Crying began as a chiptune/power pop band who embraced their love for stadium rock to write infectiously melodic tunes on a massive scale. The new incarnation retains Elaiza Santos‘ personal, conversational vocal delivery put over progressive guitar riffs, spaced out synths and gargantuan, energizing production. Put your fear of change aside and enter into the new era of Crying. Band Members
Elaiza Santos – Vocals
Ryan Galloway – Guitar and Synth
Kynwyn Sterling – Drums
It’s been two years since Diet Cig first catured our hearts with their debut EP “Over Easy”. So their debut long player “Swear I’m Good At This” spans 12 tracks and with any luck it’ll be the making of the NY duo.
Diet Cig is a pop-punk/indie-pop/cuddlepunk duo from New Paltz, New York. They are Alex Luciano (guitar/vocals) and Noah Bowman (drums), and they’re one of my most favourite New York bands. You may remember that I’ve raved about them before .
A few months ago, I was delighted to see their debut album on the list of new releases for 2017. The album “Swear I’m Good at This”— comes out on Friday via the magnificent label Father Daughter Records. That label is home to so many of the bands that have made my year-end lists over the past couple of years. there’s a few Father/Daughter albums this year that have already secured spots in my 2017 year-end list.
I’ve managed to get my ears on Swear I’m Good at This a couple of days early, and I absolutely love it. It’s got everything that I loved about the Over Easy EP, but it’s even better.
“Bath Bomb”, is a great track its one of those songs to keep playing the song again and again. And again. It’s got the quiet/loud/quiet/louder thing going on. It’s got all the bounciness and sheer joy that I’ve come to expect from Diet Cig. And it’s about lying in the bath for a long time until your fingers prune.
Sophie Allison is originally from Nashville, though her roots don’t often show up in the muted bedroom pop she makes as Soccer Mommy. But on “Last Girl,” with a full band in tow for the first time ever on record, it’s apparent that she grew up in the country capital of the world and inherited the naturalistic storytelling characteristics that come with the genre. There’s echoes of Taylor Swift in the jealous girlfriend narrative of the track, but the unflashy nature of Allison’s songwriting calls back to an even earlier era of confessional dejection. “Last Girl” pivots around an aching question “Why would you want to be with me when she’s got everything you’ll ever need?” and each verse is a put down about the worries that can’t stop rattling around inside her head. That Allison is able to channel that insecurity and second guessing into something as sickly sweet as “Last Girl” is a testament to what makes the project so great, and an encouraging sign of things to come.
High quality guitar pop. Manages to balance being super catchy and also not sound insufferably happy. Just feels authentic. And Sophie’s voice is heavenly as usual. Sophie says Two songs that meant a lot to me this summer when I thought i was gonna lose someone I had feelings for and I was sad and insecure. both are for Julian.
all songs written by sophie allison
rhythm guitar and main vox by sophie allison
drums and backing vox by thomas borrelli
lead guitar and backing vox by kelton young
bass by jacob corenflos
The New York-based wild punk duo lifted up the spirits of every room they played in at SXSW. Diet Cig were the only band who are a much-needed shot in the arm every time I hear them, singer Alex Luciano bounces around on stage, singing and pushing her guitar to the limits. Drummer Noah Bowman was breaking sticks left and right and it was like we’d stepped into a page out of Where The Wild Things Are, the indie rock edition. Luciano is never not smiling ear to ear . Their set punctuates with the catchy single “Harvard”, where both band members are at their finest. I dare you to see Diet Cig play live and not totally fall for their happy-go-lucky energy.
Taken from the debut album “Swear I’m Good At This” out April 7th, 2017 on French kiss Records. Preorder the album NOW and get this track along with “Tummy Ache” & “Barf Day” immediately!
If the New York underground scene was something of another home for Vagabon over the preceding couple of years, then “Fear & Force”, the lead track from Infinite Worlds, album unveiled in November, opened up many new doors for Lætitia, gaining plaudits from much further afield, including a number of UK publications. A totemic capturing of her craft, the track is a wonderful burst of impassioned guitar-pop, swelling from a tender, heavy-hearted opening – all memorable vocal refrains and playful production – to something far more robust; the sight and sound of an artist growing in stature right in front of your eyes. As is the case with many joyful musical moments, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes it such a compelling excursion; something to do with the affection with which it’s delivered, something to do with the sophistication of the voice that carries it.
“I definitely loved performing and singing at a young age,” Lætitia admits, “but that’s a memory I’ve been forced to kind of think of recently, and one that I’d somewhat forgot about. I don’t think I ever thought I could play or sing professionally.” While most artists present there work with this kind of modesty, in this case of Vagabon it’s much more meaningful to acknowledge the work she’s put in to honing her skills, rather than simply write off such endeavours as an excise in humility. “I spent the last few years really working on my voice,” she says, “I played around New York when I could and I’ve been on tour a lot; I’ve worked on it as much as possible and I think the results are finally becoming tangible.”
‘Tangible” is something of an understatement. While ‘Infinite Worlds’ comes beautifully alive in the small, exquisite gaps between her vocals, thanks to Lætitia’s schooled-skill as a music engineer, it’s her voice that really grips. When spoken it’s almost enchantingly delicate; add a the flame of a song to it though and it makes like touch-paper; sparking in to life, as fierce and powerful and vigorous as Lætitia wishes it to be
Few debut albums in recent memory have been as immediately impressive as Vagabon’s Infinite Worlds. Laetitia Tamko was born in Cameroon, but moved to New York in her teens and her music is filled gorgeous ruminations on where exactly she fits into this mess of life. A first listen to the album opener, “Embers,” for example, showcases what feels like a natural echo in Tamko’s voice, which serves as a spiritual guide through the rest of the album’s rattling drums and inquisitive distortion
Much like our weather, the music of Vagabon has the propensity to catch you by surprise; leaning one way, lulling you in, and then suddenly shifting direction; sun bursting through stormy clouds that just a moment before seemed impenetrable. Having caught the eyes and ears of a select few with the release of her debut cassette via MiscreantRecords, the past few months has seen Lætitia Tamko’s stock rise immeasurably; building towards the release of her forceful, beautifully wholesome debut album, via Father/Daughter Records, next month. An astonishing meeting of worlds and ways, “Infinite Worlds” is a gripping document of Lætitia’s journey, flitting between punchy indie-rock and more experimental excursions that showcase her ever-expanding craft.
“I’m just doing music, day to day. It’s the job now,” she says, with a giggle that perhaps hints at the incredulity of such a thing. she admits. “It’s my dream job, and it’s so special to only work on the stuff that you love.”
Cultivating her work via the New York underground scene, Vagabon played a number of key support slots, and it was during one such show, supporting Mitski in 2014, when she met Jeanette Wall; Mitski’s manager and founder of the wonderful Miscreant label, which has helped support the likes of PWR BTTM, Lisa Prank, and more, and who would go on to release the first Vagabon EP that same year. “I first started writing songs around three years ago,” Lætitia says, looking back on that time. “The first collection that I wrote I immediately recorded with a friend and put them online, which are the demos that I called “Persian Garden”. It’s kind of been a whirlwind since then.”
The idea of travel, and the associate strands of home and time and place that so often get tangled up in such things, play a meaningful role in the songs that make-up Vagabon’s debut album, or at least they’ve heavily informed and influenced the work which has led to it. “I’ve been living in New York for the last eleven years, but I was born in Cameroon,” she says. “I’ve been here for so long that I feel like New York is my home, but I also have an attachment to the placed I lived until I was fourteen. I’m fascinated with movement, from both a physical and emotional place,” she continues. “I speak of the idea of home in my writing, and that probably stems from the geographical moves I’ve made in my life,”
The Embers by Vagabon from the upcoming debut record, “Infinite Worlds” out February 24th, 2017 on Father/Daughter Records.
Margaret Glaspy strips back DJ Snake’s ‘Let Me Love You’ for triple j’s Like A Version, Like A Version is a segment on Australian radio station triple j. Every Friday morning a musician or band comes into the studio to play one of their own songs and a cover of a song they love. Margaret Glaspy is a New York-based songwriter who originally hails from Red Bluff, California, and this morning she sang ‘Let Me Love You’, which usually hails from Justin Bieber’s mouth.
“Emotions and Math” is not simply the name of Margaret Glaspy’s new debut album. That expression drills right to the heart of the New York singer-songwriter’s proper introduction, a mission statement both artistic and personal.
On its surface, the title track talks about being a touring musician and figuring out how to see your partner, looking at the calendar and calculating how you’re going to spend time together. But “Emotions and Math,” which ATORecords will released earlier in summer 2016, also sums up an epiphany she had while making the record.
The DJ Snake track got the Glaspy treatment and we were blown away with ~the vocals~:
US singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy performs her original tune ‘You And I’ live in triple j’s Like A Version studio. Glaspy, who’s 27 and grew up in Red Bluff, California, self-produced the album, which frames her revealing ruminations in shards of jagged guitar rock. Building on its early buzz — Rolling Stone hailed first single “You and I” for its “hot barbs of electric guitar,” and declared it a “stomping rocker
“A girl I like recently told me she showed her mom my band, and her mom said ‘I like it, but he sings about girls too much’,” laughs Holden Jaffe, frontman of New York City-based folk rock outfit Del Water Gap, who recently released a new single, “Vanessa.” The band has been diligently crafting a new EP they plan to release in February, and Jaffe admits, he does sing about girls a lot. “There’s definitely a theme, friendship and romance and everything in between,” he says, as I virtually feel him blush on the the other end of the line. “And a twinge of post-apocalyptic nostalgia with a dash of quarter-life struggle.” Good save.
The young Jaffe began making songs in a converted storage closet at his high school, an endeavor which eventually turned into a record he put out his senior year. “It got some love in the City,” he recalls. “I went to Clive Davis at NYU and met some guys in my dorm while we were waiting out Hurricane Sandy. I said ‘I have this record, and I don’t really know what to do with it, would you guys want to play with me at a show?’ That went well and led to other shows, and here I am, five years later.”
“We got along from the beginning because we have a similar value set, musically speaking,” he continues. “We like songs where the composition and the lyrics are a stand-alone strong entity regardless of the instrumentation behind it. We try to put the songs first.” Over the last couple of years, Del Water Gap has spent a significant amount of time on the road, which gave them ample time to road-test lots of new material, but left little time to actually record it. Finally, the band carved out a week to focus on just that. “We went to stay at my parents’ house in upstate Connecticut for a week while we recorded. My parents weren’t there, but my mom had left us all this food she’d made us,” he says. “It was amazing.”
As for “Vanessa,”, Jaffe’s friend-girl’s mom doesn’t need to worry—“She’s not a real person,” he laughs. “I was in Iceland when I wrote it, working at a recording studio there. There was a band in at the time, and there was girl in the band that I was very interested in, not in a romantic way, but I thought it would be fun to write a love song about someone you’re not interested in romantically. As for the title, I just really like the name Vanessa. I went through a period of time where I was just naming songs after people,” he adds. “This one just stuck.”
“High Tops” by Del Water Gap Released January 27th, 2017.
T-Rextasy are a group of “Dashing Dino Dames” whose wacky feminist punk is delivered with playful pronunciations and surfy garage fuzz. They’re energized by close friendship, honesty to oneself and the backwards world of the East Coast to write tunes that reflect pop music at its wildest extremes. Fall in love with this great set of all new jams. T-Rextasy formed in 2013 during their senior year of high school in New York City. In May 2016, they released Jurassic Punk, their debut full-length album on Father/Daughter Records and Miscreant Records. The record received praise from NPR, MTV, Stereogum, and a single, “Gap Yr Boiz,” was featured on a Rolling Stone list as #13 on Rob Sheffield’s Top 25 Songs of 2016. The “hyper-verbal rock & roll goddesses”, as deemed by Sheffield, are known for their energetic live shows, wit and feminist ethos.
“T-Rextasy is one of the most exciting live bands coming out of Brooklyn’s ever-expanding DIY scene, mainly because they don’t sound like any of their peers.”
The Fat Angel Sings 