Posts Tagged ‘New York’

DIRTY PROJECTORS – ” Isolation ” Plastic Ono Band Cover

Posted: May 5, 2020 in MUSIC
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Today, Dave Longstreth, Dirty Projectors bandleader, has shared a cover of “Isolation” by Plastic Ono Band. It is available exclusively on Bandcamp; listen below. My cover of Plastic Ono Band’s “Isolation” is up for streaming & purchase exclusively on Bandcamp. All proceeds through April 3rd are going toward MusiCares’ COVID-19 relief fund for musicians and music industry folks whose work has been disrupted by the crisis It’s a very fine version of John Lennon’s great song from his legendary John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album. And when coupled with a great cause, what’s not to like?.

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On the track, Dave said,
“All proceeds through April 3rd are going toward MusiCares’ COVID-19 relief fund for musicians and music industry folks whose work has been disrupted by the crisis. So I encourage you to buy it (pay-what-you-wish) and we can be a part of helping combat this together

released March 19th, 2020

Written by John Lennon, Produced, performed and mixed by Dave Longstreth.

MAGANA – ” Jenny Don’t Leave “

Posted: May 3, 2020 in MUSIC
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Magana creates haunted Alternative Pop, which is as emotional as it is atmospheric and as beautiful as it is beguiling. Golden Tongue is the debut EP but Jeni Magana has taken the long road to get here. Born in California, Magana was classically trained in her youth before attending Berklee College in Boston and moving once more to New York City where she found herself writing songs, working with a variety of bands (Oh Odessa, Annie & The Beekeepers), creating commercial jingles and even working as a studio and touring musician for artists as unexpected as the Dropkick Murphys. This bizarre musical education shines through on the masterfully eclectic Golden Tongue EP. Magana is a very whole artist but this debut sounds vital and energetic, full of microscopic melodies and shuddering instrumentation.

Sparse and haunting sounds made by electric guitar and voice. Haunted Alternative Pop from Brooklyn’s Jeni Magana. “Golden Tongue” EP out now on Audio Antihero Records.

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Band Members
Jeni Magana

released May 1st, 2020

DIET CIG – ” Do You Wonder About Me? “

Posted: April 29, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Do You Wonder About Me? Is the follow-up to 2017’s Swear I’m Good At This. The new record marks a more intentional, self-assured Diet Cig; not only in Luciano’s radically intimate, acerbic lyrics, but in the duo’s sound as well. Luciano and Bowman moved to Richmond, VA in the summer of 2017 as a place to “hide out and make music,” and it was there that they wrote Do You Wonder About Me?, Diet Cig’s ode to growing up.

“We spent a lot of time after the first record growing as people, being humans outside of tour for a little bit, and trying to shed the imposter syndrome.” Luciano says. Spending the time to make the kind of music they really wanted to make and making sure they felt good about it was crucial to the success of tracks like Night Terrors. It’s a slower-paced song than Diet Cig’s usual, but just as biting; a song about reckoning with all the past versions of yourself. As Luciano puts it, “Am I still these people, or have I shapeshifted?” It’s essentially the thesis of Do You Wonder About Me?, considering and accepting the embarrassing aspects of your identity, and how they’re just as much a part of you as the good stuff.

Our second album, “Do You Wonder About Me?” is coming out May 1st! Pre-order the record (https://orcd.co/dietcigwonder) and check out our new song, “Thriving.” Thriving was the first song we wrote for this record!!! Inspired by the melodrama of reality TV and musical theater, we wanted the song to bounce back and forth between a lavish personal anthem and the anguish of feeling forever beholden to others opinions.

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Releases May 1st, 2020

All songs written by Alex Luciano and Noah Bowman

Band Members
Alex Luciano-vox/guitar
Noah Bowman-drums
Jamal Ruhe played all the bass
Karli Ashlyn Helm sang harmonies and additional vocals and played additional keys
Christopher Daly shredded the arpeggiator more than once
Travis de Jong played saxophone

ACTIVITY – ” Unmask Whoever “

Posted: April 28, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Activity are an avant four-piece featuring Travis Johnson, and drummer Steve Levine, both from the band Grooms, bassist Zoë Browne from Field Mouse, and guitarist Jess Rees from Russian Baths. Produced by engineer Jeff Berner of Psychic TV, their debut forms a casually menacing framework for lyrical themes of paranoia, exposed character flaws, and the broader human capacity for growth when an ugly truth is laid bare.

Lead single “Calls Your Name,” establishes the record’s spectral aura with nauseated electronic bells, and a relentless Geoff Barrow-esque drum beat beneath a half-sung, half-spoken lyrics inspired by C.S. Lewis’s 1945 novel The Great Divorce. In the novel, characters stuck in a grey, joyless conception of hell repeatedly deny opportunities to be taken into heaven, instead making excuses as to why they should remain in their embittered purgatory states. Allegorically, this speaks to the kind of opportunity for metamorphosis and positive change that’s possible when the depths of disillusionment are reached, an idea which permeates much of the album. Despite recurrent aches of discontentment, each track glows with radiant waves of catharsis while elegantly evoking jubilation and anguish within the same breadth, showing that the two are always around the corner from one another.

Experimental, avant-garde art rock from members of Grooms, Field Mouse and Russian Baths.  available March 27th, 2020 on Western Vinyl Records.
Released March 27th, 2020

BAMBARA – ” Stray ” Best Albums Of 2020

Posted: April 25, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The first thing that strikes you about Stray, Bambara’s fourth – and greatest – album to date, will be its pulverizing soundscape. By turns, vast, atmospheric, cool, broiling and, at times – on stand out tracks like Sing Me To The Street and Serafina – simply overwhelming. But “Stray” is not merely another, better entry in a catalogue full of darkly thrilling, blistering experimental rock-via-punk. Rather, early on in its conception the band made the decision to experiment with new compositions and song structures.

Bambara – made up of twin brothers Reid and Blaze Bateh, singer/guitarist and drummer respectively, and bassist William Brookshire – have been evolving their midnight-black noise into something more subtle and expansive ever since the release of their 2013 debut Dreamviolence. That process greatly accelerated on 2018’s Shadow On Everything, their first on Wharf Cat Records and a huge stride forward for the band both lyrically and sonically.

The resulting addition of backing vocals from Drew Citron (Public Practice) and Anina Ivory-Block (Palberta) create a hauntingly beautiful contrast to Bateh’s drunken baritone on tracks like Sing Me to the Street, Death Croons and Stay Cruel, while the Dick Dale-inspired guitar riffs on Serafina and Heat Lightning and the call-and-response choruses throughout the album showcase Bambara’s ability to write songs that immediately demand repeat listen.

To start, the band did what they always do: they locked themselves in their windowless Brooklyn basement to write. Decisions were made early on to try and experiment with new instrumentation and song structures, even if the resulting compositions would force the band to adapt their storied live set, known for its tenacity and technical prowess. Throughout the songwriting process, the band pulled from their deep well of creative references, drawing on the likes of Leonard Cohen, Ennio Morricone, Sade, classic French noir L’Ascenseur Pour L’Echafraud, as well as Southern Gothic stalwarts Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews.

it would be wrong to characterize Stray as simply the sound of the graveyard. Light frequently streams through and, whether refracted through the love and longing found on songs like “Made for Me” or the fantastical nihilism on display in tracks like the anthemic “Serafina,” reveals this album to be the monumental step forward that it is. Here Bambara sound like they’ve locked into what they were always destined to achieve, and the effect is nothing short of electrifying.
Released February 14th, 2020

Bambara is Reid Bateh, Blaze Bateh and William Brookshire

Reid Bateh – Vocals, Guitar, Noise
Blaze Bateh – Drums, Percussion, Organ
William Brookshire – Bass, Synth, Piano
Ani Ivry-Block – Backing Vocals
Drew Citron – Backing Vocals
Adam Markiewicz – Violin
Sean Smith – Trumpet

These are just a few of the changes that reveal this album to be the monumental step forward that it is. Here Bambara finally sound like they’ve locked into what they were always destined to achieve, and the effect is nothing short of electrifying. For fans of Protomartyr, Daughters and IDLES.

STEVE GUNN – ” Acoustic Unseen “

Posted: April 21, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Steve Gunn released Acoustic Unseen on Matador Records, a new EP of intimate acoustic versions of songs from his critically acclaimed latest album, The Unseen In Between. Accompanying the news of the release is a short documentary titled Unseen Anthology which opens to a scene of Gunn performing outside one of London’s thirteen green cab shelters, diminutive sheds which were originally introduced in 1875 to provide shelter for cabmen – and also to keep them out of the Victorian pubs.

The Unseen In Between is befitting of its title; a mysterious and mesmeric edgeland offering glimpses into the underbelly of a half-remembered neighbourhood, and the trials and habits of its outcasts. It could be argued that the view is too familiar for some, causing them to wander and grow listless. Upon looking deeper however, many will find solace in the oblique tales and tragedies. Those relatable human moments, which can be found right under your nose….” . The EP features a stripped down perspective on the stately set and disclosing the songs’ rich individual elements in Gunn’s dexterous and lyrical guitar style. Steve says: “After being on the road with the band since January, I wanted to spend an afternoon capturing the songs from The Unseen In Between as I originally wrote them, with just me and my acoustic. Mid-year, I went back to the great Strange Weather Studio in Brooklyn, and played through the songs in their most basic form. It felt good.”

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Directed by The Mitcham Submarine and edited by James Harman, the documentary weaves together footage from touring, live sessions, official and unofficial music videos – including a breath taking session for Toutpartout in a transformed convent in Ghent, on the road footage captured on a Fisher-Price camera by Steve and his band, and acoustic videos filmed across London, including a Cecil Court bookshop. Taken together, it’s an engrossing live document of an artist in need of little more than a guitar and his voice to conjure a transfixing atmosphere, and a perfect visual companion to the EP.

released October 15th, 2019

Steve Gunn – Guitar & Vocals,
All songs written by Steve Gunn

The HOLD STEADY – ” Live in London ” March 9th, 2019

Posted: April 17, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Hey everyone,

We hope you are all getting through these unusual times and washing your hands a lot.  Unfortunately, we don’t have an update on rescheduling Minneapolis, Nashville, Atlanta or Denver, but rest assured as soon as we do, we will let everyone know what is happening.

In the meantime, we’re continuing with Unified Fridays and releasing another live show on Bandcamp today.  Part of the proceeds from your Bandcamp live show purchase go to various venue employee funds of places we’ve played recently and, in some cases, released live recordings from.  In the past month, generosity from The Unified Scene has led to donations to the employee funds for Brooklyn Bowl (Brooklyn), White Eagle Hall (New Jersey) and The Crocodile (Seattle).

We will continue contributing to these funds together until we’re able to play live shows again.  Many of the people who work across all the venues are responsible for helping foster the environment to make Constructive Summer, The Weekender, and Massive Nights such amazing experiences.  You can also donate directly to these funds below:

Seattle/The Crocodile,New Jersey/White Eagle Hall, Brooklyn Bowl

Our last shows before this lockdown happened over The Weekender III – an incredible weekend in London in early March. The Weekender has become a fantastic part of the THS calendar, and the audiences in London are simply amazing to our band. For our next live release, we’re flashing back a year ago to the second night of The Weekender II- March 9th, 2019 at Electric Ballroom. We got on stage to “All The Young Dudes”, opened with “Stations” and the night unfolded. This one contains the live debut of “Denver Haircut” and a “Discouraged’ dedicated to our friend Scott Hutchison. Pretty rocking four song encore to close it out too. Thinking lovingly of The Weekender and how awesome it will feel to do this again. In the meantime, check out this show.

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Recorded live at Electric Ballroom in London, United Kingdom on March 9, 2019.

For each Bandcamp “Unified Fridays” live recording THS releases, we’ll be donating a portion of the proceeds to a staff fund from one of the past shows.

released April 17th, 2020

The Hold Steady are: Bobby Drake, Craig Finn, Tad Kubler, Franz Nicolay, Galen Polivka, Steve Selvidge

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay Positive. The Hold Steady.

The SHACKS – ” Wings “

Posted: April 10, 2020 in MUSIC
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The Shacks return with “Wings”, the highly anticipated new single that is sure to fly into the hearts and minds of their fans. A bottom heavy feel good anthem that cuts its way through the speakers from the first note.

Wings is equal parts new sonic landscape and familiar territory for The Shacks. Their debut eponymous EP took the world by storm with its smash hit “This Strange Effect.” Since then, they have been touring the U.S. and Europe alongside the likes of Khurangbin and Chicano Batman supporting their 2018 critically acclaimed debut album Haze. It’s no doubt that all this touring is responsible for this infectiously catchy and tasteful crowd pleaser. The pulsing guitar and downbeat force you to move your feet while Shannon encourages you to take a break from your troubles. This is sure to be an anthem for Spring and should hold fans over while The Shacks finish up their new record due out in the winter of 2021.

Fronted by singer/bassist Shannon Wise and guitarist/producer Max Shrager, The Shacks’ cinematic songs are the soundtrack to a mysterious alternate reality. The Shacks‘ signature sound and blending of genres has gained them a worldwide fan base. The group has toured internationally with artists such as Khruangbin, Lee Fields & The Expressions and Chicano Batman.
Released April 10th, 2020

TRACE MOUNTAINS – ” Lost in the Country ” Album Of The Week

Posted: April 10, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Under the moniker Trace Mountains, Dave Benton writes music that asks large questions in quietly profound ways. On the project’s earliest release, the 2014 compilation Buttery Sprouts & Other Songs, these thoughts appeared as lo-fi scraps of wit and tenderness. But by the time A Partner to Lean On, Trace Mountains’ debut full-length, arrived in 2018, Benton’s perceptive indie rock had matured into more existential meditations about identity, existence, and finding sense in an increasingly chaotic world.

In the two years since A Partner to Lean On, Benton’s life has undergone several large changes, namely the dissolution of LVL UP, the indie rock quartet he co-founded in college, and a move to Kingston, a small city in New York’s Hudson Valley. Composed during—but not directly inspired by—this transition, Trace Mountains’ second record, Lost in the Country, reflects Benton’s need to reconnect with his inner world.

Prompted by an urge to access a more authentic voice, Lost in the Country finds Benton digging deeper into candid songwriting. “I wanted to open myself up and write lyrics that are a little bit more direct,” he explains. “I write a lot of songs that are about myself and a lot of songs that aren’t, but on this record, the focus is turned inward either way.” The result is Trace Mountains’ strongest and most assured record yet, 10 songs driven by a desire for introspection and self-discovery. The backdrop for this insularity is an expanse of wide blue skies, seas of trees, and winding roads, ideal locales for thoughts to blossom into greater reflections of the outer world. The slow-burning “Absurdity,” which Benton modestly says is about “hiking and standing in the country,” uses the sublimity of the wilderness to comment on technology’s inescapable presence. Similarly, the driving opener “Rock & Roll” transforms the premise of a “simple song about being a rocker” into a stream-of-consciousness, apocalyptic poem about delusions, regrets, and getting lost in your own limited perspective. This self-examination culminates with the record’s ambitious and anthemic title track. Channeling the cosmic sprawl of the War on Drugs or Kurt Vile, Benton recalls a moment of deep loneliness and depression outside a concert venue in the Netherlands, and how an unexpected moment of compassion led to a moment of awakening.

Despite its frequently bucolic setting, Lost in the Country’s underlying current is an urgent commitment to Trace Mountains and “finding a creative process that requires me to be honest with myself.” “I know I sing to forget, I sing to hold my breath, to feel the thumping in my chest,” Benton sings on “Cooper’s Dream.” This line is “rooted in the importance of music in my life, it’s definitely a reflection on that and how I can keep it in my life, because if I’m not careful and I don’t nurture it, I could lose it.” The self-imposed pressure has been empowering for Benton. “I really like having full control in making a record, deciding what songs are going to be on it, as well as shaping the vibe or narrative of the whole thing,” he says. “It brings a peace of mind knowing that I am responsible for just my voice.”

While Benton is Trace Mountains’ songwriter, he asserts that Lost in the Country is by no means a solo effort. Collaboration is crucial to the project and Benton is quick to credit the contributions of his bandmates, which include Jim Hill (Slight Of), Greg Rutkin (LVL UP, Cende), Sean Henry and Susannah Cutler (Yours Are the Only Ears). “It’s definitely our record,” Benton says. “I couldn’t make this thing without them.” After beginning the recording process at Brooklyn’s Studio G with engineer Matt Labozza, Benton finished Lost in the Country at his home studio in Kingston, where he also added contributions from Carmen Perry (Voice), Stew Cutler (Guitar, Lap Steel), Dan Goldberg (Synthesizer) and ARTHUR (Samples, “AB” by ARTHUR). It was then mixed by Mike Ditrio and mastered by Ryan Schwab

Former LVL UP member Dave Benton makes music as Trace Mountains, and Lost in the Country is his second full-length record. He wrote the album during a period of transition, following the 2018 end of LVL UP and his relocation from Brooklyn to Kingston, New York. Ahead of the LP’s release, Benton shared “Lost in the Country,” “Rock & Roll,” and “Me & May.”

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The Band:

Dave Benton (Voice, Guitar, Mellotron, Saw)
Jim Hill (Guitar, Organ, Bass, Voice)
Greg Rutkin (Drums)
Susannah Cutler (Voice, Synthesizer)
Sean Henry (Bass)
Carmen Perry (Voice)
Stew Cutler (Guitar, Lap Steel)
ARTHUR (Voice & Drum Samples – “AB” by ARTHUR)
Matt Labozza (Effectron II)
Dan Goldberg (Synthesizer)

released April 10th, 2020

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The WANTS – ” Fear My Society ” Albums Of 2020

Posted: April 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The album artwork for ‘Container’ displays cans of tinned food – stockpiling chic, if you will – while portentous song titles such as ‘Fear My Society’ and ‘Clearly A Crisis’ could hardly chime more with the doomy current climate.

Comprised of two members of New York art-punks Bodega Madison Velding-VanDam and bassist Heather Elle and completed by drummer Jason Gates, the confident self-produced debut from is riven with taut anxiety and a sense of looming dread.

Madison Velding-VanDam is one busy guy. If he’s not developing and producing the music of Brooklyn art-punkers Bodega, he is racking his brains for the right words as the primary songwriter of The Wants, his buzzy side project. Oh, and if that doesn’t sound like much, Velding-VanDam also switches between lead guitar and bass for both bands, churning out watertight, propulsive riffs while he’s at it.

Madison’s schedule might be busy, but he can’t get enough of the thrill of it. Working double duty for both Bodega and The Wants has provided him with a new creative gateway into arranging and playing guitar with different visions for each respective band. This method has paid off, too; The Wants’ forthcoming debut record, Container, is a bolshy, turbulent 30-minute trip through the darker complexities of American society. It is a whip-smart, forward-thinking body of work and essentially a product of his calculated collaborative process.

Yet it’s also a collection of razor-sharp pop songs that gleam through the gloom. They mine the sinuous basslines and euphoric bleakness of post-punk outfits such as Gang Of Four (with Velding-Van-Dam’s lyrics seemingly similarly preoccupied with stripping away the lies of capitalist and consumerist culture) and the dancefloor nous of bands from their home city (think LCD Soundsystem. So while ‘Clearly A Crisis’ apes Andy Gill’s distinctive, serrated slashes of guitar, the title track ‘Container’ takes us back to the early noughties when Mattie Safer first picked up a cowbell and James Murphy fretted about losing his edge.

The brooding Depeche Mode style existential goth-pop of ‘Fear My Society’ dealing with the post-crash economic fallout of a man pondering his place in the world – proves that Velding-VanDam is worthy of wearing the Dave Gahan-style leather chaps he regularly sports onstage. ‘Ape Trap’ and ‘Hydra’ could be cuts from Interpol totemic first record ‘Turn On the Bright Lights’ , and – inspired by the soundtrack to David Lynch’s cult movie ‘Lost Highway’  ‘The Motor’ is a frantic, pulsating rave-up. The fallout shelter funk of ‘Nuclear Party’ locks into a lolloping Talking Heads groove, with Velding-VanDam sardonically deadpanning lyrics like: Kiss my bombs and I’ll kiss your bones.

Interspersed throughout are dark, ambient instrumentals ‘Machine Room’, ‘Aluminum’, ‘Waiting Room’ and ‘Voltage’. This adds an extra layer of claustrophobia and menace, but also feels like the band are padding out a very good eight-track album into 12 songs.

Still that’s a minor quibble – as ‘Container’ is a masterful statement of intent, The Motor, Container, and Ape Trap are three tracks fromContainer that signal our path forward. These best reflect our effort to mix our influences of dance, post-punk, and pop genres we’re drawn to in exciting ways. I can see us making even more danceable and vocal melody heavy music.

I don’t feel finished engaging with the lyrical and visual themes of this record, either. The dark heart of America and the complexities of my country’s iconography still keep me searching for answers.

Container is out now on Council Records.

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