more experimental than their previous material. Zambri was also selected by The Deli to play our CMJ show at Pianos on Thursday 10.20. radical-pop sound to the stage, the sisters are joined by Will Spitz and Seth Kasper (live drums and keyboard).

The DIY rock opera/collective 23 Psaegz (pronounced say•jezz) carry on the warm, weird legacy of NYC’s Dufus, the freak folk band founded by Seth Faergolzia over 13 years ago. This numerous group of musicians originally gathered with the intention of performing Seth’s 23 Psaegz stream of consciousness puppet rock opera, and has since also become a collaborative backing for his complex web of musical delight. Leading this new project, Faergolzia brings his one-man-band skills (mastering simultaneously the guitar, glockenspiel, kick drum, and vocal antics) to a new apex of musical sagacity.

Brooklyn based Su has an extremely personal songwriting style, that relies mostly on commanding acoustic guitar parts, a delicate voice singing never banal melodies often reminiscent of The Throwing Muses, and quirky drum machine beats. The results are a little rough in the production department, but definitely intriguing. Check out her latest digital single "Everything Right" here, and our favorite song "Mountain" from her debut EP embedded here.

We’ll be Perry-style un-pc for a second here and and tell you that Americana bores us in most cases. But not when we find in it the intensity Pat Hull is capable of injecting in his songs featured in his debut full length "Light". The Brooklyn based songwriter’s alto and his intimate melodies are evocative of Luke Temple’s solo records before he started Here We Go Magic, and although the instrumentation, cadence and atmosphere of this material scream "country", Pat’s melodies and guitar parts go in the direction of gently reinventing the genre rather than obeying to its exhausted axioms.

Antics music comes across as rather conventional power pop-rock at first, until you relize there’s a lot more to it. The first track on their debut album "Everything" starts like a mix of Weezer’s drums+guitars assault with more emotional vocals a la’ Wilco, and then develops in structure defying directions neither artists would dare follow. "We Are Gods", streaming here, features a more linear structure, but doesn’t shy away from other forms of experimentation – sonic ones: see extra distorting drums suddenly exploding on the left of your speakers, and unexpected a cappella breaks. If you like your pop-rock to have a little extra edge, this may be the band for you. See the Antics live at Cake Shop on September 24.

All these artists submitted their music for review to The Deli digitally here.

Milagres, who placed 20th in our 2010 year end Best of NYC poll for emerging artists – and 3rd two years earlier under the moniker "The Secret Life of Sophia" – just released this new video through NPR. The band is about to kick off a US tour – check them out at the Mercury Lounge on September 30.

Sometimes you don’t feel like DJing the party. Either you’re too drunk to mix tracks, or someone attractive is whispering dirty limericks in your ear, or some other elaborate shenanigans have otherwise rendered you musically impotent. It is during these desperate times that albums like The Beatard’s I’m the DJ drop in and save the party. From the effervescent “Get Lite” to the psycho-disco of “Neon Light” every track is a certifiable banger. MC UTK drops equally vicious raps and infectious melody, while Chuck Wild spits heavy slabs of concrete. The “Mixtape Riot” parties solidified their presence, and this first album will undoubtedly propel them into the megasphere. Put down the headphones and step away from the turntables – the Beatards are the DJ. – BrokeMC

Lo-fi recordings tend to come under scrutiny these days.  Ever since the explosive, devisive release of Wavves’ self-titled first album, this issue has been floating around.  And if you subscribe to the general drivel of music criticism (this could be considered some), lo-fi recordings seem to be vastly on their way out (as do bedroom style reverb vocals, which I hope never fade away), unless the genre tackled is covering new territory- see How to Dress Well‘s work, the lo-fi instantiation of indie meets R&B.   

The affectation of lo-fi may be worth some small contention here.  When a musician with the spending bread goes into the studio to record an album or EP and uses the studio magic mixing and effects to procure that faraway garage resonance, it seems counterintuitive and possibly even fake as to what a "studio" recording should be.  I was actually disappointed to hear Wavve’s second album sounding so clean, in some small way, it seemed to be a concession to his critics, an acknowledgement of the imperfections of his first recordings and an attempt to convince people that he was actually a stellar craftsman.  These are all aesthetic choices of course, and the general white noise aura of lo-fi has its own characteristics of merit to aesthetes of sound, as well as its pitfalls- not to imply that someone is not an aesthete if they do not appreciate lo-fi, I’m merely saying that it’s oftentimes a cultivated taste.

Mary Mary, the lo-fi Bellingham based indie project of Alexandra Song, Geoffrey Trager and Zach Zinn, just put out their demos, which were recorded on cassette tapes, with French Camp Records.  The tender, angsty authenticity of these recordings I find engaging and accurately reflective of the sentiments contained within their lyrics and compositions.  Long live perfect imperfection.      

Lo-fi recordings tend to come under scrutiny these days.  Ever since the explosive, devisive release of Wavves’ self-titled first album, this issue has been floating around.  And if you subscribe to the general drivel of music criticism (this could be considered some), lo-fi recordings seem to be vastly on their way out (as do bedroom style reverb vocals, which I hope never fade away), unless the genre tackled is covering new territory- see How to Dress Well‘s work, the lo-fi instantiation of indie meets R&B.   

The affectation of lo-fi may be worth some small contention here.  When a musician with the spending bread goes into the studio to record an album or EP and uses the studio magic mixing and effects to procure that faraway garage resonance, it seems counterintuitive and possibly even fake as to what a "studio" recording should be.  I was actually disappointed to hear Wavve’s second album sounding so clean, in some small way, it seemed to be a concession to his critics, an acknowledgement of the imperfections of his first recordings and an attempt to convince people that he was actually a stellar craftsman.  These are all aesthetic choices of course, and the general white noise aura of lo-fi has its own characteristics of merit to aesthetes of sound, as well as its pitfalls- not to imply that someone is not an aesthete if they do not appreciate lo-fi, I’m merely saying that it’s oftentimes a cultivated taste.

Mary Mary, the lo-fi Bellingham based project of Alexandra Song, Geoffrey Trager and Zach Zinn, just put out their demos, which were recorded on cassette tapes, with French Camp Records.  The tender, angsty authenticity of these recordings I find engaging and accurately reflective of the sentiments contained within their lyrics and compositions.  Long live perfect imperfection.      

New York’s Jump Into the Gospel’s main aural attraction is Louis Epstein’s staccato new wave/Brit-pop vocal cadence which hops along with heavy guitar and bright, synth-driven riffs. The band raises the bar of synth-rock with energetic and contagious rhythms, sleek synthesizers, and straight up good songs with a quirky electronic twist. The band has an upcoming string of interesting shows in the NYC area, including Cameo Gallery on 09.16 and Bowery Ballroom opening for Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. on September 24. – Read Meijin Bruttomesso’s interview with the band here.