Professional shredder/ Filmmaker Sarah Lipstate aka Noveller (pictured) is bringing her distant droning guitar epics to Bruar Falls on January 29th. Despite her young age, Noveller is a seasoned NYC "scenester", having been part of bands like Parts & Labor and Cold Cave. Her music is brooding but delicate, gloomy yet serene and its weight can be felt even more in a live setting.

Opening is Olga Bell’s brainchild Bell (picture above) with their ethereal electro pop and commanding vocals over schizoid beats. The line-up is further filled out with scrappy indie-rockers Grooms who just finished mixing their new album, so expect them to jam out some soon to be released tunes. Rounding out the line up is vintage garage rockers Sundelles whose warm pop will sprinkle some sugar on this rather noisy but exciting bill. The show is presented by up and comer J4 Productions.- (as posted in The Deli’s Open Blog – post your band’s entries, videos, and Mp3s here).

Headless Horseman is a band full of contradictions. While much of members Fareed Sajan and Conner O’Neill’s repertoire contains the intimate spookiness of Icelandic bands like múm and Sigur Ros, there’s also an immediacy in their recordings at home in their Brooklyn surroundings, bringing Sufjan Stevens and even Sleigh Bells to mind in songs like Sh8ker and Growing. Achieving large, sing-along moments over sparse guitar work, then moving without pause to mouse-like whispers rising over blaring electronics, this band deals exclusively in musical and emotional dichotomies. It makes sense that fellow Wesleyan alum Himanshu Suri of Das Racist manages the duo, a man who is simultaneously de- constructing and re-constructing music by similarly forcing disparate ideas to work together. Constructing their large palette from found objects, Headless Horseman conveys a childlike sense of musical discovery in their songs where the listener feels as surprised at the messy but endearing results as the band does. Making generous use of kitchen utensils and collage sound editing techniques, Headless Horseman has managed to make a fully realized musical environment sound like an intimate experience. Check them out with the other bizarre electro kinds in Com Truise at Cameo on January 21. – Mike Levine

Lia Ices probably couldn’t have written “Grown Unknown” without taking a break from Brooklyn. Due out in February on Jagjaguwar, the singer’s sophomore album collects nine impressionistic fairytales, each song a misty sylvan dream world unto itself. The music is airy, uncluttered, and untouched by civilization. Prospect Park and Green Wood Cemetery have their dark, secluded spots, but as refuges from civilization—places capable of inspiring the kind of wonder and dread hissing beneath the quietude of this record—Brooklyn’s premier green spaces have nothing on rural Vermont, where Ices spent last winter writing. We asked Lia a few questions about the recording process for her upcoming album, here.

Born and raised in Israel, Itamar Ziegler might find himself pigeonholed and subsequently ignored by indie aficionados whose instincts will firmly place him within the “World Music” genre. It’s a shame, because anyone who overlooks "Memories of Now" will be missing a real treat. A treasure chest of tinkly instrumentation, dexterous acoustic play, poetic lyricism and strong pop melodies, the album is a slightly zany experience, with the song writing and arrangements rarely treading any kind of obvious ground. For example, opener ‘The Story Must Be Told’ captures that big-top, funhouse feel with its peculiar flutes and Arabian-esque guitar lead. ‘To Father’ is reminiscent of White Album-era McCartney with its delicate acoustic plucks and hypnotic vocal. An ode to his sadly deceased father, the record rarely shies away from important subject matter, often touching on themes of life, death, social injustice and war. On ‘Lordy Lord’, the militant percussion is the backdrop of the album’s most politically charged track as Ziegler bemoans the senselessness of war in God’s name. “We know you love us/We know you hate them/And when a child dies/It’s in your name,” he croons desperately. Indeed, the whole piece has an emotional core that coupled with Ziegler’s clever musicianship makes "Memories of Now" an unexpected winner. – Dean Van Nguyen

You’ve heard him singing "All I Want is You" in the opening credits of the hit film JUNO… but Washington, DC based songwriter Barry Louis Polisar has actually been singing for children and families for 35 years, releasing his first record, I Eat Kids and Other Songs for Rebellious Children, in 1975. Now, some of those rebellious children he used to entertain have banded together and released a 2-CD, 60-song, tribute album of his songs called We’re Not Kidding! A Tribute to Barry Louis Polisar.

 "It’s great fun for me to hear my songs re-created this way," Polisar said. "Having my song in ‘Juno’ was great–but this is even better." The project is the brain child of Aaron Cohen, lead singer of the LA punk band The Radioactive Chicken Heads. Aaron had Barry’s albums as a child and claims him as his biggest influence.

The 2-CD set is now available from iTunes, Amazon and CDbaby. Hear free samples on Barry’s web site: http://www.barrylou.com/tributeAlbum.html   

Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers have been hustling and grinding on the underground NYC circuits sans official releases for quite some time now and it’s great to see that Knitting Factory Records is about to release their debut album "Teenage And Torture". This Friday the 21st the band will play Brooklyn Bowl to celebrate its release with Soft Black and She Keeps Bees. Shilpa is a spirited performer, so if you like original music that’s intriguingly in your face you should not miss this CD release party.

Baltimore’s trio Thank You are releasing their 3rd album, Golden Worry, with Chicago-based label Thrill Jockey on January 25th. The album was recorded by engineer Chris Coady, who’s known for his work with Beach House and Gang Gang Dance. Check out this stellar track "1-2-3 Bad" and pre-order Golden Worry here. Thank you – 1-2-3 Bad by The Drift Record Shop

A.M. Breakups seems like a suitable name for this Brooklyn-based producer. Each beat is so well crafted and mixed, that he undoubtedly neglects countless girlfriends in the creation of any given project. His album “Clink Pieces,” downloadable for free on bandcamp, showcases his dynamic beatmaking prowess paired with a diverse array of underground rap talent. The beats swell triumphantly and jitter with glitchy goodness matching the varying energy of each rapper involved with interspersed moments of cacophony adding a pleasant juxtaposition to the otherwise sweet electronic-edged programming. Be wary that unregulated listening may result in attention starved loved- ones and potentially heartbreaking text messages. – Broke MC

Shoegaze Dream Pop is something we’ll never get tired of – and as we are dudes, we’ll add that we find the genre particularly enticing when lady singers with beautiful voices are involved… Brooklyn’s own The Culfield Sisters have been at it for quite some time, but they haven’t lost their verve for gorgeous pop melodies disguised in a thick layer of distortion. The trio just released two new songs – “Caterwauling”, streaming here, and “I See Your Face”, the first new original tracks from this all-girl trio since their debut EP “Say It With Fire” was released several years back. Shows in support of this release will be announced soon. Tracks can be purchased here.

The Caulfield Sisters – "Caterwauling"

Last week at The Studio at Webster Hall, Long Island-based trio, Nature of City, masterminded by bassist/vocalist Josh Pillbox, played their first show of 2011. NOC donned rubber Nixon masks as the whispering chants and swirls of dissonance of “American Dream” radiated from the stage. The band revealed their faces for the avant-garde take on funk, jazz, and metal, “Big Tommy”, and took a turn for the eerily melodic of “Binomial Pharmaclature,” the ticking time bomb of heavy distortion and haunting vocals of “Daddy Alarm Clock,” and the polyrhythmic duals between syncopated bass lines and shredding guitar solos of “Six Kinds of Wednesday”. Closing with the nightmarish and intricate interplay of pitch-shifting vocals and echoing instrumentation of “Ugly Like Me,” NOC’s set left the audience craving more. The good news is that Nature of City plan to release their debut LP, “Spacemen Need Earthsuits,” (in the picture) in April of this year. – Meijin Bruttomesso

DC’s True Womanhood have released the first song in their series REEL TOO REAL. Here’s what Thomas had to say about it. "The song is called MINAJAH and it was inspired by the recent creation of the Moombahton dance craze, right here in DC.  We didn’t use Ableton like everyone else because we are idiots and we thought we could make electronic music using live instruments patched through effects pedals.  Also, Stevie Wonder shook our hands the day we bought the synth that this song was played on and told us it was a good choice.  His magic apparently rubbed off.   (We are not kidding.  This is a true story.  His hands smell like sandalwood.)"

REEL TOO REAL by truewomanhood

The Debutante Hour sounds like Tom Waits and Bjork singing harmonies together at a 1910 variety show. Susan, Mia and Maria are the eclectic trio who perform everything from singing public service announcements to theatrical reinterpretations of Sumerian mythology. The ladies recent release, “The Birth and Death of Meaning,” is a bouncing, old-timey album with a heavy helping of sarcasm. The songs alternate an accordion, cello, piano and baritone ukulele. The girls share songwriting assignments, so each track has a different personality. “For Myself” is a smokey tune for a lounge singer, while “Scheherazade” is like a bubbling, wry Frank Zappa track. The Debutantes lyrics and phrasing are quirky like Weezer but their buttery, close harmonies abate the humor with a barber-shop edge. Now on tour in eastern Europe, look for them in this city later this fall. – Read Jenny Luczak’s interview with the band here.