Posts Tagged ‘Brooklyn’

IAN SWEET – ” Slime Time Live “

Posted: December 1, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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bnb-iansweet

With the addition of drummer Tim Cheney and bassist Damien Scalise, Jilian Medford’s solo project Ian has evolved into the full band Ian Sweet. But it’s still Medford’s bruised, beating heart that lies at the center of Shapeshifters  twitchy tangles of guitar-rock, and it’s her voice we hear cracking into a strained yelp time again and again. Shapeshifter is a brutal album, an album about anxiety and self-destruction and giving yourself up for someone who only makes you feel more alone. But it’s also a hopeful album about going through the wringer and coming out on the other side with a smile.

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The SO SO GLOS – ” Kamikaze “

Posted: December 1, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Track By Track: Brooklyn Punks The So So Glos Run Us Through Their Blistering New Record

Brooklyn’s The So So Glos released their third LP Kamikaze There’s some talent behind this one too, being recorded by John Reis (Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes) and mixed by Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley and Cursive).

The record is a slab of hard hitting NYC styled punk rock, drawing clear influence from and pays tribute to America’s greatest punk bands from The Ramones to Black Flag.
The Band led us through a track by track explanation of the albums songs.

DANCING INDUSTRY
This one is a call to action. Calling kids of all ages, come out, come out wherever you are. Come from behind your screens and on to the dance floor. Lets build a new army of empathic, peace seeking individuals. Lets churn out this feeling in an “assembly line” like fashion. This ain’t a party that we’re starting, it’s a movement that we’re blowing up. This song was written the day after we finished recording our previous album, Blowout. It’s the first track on the record, and the first words you hear are “BLOWN OUT”. It picks up right where we left off. The saga continues….

A.D.D. LIFE
There’s too much information and we’re all having trouble concentrating. We’ve got an entire generation with A.D.D. in a world that’s constantly connected but still isolated. This was also written a few days after the completion of Blowout and I was listening to a lot of Fiona Apple at the time.

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GOING OUT SWINGIN’
This is a self-destructive “going out” party anthem. It’s an equally empowering & self-deprecating feeling. The use of the word swinging is a quadruple entendre. Going out swinging: either sexually swinging, or swinging a baseball bat (playing for the losing team), swinging from a noose, or swing dancing on the dance-floor. If you listen closely, you can hear Broadway’s own Danny Miller playing the cello over the requiem outro. Alex recorded the strings with Danny in a little apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

DEVILS DOING HANDSTANDS
The hangover from last night’s party. The protagonist here has a momentary sense of clarity and is fully aware of the spiritual journey he is on. At this point in the record, we’re looking back at mistakes of the past and saying “next time around, I’ll do handstands on the ground” to change my state of mind. This one is for an optimist who see’s through a pessimistic lens. An ode to reincarnation.

MAGAZINE
It’s an attempt to dispel the myth that on the cover of magazines girls must stay lean and boys must stay mean. This is another call to action by the protagonist who’s intentions are to burn down the beliefs that fuel the structural institutions which perpetuate the stereotypes between us & marginalize communities of people based on gender, race, class, you name it…

SUNNY SIDE
Heartbreak opens the floodgates to climatic variation. It’s nothing new under the sun, but this is sarcastic one. This song came out when a hurricane hit Brooklyn and the power went out over Manhattan for a week. I wrote this song in a plastic bag.

KINGS COUNTY II BALLAD OF A SO SO GLO
In this song we’re talking about the self-obsessed culture in which we live. This is the story of two So So Glos lost in a world of celebrated narcissism.

A So So Glo is defined as: 1. A postmodern egotist whose devotion to themselves supersedes any moral, social or political cause (this can also be used as an empowering term for someone who works to combat this type of behavior). 2. The Glo that is emitted from a portable information device such as a phone tablet or computer.

FOOL ON THE STREET
A fool on the street who refuses to play the game. The fool witnesses people rising to power and takes note of the moral compromises that are made to make it to the top. The fool harbours feelings of disillusionment, directed toward the ones we put on a pedestal. This was written underground. I think it means absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that jazz.

CADAVER
The feeling you get at the end of your rope. Our hero is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, shooting off at the mouth. This is a character who truly is beyond caring what people think. This song evolved out of an idea that we’d been kicking around for a little while but it wasn’t written until the day before we recorded it.

INPATIENT
A glimpse into a stay at an inpatient mental rehabilitation center. Protagonist is institutionalized and removed from society. Lyrics on this one by Matt.

DOWN THE TUBES
Using Kamikaze as a metaphor for taking someone in a human relationship down with you because of all that they’ve done. This one is also a comment on violence. It’s an ANTI violence song that plays with narrative prospective

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MISSIONARY
The feeling you get when you’re on a mission and you need to shout it out loud at the whole wide world. This particular mission is guided by peace, love and punk rock ethics. Picture a missionary using an extreme of explosive proportion to get though to the kids who need it. John Reis can be heard chanting along with the gang on the outro.

WILD NOTHING – ” Live On KEXP “

Posted: November 20, 2016 in MUSIC
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Wild Nothing, aka Brooklyn-based musician Jake Tatum, released his debut album ‘Gemini’ in 2010 to critical acclaim. Five years on, with an equally impressive sophomore release and a series of EPs under his belt, Tatum says
Songs are songs you have to allow yourself to be open to everything.” .
I view every record as an opportunity to write better songs. At the end of the day it still sounds like me, just new.”

Wild Nothing performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded April 25, 2016.

Songs:
TV Queen
A Woman’s Wisdom
Lady Blue
Adore

SHE KEEPS BEES – ” Radiance “

Posted: November 10, 2016 in MUSIC
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A song taken from the new album “Eight Houses” released through BB*Island in Europe and Future Gods in the US, She Keeps Bees‘ 2014 record, Eight Houses was one of our favourite records of the year. Ahead of their European tour, the Brooklyn based two-piece of Jessica Larrabee and Andy LaPlant are sharing a video for the dreamy “Radiance” off of Eight Houses.  The video features lead singer, Larrabee walking through a field of flowers, it’s a beautiful video for an equally beautiful track.

PETER SILBERMAN (The Antlers) – ” Transcendless Summer’s “

Posted: November 4, 2016 in MUSIC
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Following on from his work with The Antlers, Peter Silberman has written and recorded an instrumental piece titled Transcendless Summer. Taking only an afternoon to put together, back in August 2013, it is available digitally today and will be released on cassette on 8th October.
The following message comes directly from Peter,

“I’d been spending the better part of the summer of 2013 in Portland, OR, during a pause midway through the Brooklyn-based Familiars sessions. One evening, as an extension of a thought-experiment, Nicholas Principe match-made engineer Tim Shrout and me, and we chose a date to track something.

Biking across town to the session a few days later, I had no agenda. When I encountered the studio’s vivid arsenal of vintage gear, I didn’t have any concrete ideas. And when Tim (who had so generously donated his time, space, and expertise) asked me what I wanted to do, I didn’t really have an answer. I only hoped to liberate the pent-up potential energy of the moment.

Listening to its twenty minutes now, I experience a fleeting era distilled into a single day. I hear the first few miles of a long ride, hands released from handlebars’ grip, arms splayed out to the sides, coasting with abandon, rounding a blind corner without worry for what might slam into me beyond the immediately visible.

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In the three years since Transcendless Summer’s spontaneous birth, the colors bled and faded some, filled in with a wiser vibrance only time could provide. These tracks have felt three summers melt away, relearning the same cruelty each year: that summer’s start initiates a countdown to its end, that the first day’s light stretches infinitely outward before shrinking back from a dilating night.”
Peter Silberman

Peter Silberman will also be performing two shows in London in December for which tickets are available at the links below,

Wednesday 7th – The Forge, Camden (Tickets)
Thursday 8th – The Forge, Camden (Tickets)

IAN SWEET – ” Shapshifter “

Posted: November 4, 2016 in MUSIC
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bnb-iansweet

With the addition of drummer Tim Cheney and bassist Damien Scalise, Jilian Medford’s solo project Ian has evolved into the full band now called Ian Sweet. But it’s still Medford’s bruised, beating heart that lies at the center of Shapshifter with twitchy tangles of guitar-rock, and it’s her voice we hear cracking into a strained yelp time again and again. Shapeshifter is a brutal listen of an album, an album about anxiety and self-destruction and giving yourself up for someone who only makes you feel more alone. But it’s also a hopeful album about going through the wringer and coming out on the other side with a smile

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“Slime Time Live” is the lead off single from IAN SWEET’s Shapeshifter, out now on CD, LP, digital, and cassette from Hardly Art records.

KEVINE DEVINE – ” Instigator “

Posted: October 23, 2016 in MUSIC
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Kevin Devine is a master storyteller, an independent singer/songwriter from Brooklyn, NY. He plays alone, with his Goddamn Band, and as a member of Bad Books. he imbues his ninth album “Instigator” – from the biting power-pop of “Both Ways” and “No Why” to the angular, Nirvana-esque “Guard Your Gates” & gorgeously finger-picked “No One Says You Have To” with intricate details and often-uncomfortable truths. Their meanings are personal, but their themes are universal. It’s a skill that makes both his albums and his live show so alluring: Even when Devine’s writing about the world at large, he’s pointing a mirror back at himself. And it’s there on “No History,” a string of personal vignettes centered on the September 11th, 2001 attacks. It’s a song made much more meaningful by both the din of the 2016 presidential election and current global climate.

SAM KOGON – ” Psychic Tears “

Posted: October 19, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Sam Kogon

Brooklyn’s Sam Kogon cites the late-’60s baroque/psych era as his main inspiration, and he’s actually gone on to play with some of his heroes. He sang lead vocals in the 2015 line up of the legendary band The Left Banke, and has also backed original Beach Boy Al Jardine in his band Al Jardine & Friends. His next solo album, “Psychic Tears”, which was produced by Sam Evian and comes out on October 28th via Beyond Beyond Is Beyond Records. The album features the song “I Was Always Talking,” a collaboration with Frankie Cosmos (aka Greta Kline).

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Greta duets with Sam and also sings some harmonies, and her style pairs well with Sam’s. Here’s what he tells us about the song:

The song is about a friend break-up. Without giving away too much, I wrote it when I was beginning to realize that some of my friends I still knew from college were no longer my friends anymore. Funny how that works…Anyways, in my head I heard it as a duet, with each verse sung by each friend. So after my band and I recorded the song, I asked my friend Greta to see if she’d be interested in singing on the track. She listened to a rough mix and (luckily) dug it. One evening this past February she came over and tracked her vocals in my guest bedroom closet. It was a great session.

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Thanks To Brooklyn Vegan

PWR BTTM – ” Mr. Jones ” Counting Crows Cover

Posted: October 8, 2016 in MUSIC
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Ben Hopkins and Liv Bruce make up the core of PWR BTTM. Together, they crafted last year’s Ugly Cherries, a record that sees them both singing lead and switching instruments. But when the duo stopped by The A.V. Club office to cover Counting Crows’ 1993 hit “Mr. Jones” they brought some friends along with them. Joined by Petal vocalist Kiley Lotz and Dowsing bassist Michael Politowicz, the band glittered up and gave “Mr. Jones” the PWR BTTM treatment.

While they record their sophomore album, Brooklyn queer punk duo PWR BTTM have reclaimed Counting Crows’ “Mr. Jones” from frat house day parties everywhere, by doing an excellent cover of the song.

The haphazard and fresh garage-punk duo have often behind defined by their sexuality, as is perhaps understandable given this album contains songs entitled ‘I Wanna Boi’ and ‘All The Boys’, and although comparisons to the likes of Pansy Division are bound to follow, ‘Ugly Cherries’ delivers through the indelble catchiness of its songs. In hock as much to Jonathan Richman’s off-kilter and refreshingly candid ditties as Milky Wimpshake’s DIY lo-fi ramalama or even The White Stripes’ in-the-basement rawness, ‘Ugly Cherries’ is a triumph of both chutzpah and spark.

 

SHANA FALANA – ” Here Comes The Wave “

Posted: October 1, 2016 in MUSIC
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Shana Falana

“I was pretty lost in addiction, living in Bushwick, Brooklyn, in 2006.” That’s how Shana Falana sets up “Cloudbeats,” the mist-wreathed new single from her roaring new record “Here Comes The Wave”.  She spells out that same backstory explicitly in the lyrics, sighing, “Pills I take/ cocaine, too/ call in sick/ ‘I have the flu.’” The music that surrounds the confession is drifting and dreamlike—a stark change from the thundering roar for which Falana has become known.

But the song goes deeper than mere confession, starting with addiction but gradually moving on to address loss and pain. “This is a song about looking for a home, both physically and emotionally,” Falana says. “Shortly after I wrote this, I reconnected with my father and learned he was ill. Three months later, he passed away. I feel like I’m still processing his death, even nine years later. When I went to record the vocals for this song, I became totally overwhelmed with grief.” You can hear that in her voice, the way it drifts disconsolately along, a spirit looking for a home. But, in the end, “Cloudbeats” is about more than just sorrow. “There’s a lot of closure in this song for me now,” Falana says. “It’s like I was reaching out to my future self for help and, nine years later, I was able to answer the call. That’s the underlying message of this record: It’s never too late. Never give up. Life keeps on getting better.”

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