Cut Worms is the nom de plume of songwriter Max Clarke, whose debut LP will seduce you right off the bat with its sparkling opening track, “How It Can Be.” With his intimate indie voice and facility for instantly memorable melodies and guitar lines, Clarke conjures a kind of garage-tested Everly Brothers, reminiscent of early Shins, with breezy pop ballads just tart enough to soundtrack lonesome summer days. Hollow Ground was recorded in the L.A. home studio of Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado, and in New York with Jason Finkel at Gary’s Electric. Check out the animated video for “Don’t Want To Say Good-bye,” and prepare to hum it for the rest of the day.
“Don’t Want To Say Good-bye” from debut LP “Hollow Ground” out May 4th on Jagjaguwar
Tons of Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly in Hollow Ground, which flies in the face of present day music. What’s wrong with this one man band Max Clarke and his compulsion of a bygone era? Who cares, when it sounds this good.
This NYC art-punk/new wave group is one of the most interesting new bands I’ve heard in 2018. At times I’m reminded of The B-52’s, Pylon, X, Cake and Lithics. They are an exciting live band too:
That image-heavy universe which Bodega operate in is essential to their make-up. They talk of their on-stage light boxes as “the sixth member of Bodega, while their sound – equal parts Matrix-esque futurism (they all walk on stage later this evening clad head-to-toe in black and copious amounts of leather and PVC), and dusty, New York-indebted post-punk – occupies the kind of stylistic realm that art students dribble over.
“I think we were all really excited about a kind of rock minimalism,” says Ben, “which can mean a lot of different things. For example, not having cymbals in the drum set, or doing anything frilly in the guitar parts; not repeating parts or lyrics, just in and out.”
It’s easily picked up on ‘Endless Scroll’, and its brittle, brilliant lead single ‘How Did This Happen?’, a track that’s all sharp angles and cutting pontifications on consumerism – “This machine? You know it don’t kill fascists? / This machine, it’s just a guitar,” Ben quips at one point. He calls that stark approach to music-making their “sonic mission statement”, while also referring separately to an ethical one.
The first moment of Endless Scroll’s winkingly-titled second track, “Bodega Birth,” states the album’s thesis: “I use my computer for everything / Heaven knows I’m miserable now.” In both its content and its monotone delivery, the line addresses the ways our technological access leads to a kind of internal deadening. “Bookmarks” is even more direct: “All day at work / Stare at computer/ Come home from work / Stare at computer,” drilling down on the banality of constant access. It’s not all screens, though: On opener “How Did This Happen?!,”Bodega A lament how technology has led to political complacency and “slacktivism”; “Can’t Knock The Hustle,” with its quips about nine-dollar smoothies and hourly salaries—and a sardonic chorus that goes, “You can’t knock the hustle / When the cats are making capital”—is an anti-capitalist anthem that socialist organizations could adopt as their fight song.
Such straightforward lyricism demands music that’s equally unflashy, and Bodega’s simple, wiry arrangements rise to the occasion. The songs are built from little more than slightly overdriven guitars, simple, driving drums, and Belfiglio and Hozie’s yelped vocals. Just as Bodega’s lyrics plainly and boldly analyze our current state, so too are the songs striking in their direct, yet incisive, arrangements.
Band Members
Ben Hozie
Nikki Belfiglio
Montana Simone
Heather Elle
Madison Velding-VanDam
There’s something special about the band Wild Pink and their new album. The Brooklyn indie rock trio’s 2017 debut paired insightful, wide-eyed lyrics with heavy chords and twinkly emo tunings, spilling out about frustrations familiar to any twenty-something urbanite struggling to find a place in this mixed-up world. Buried beneath lines about smartphones and the Redskins/Cowboys NFL rivalry, the album offered a glimmer of sprawling Americana, and considering what we heard with “Lake Erie,” the band appears to continue that pursuit on the upcoming Tiny Engines album.
The track “Jewels Drossed In The Runoff” evokes the rushing swell of the crusty industrial oceanside. With anthemic guitars and chilling, crystalline synth pads, the track channels some of the biggest moments of mid-’80s heartland rock, with chords and lyrics that feel like a dead match for Tom Petty. Frontman John Ross sings about a committed lover with an earnest falsetto that can’t seem to get past doubting himself. “I grew up removed / And you have a heart like a star, you give away your best,” he sings in the track’s final moments. It’s a planetarium of spirit delivered in the most honest form imaginable.
Band Members
John Ross,
TC Brownell,
Dan Keegan,
Wild Pink “Yolk In The Fur” out 7/20/2018 on Tiny Engines Records
The Essex Green are a neo-psychedelic pop outfit from Brooklyn, NY, via Burlington, VT. The band is primarily composed ofsongwriters Jeff Baron, Sasha Bell, and Chris Ziter and specializes in a classic sound inspired by 1960s–1970s pop and folk in the tradition of bands like The Left Banke and Fairport Convention.
Self-proclaimed “cosmic American” band Wilder Maker are set to release their new record, Zion, July 13th via Northern Spy Records. The latest single “Impossible Summer” is swirling and soothing, like the cool breeze that cuts the oppressive feeling of an August afternoon in New York City. Frontman Gabriel Birnbaum wrote the song about a time when he was losing touch with reality. Though written by Birnbaum, “Impossible Summer” is sung by longtime collaborator Katie Von Schleicher, who breathes a poignant softness into the track. “I cannot explain that summer,” she sings. Their “Impossible Summer” will leave you scrambling to find any words at all. How often do you encounter a tune so inventive it sounds like Radiohead took a road trip with Joni Mitchell?
Wilder Maker once again defy genre stereotypes on their newest single. The Brooklyn-based indie outfit skirt the confines of the typical “folk” sound, so it’s not fair to apply that label without tacking on some hyphenated sub-genre qualifiers. Their previous track was well praised, the engrossing “Drunk Driver” also from their upcoming Zion album.
Then in March we reveled in the more psychedelic “Closer to God” that evoked both Tom Petty and Kurt Vile. Whether you call their sound “neo-folk” or “experimental folk-pop,”
Of the many thousands of bands within the indie folk scene, few (if any) display the creative brilliance of Wilder Maker. These musical chameleons offer plenty for all music fans to love.
Wilder Maker is comprised of: Gabriel Birnbaum (lyrics/instrumentation/vocals), Katie Von Schleicher (keys/vocals), Adam Brisbin (guitar/vocals), Nick Jost (bass/vocals), and Sean Mullins (drums/vocals)
Brooklyn-based synth-pop trio Half Waif released their Cascine Records debut album Lavender in April. It’s about love, legacy and the inevitable decline of human existence. The album’s closer “Ocean Scope” ties up loose ends after 11 songs filled with talk of endings.
The band has released a lavender-tinted music video for the song with a dawn-to-dusk transformation of lead singer Nandi Rose Plunkett. “The video starts and ends on a salt marsh, where the land meets the ocean,” Plunkett said of the video in a statement. “What happens in the night in between is a spiritual reverie, a walk through the ego and revisiting of past selves.”
To match this transformation, we see Plunkett wade into the water before transitioning to a run through the forest with war paint-like makeup. The purples hues intensify as the video soldiers on until Plunkett has a startling awakening back on the marsh in the pastel hue of the early morning.
Eyes of Love’s debut full-length, End of the Game, is out on August. 17th via Wharf Cat Records. “Homeowners,” the record’s opening track, is a wobbly masterpiece of taut, post-punk guitars, pulsing rhythms, and earworm melody. Andrea Schiavelli says: “I wrote the song in my head at 4am walking through downtown Brooklyn on the way home from work as a sound engineer. At the time I was reading a lot of JG Ballard shorts. I was obsessed with the inner state of rocking out that can take whatever external form. Like air guitar or something doesn’t actually have to generate sound to be potent.”
“End of The Game” is the anticipated debut full length by Eyes of Love, a band helmed by Brooklyn songwriter Andrea Schiavelli. Assembling a crew of some of the most skilled musicians in New York’s underground; Lily Konigsberg (Palberta, Lily and Horn Horse), Sammy Weissberg (The Cradle, Sweet Baby Jesus), Paco Cathcart (The Cradle, Shimmer), Schiavelli has cultivated a long player that is obedient to feeling and pulsates with urgent, anxious beauty.
These 14 tracks harness the chaos of reckless abandon amid classic structures. Fans of Eyes of Love’s self titled 7” EP will recognize a mastery of breezy pop in tracks like “Homeowners” and “Players of the Field.” We see the band turn toward experimentation on tracks like “New,” which alternates between driving power pop and percussive breakdown. The lush strings, arranged by Weissberg, on tracks like “Elevator” and “End of The Game” starkly frame Shiavelli’s earnest songs while adding a depth and variation to this albums’ song-cycle, as do the solo piano instrumentals “Piano1 Final” and “New Piano.” The full band tracks on End of The Game were recorded live, have no overdubs and are mixed with little or no effects – a rare technique these days and a sign of a band devoted to the details of their arrangements.
Brooklyn’s Wet prepare for the release of their second album ‘Still Run’ on July 13th, with the first track ‘You’re Not Wrong’.
Boston trio Wet: plaintive, pop and glassy, ephemeral balladry, like some emotionally cathartic mirage informed by soft rock and R&B. They perfected this sound on “Deadwater,” the best song on their 2016 debut Don’t You. It’s quite pretty and often powerful. “You’re Not Wrong,” is the latest track to be previewed from their sophomore album Still Run, is almost certainly one of the jauntiest song in Wet’s discography. The song was produced by Rostam Batmanglij, whose own solo debut album featured Wet singer Kelly Zutrau. It’s a throwback to early rock and R&B, powered by a crisp backbeat, nifty bass, plinking piano, and occasional flashes of strings.
Like all Wet songs, “You’re Not Wrong” is quite pretty. Unlike most of them, it has a skip in its step.
released last September on Wharf Cat Records, HONEY’S sophomore long player New Moody Judy builds on their debut’s “hard edged slice of rock noise” to create an album full of the pummel and swing, rave-ups and comedowns, and ferocious riffs and rhythms previously known only to those who have witnessed the power-trio’s live set. Equal parts concision and brute heaviness, this is the sound of perfect rock and roll music – music that’s always on the edge of spinning out of control.
From the first single, “the pugnacious ‘Dream Come Now’ a barnstormer every bit as fiery as the album artwork” to the tight jam giving way to a thrilling cascade of riffs that fuel the rush of ‘Hungry,’ HONEY give everything to the music on this release to deliver their most sonically diverse effort to date. As thematically cerebral as it is musically visceral, New Moody Judy is one of the rare albums that offers as much brain fodder for the lit majors as it does instant gratification for the guitar-heads.
Featuring former members of Pyschic Ills and Amen Dunes,Honey are mainstays of Brooklyn’s thriving music culture. Over the past 5 years they have shared the stage with the likes of Dead Moon, J. Mascis, Sheer Mag, The Men, Destruction Unit, and more and have become a household name for everyone fiending for the raw authenticity that, thankfully, can still be found in NYC at the intersection of punk and rock and roll.
The latest name on the never-ending conveyor belt from the Brooklyn music scene, Rachel Angel recently released her latest EP, “Not Enough”, on Human Noise Records; a record described as, “the story of what it’s like to be young and tough in 2018.”This week Rachel has shared the new video to the title track, Not Enough, a solo exhibition through New York, spent contemplating complicated relationships and eating bagels (of course).
Not Enough is a stirring example of Rachel’s songwriting, fusing the influences of classic Americana with the laid back nature of slacker-rock and the lo-fi spirit of punk. Lyrically, it’s classic country heartache, from the crushing opening line, “sprawled out on the floor, it’s just another day”, through to the resolution, or lack thereof, that comes later as Rachel sings, “you’re a nice guy, sometimes, but that’s not enough”. Her music might be raw and unpolished, yet with Rachel Angel’s lyrical flair, and classic songwriting, we can’t help but feel this is the start of something very exciting.
The Fat Angel Sings 