New York indie rock outfit The Spires have accomplished quite a bit with only a few published songs to their name. Last year, the group released their Candy Flip b/w Comic Book 7-inch, as well as the hypnotic track “Sleepy Eyes”. Since then, they completed a residency at Pianos in New York City and toured with acts like Temples and Widowspeak. Now, they’re finally gearing up to release their self-titled debut EP on September 18th via 401K Music. As a teaser, the band has unveiled their latest single “Nothing More”.
Much like their previous material, there’s a dreaminess to the song. Acoustic guitar chords chug under moody synthesizer warbles and an upfront bass line. The vocals are blissfully obscured, like a hazy voice calling from a distance. The drum rhythm adds to the swirling atmosphere, drawing the listener to the serene melodies like a whirlpool. It’s an entrancing reintroduction to the band, complete with otherworldly aesthetics.
“The whole thing came together pretty quickly,” singer/guitarist Matt Stevenson “We ended up recording it right before Christmas in this freezing cold house up in Boston and then back at Jack’s apartment in Brooklyn. It’s a hazy little autumnal song about feeling completely disconnected from everyone around you.”
Sleep Talk / Dinner Date is a Father/Daughter(US) and Art Is Hard(UK) co-release. The 7″ is limited to 1000 copies on white frosted clear vinyl. The songs with be available digitally — “Sleep Talk” and “Dinner Date” later both will be released on vinyl 18th September. Like previous release “Over Easy” it was recorded with Christopher Daly at Salvation RecordingCompany in New Paltz, NY and mastered by Jamal Ruhe at West West Side Music.
After beginning as a casual project between Alex Luciano (guitar) and Noah Bowman (drums), New Paltz, New York’s Diet Cig have made a big statement out of five highly infectious pop songs. The pair met under rather unusual circumstances: Luciano, desperate for a lighter, interrupted the set of Bowman’s other band, Earl Boykins. No lighter was to be found, but a friendship was sparked and Diet Cig was born.
Catch Diet Cig on tour throughout the US this fall
For a lot of new artists, there needs to be something uniquely new to be exciting. But when you think about it, a lot of the lasting talents have a timeless quality that doesn’t depend on the trends and modern styles of the contemporary soundscape.
New York-based Norwegian artist OKAY KAYA doesn’t need to sound like right now to be one of the best newcomers in music. She’s already made some great first steps and surrounded herself with good people like Rodaidh McDonald (producer for King Krule, The xx, and Sampha) and Tobias Jesso Jr. (who she toured with and who was one of our favorite new artists last year). Her dream-like arrangements and alluring vocals create an atmosphere that is at once intimate and cinematic, and while her first songs are simply gorgeous, there’s plenty of room for expansion on her ageless songwriting.
There was a mystery guest who came out, sat down at his keyboard and mumbling in such a way between songs that the entire stunning set went by and the only way we found out who we were hearing was when he said he’d recently been on tour with James Vincent McMorrow. We looked James’ dates up and finally realized that we were seeing KevinGarrett. His EP is the record I’ve listened to a lot. There’s an element of Justin Vernon or James Blake in these love songs, but there are plenty of ingenious bits to these gorgeous pieces to show that there’s an original voice here.
Kevin Garrett is a singer and songwriter from Brooklyn, New York. His poignant lyricism and musicianship have been showcased in numerous projects over the past several years. The Pittsburgh native has spent much of the last decade performing his original work, sharing the stage with James Vincent McMorrow, Emily King, Norah Jones, and Maps & Atlases among others. Kevin recently released his debut EP Mellow Drama, which includes the singles “Coloring” and “Control,” as a small part of a larger body of work that signifies a new direction and highlights his versatility as a songwriter. The EP has earned considerable attention with single features on Spotify’s New Music Tuesday and Viral 50 lists. Kevin Garrett has so far had a busy 2015 including more shows with James Vincent McMorrow, a Communion Music residency, and wide acclaim for Mellow Drama.
Lightning Bug started out as a group of best friends. When you hang out that much, I guess you just start making things together. We made music with no real ambition to share it with people, but found ourselves with enough songs for a full-length album. So we self-released “Floaters” at the end of January 2015 and now, we’re here, playing shows, making more music. Still friends, but also a band.
Just a few days before performing at the just-fallen Berlin Wall, Crosby, Stills & Nash gave a benefit concert at an equally unlikely venue, the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York City. Sticking exclusively to pared-down arrangements, the trio presented highlights from their albums alongside more obscure selections from their outside projects and solo work, as well as a cover of the Beatles Blackbird. Broadcast on WXRK Radio NYC, it s presented here as a double Cd with comprehensive liner notes and rare images. As a trio in the late eighties and early nineties, Crosby,Stills and Nash were on sparkling form performing as an acoustic trio.They toured america,asia and europe to rave reviews bringing new life to a wide catalogue of songs.The audience were literally mesmerized by the skill of threesome and their harmonies and Stephen Stills virtuoso guitar playing.The only official evidence we have had of these performances is the “Acoustic” concert.
This is a quasi-legit recording now legal in Europe.I wish it had been released officially,so that CSN and/or the charity they were playing for could have benefited from the sales.The songs,both old and new,sound fresh, relevant,vital and full of life.The harmonies are astounding,as is the playing by all members.This recording is an essential document of a group on a performing high.For CSN fans it is an absolute must have. Now available from Amazon on a 2cd set.
Setlist
Wasted On The Way , Change Partners, Blackbird , The Lee Shore, Just A Song Before I Go, Helplessly Hoping,4:20 ,
Wind On The Water, House Of Broken Dreams, Tracks In The Dust , Almost Cut My Hair, Guinnevere, Midnight Rider ,
Got It Made, Southern Cross, Wooden Ships, Our House, Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Teach Your Children, Daylight Again / Find The Cost Of Freedom.
Video premiere: Sunflower Bean “Tame Impala” They’re currently finishing up recording their debut album, which should be released sometime this summer. They’re currently unsigned but are probably being courted by every label imaginable. Cult Records is a New York label looking to build its roster and Julian seems to be a fan. Let’s see what happens. Either way, we’re sure that debut album is going to be a stunner. catch them now before the bigger venues beckon.
“New York is still home to bands as varied as Sunflower Bean, whose music suggests what might have happened if psychedelia had emerged after punk and the Police rather than before” – Jon Pareles of The New York Times
In their first year, Sunflower Bean has made waves coast to coast. Julia Cumming (vox/bass), Nick Kivlen (vox/guitar), and Jacob Faber (drums), draw from a wealth of rugged lo-fi sounds, adapting the heroic charisma of VU psychedelia and Black Sabbath’s dark rock to fit their own generation’s drowsy ethos.
On April 21st, RhinoRecords will release “Live! 8-24-1979“, a previously unreleased 1979 live performance by the B-52’s. It features the band performing a bunch of songs from their first two albums (The B-52’s and Wild Planet). The concert, which was recorded at the Berklee Center in Boston, was found in Warner Bros. Records’ vaults. hear these two tracks here
The band says:
We opened up for the Talking Heads just six weeks after our first record was released. We were a little scared of the audience so we kept our heads down and focused – and we danced like mad when there was a break! Ricky [Wilson] was so fierce on the guitar – so intense – it was all so raw and live and we loved it.
On this day in 31st March 1974, The seminal rock/punk/alternative band Television began their Sunday night residency at CBGB, a former Bowery dive bar where band members built a stage for their debut performance.
Although Hilly had run Times listings using the name CBGB as early as the summer of ’1973, journalists have traditionally followed his lead in dating the name-change to December of that year. In March he hung a new awning out front and planned a Grand Reopening. Tradition holds that while he was hanging that awning, members of Television stopped by and asked him about the place. In March 1974, Television had played its first show, at a mid-town theater, and was looking for venues downtown. The band consisted of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd on guitars, Richard Hell on bass, and Billy Ficca on drums. Some combination of these guys – the details change depending on whom you ask – convinced Hilly that they were capable of playing country, bluegrass, or blues, or at least that they could bring friends to buy beer.
CBGB’s re-opening night, Wednesday the 20th, featured ridiculously cheap drink specials, followed by three nights of the Con-Fullam Band, a bluegrass act from Maine, but the next week he advertised three nights of Elly Greenberg’s country blues over a smaller, innocuous listing for Sunday: “ROCK Concert TELEVISION March 31.” Another ad for the first show, paid for by Television’s manager, foregrounds a photo of the band and also lists the “fancy guitar pickin’s” of Erik Frandsen.
Richard Hell, who came up with the band’s earliest image, wanted them to look like street kids, like Bowery Boys. They wore oversized thrift suits with torn shirts, sometimes held together with safety pins. They cut their hair short, rejecting glitter and hippies alike. They wanted to blend in with the bums on the street. A few years later, Malcolm McLaren, who had briefly hoped to take the band to London, gave up and created his own band there instead. The Sex Pistols’ look was directly lifted from Hell’s template for Television.
Television’s first Sunday shows at CBGB may or may not have attracted enough patrons to allow Hilly to make money from the bar, but they did lead to a confluence of interests and talents that would shape the local scene. Friends from the downtown film and lit circles, Warhol scenesters from Max’s Kansas City near Union Square, drag queens from the Bouwerie Lane made up the early crowd. The group’s biggest payoff came on the third Sunday of their residency, when Hell succeeded in getting his friends Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye to drop by and see his new band. Smith and Kaye were currently trying to get a band of their own off the ground, and Patti already enjoyed some celebrity as a rock poetess and critic. She wrote some of the band’s most influential early press, helping to cement its mythology.
ing. There’s some electro pop, folk, classical, ambient – the list goes on. Some beautiful moments – check it out.
The Fat Angel Sings 