THE DELI

photo by Akaer Studio

Having witnessed a couple live sets by the Brooklyn-based three-piece Pamphlets recently there’s one word that comes to mind to describe their songs and their stage presence and that word is “urgency” because here’s a band who instill every note and every syllable with an urgent sense of, well, urgency, that makes you feel like somehow you should be doing something about the desperate state of the world, or the desperate state of your soul, or heck maybe they’re just trying to remind you that you left the oven or the iron on at home. But whatever it is, it’s damn urgent and you better take care of that shit right away.

It’s a general vibe that’s very much in keeping with these urgent times, times equivalent to a dumpster fire being doused with a tanker trunk full of gasoline (expensive gasoline!) and Pamphlets are like the “End Is Nigh” street corner guy who thrusts a pamphlet into your hand where “every ounce of passion is calling for a reaction” and here I’m quoting from Pamphlet’s new single “Somehow” which is put across with a Gang of Four (Gang of Three!) level intensity and urgency by vocalist/guitarist Jeremy Marquez, bassist Ben Griffin, and rhythmatist Daniel Pemberton.

And hey I’m not even gonna try to interpret “Somehow”’s lyrics minus any input from the band because that’s beyond my pay grade but safe to say there’s plenty of intriguing lines about redlining and polished politicians and defiling palms and submissive gods and “taking medicine to ease myself from all of your relevance” which come across equally acerbic and anthemic as underlined by the spiky-as-a-porcupine postpunk sonics guaranteed to get your heart pumping even when they slow things down like on “Flowers.” 

So check it all out and then check out Pamphlets live if you’re able to cuz they’re really something in a setting where their livewire energy comes across most directly and luckily you’ve got two chances to do just that in the coming days since the three gents are slated to appear at Bushwick’s Hart Bar on Friday and then out on Rockaway Beach on Saturday as part of the Rock! Away! Summer Fest so get up and boogie down with urgency! (Jason Lee)

As this music-loving blogger’s birthday fast approaches I’m drawn to a couple songs—one new and one from 2017—both by Black Light Smoke, aka Jordan Lieb, a Chicago-to-New-York transplant who’s been billed elsewhere as a “producer, songwriter, and Daytime Emmy Award winning film and tv composer [who] spans house, techno, minimal synth and post punk” and yes I’m pretty sure this is the Deli’s first ever blog entry about a Daytime Emmy Award winner.

Staring with the older song first, “Take Me Out (Tonight)” which features Léah Lazonick on vocals, is something like a disco-nap-wet-dream built around a conversation between two horny dating-app bots that captures that perfect mix of anticipation and desperation that’s likely to spawn a memorable night out that you won’t remember in the morning. 

In other words, the perfect birthday song. And the remix by Cabaret Nocturne ups the ante further with a propulsive coldwave beat that’s something like the dead-eyed seductive stare of a vampire as she/he/it slowly caresses your neck whilst sizing up your carotid artery. So check it out, yo.

The newer song is “Work” and it’s the leadoff track from Black Light Smoke’s new EP of the same name. This one has more of a rigorous house music meets electro feel with no shortage of synthetic 808 hand claps and features the same Brooklyn-based Léah Lazonick mentioned above who sternly declames lines like “I don’t have time for other people’s shit / I don’t have time to listen to your DJ mix…get to bed wake up and work / keep the baby ‘cause I work” etc. etc.

And seeing as there’s nothing like a birthday to make one realize one needs to get one’s shit together (all due respect to Tommy Wiseau) "Work" actually feels just as B-Day appropriate as “Take Me Out” does if not more so. And so…now I must get back to work. But don’t worry I will find time to listen to your DJ mix/mixtape/new single/rock opera because that’s kinda my job. (Jason Lee)

photo by Bosheng Li

 More than once I’ve seen Beau’s music described as “cinematic” and it’s an apt descriptor but with their most recent clutch of singles they’ve upped the ante even further, moving past the merely cinematic all the way to being flat-out “Bondian” to the extent it wouldn’t be surprising to learn the duo is on a secret quest to get one of their songs placed as the oepning theme song of the next Secret Agent 007 opus…

…because their recent material is fully imbued with sense of the “epic grandeur” one expects from a good-quality James Bond theme (plus, Beau is likewise a single-syllable four-letter name starting with the letter ‘B’ so maybe this has been their game all along) with their three most recent single in particular starting off as slow-burning torch numbers before building and building to a point of emotional intensity that’s likely to tap into whatever’s caused your heart to ache lately or not so lately…

…but with any potential pain overlaid with an equally intense pleasure, given the duo’s way with a swooning, sultry hook like the one that arrives 37 seconds into “Even If You’re Gone,” before building up to an epic crescendo and riding off into the sunset with a final soaring chorus that easily outdoes any Bond theme written in the 21st century thus far so put that in your pipe and smoke it Adele, Billie, Alicia, Jack, Sam, Chris (RIP) and Madonna…

…and it’s the gosh dang truth that I just now googled the song title and came across a Beau profile posted just yesterday by American Songwriter focused on “Even If You’re Gone” in which Beau’s Emma Jenney (the other half to musical partner/childhood friend/fellow lifetime New Yorker Heather Golden) reveals that the song’s working title was “The James Bond Song” which is something I honest-to-Allah had no knowledge of before starting this writeup so hey I feel vindicated even if it means The Deli got scooped by another publication oh well…

…but my point stands that “Even If You’re Gone” is hardly the only wistful, pining, seductive, hyper-emotive, fetchingly melodic song addressed to a seemingly mysterious, elusive, magnetic, hypnotically alluring one-time loverman who may or may not prefer his martinis shaken, not stirred, the duo have put out lately—just listen to “Hardly Breathing” and, well, “Loverman” above, the latter of which is especially sublime and can be found on Beau’s Forever EP from earlier this year and later released in remixed form…

…and if you’re so inclined you can play Beau’s songs in tandem with the Bond opening credit sequences also handily posted above with the sound muted on the latter and tell me they don’t fit perfectly with the montages of silhouetted hotties and phallic gun barrels which is not to overlook that Beau’s own music videos which are already suitably cinematic with the video for EIYG in particular being an epic-in-its-own-right short film directed by one Alessandro Zoppis who even just by his name alone sounds like the next Albert Broccoli to me.

Beau’s next EP, Life Twice, comes out in September 2022. (Jason Lee)