We profiled local weirdo and musician Brad Cantor a few months ago about his musical project Glass Valley. The vintage-sounding dreampop debut An Intimate Man was co-produced and mixed by Asobi Seksu guitarist James Hanna. It’s well-crafted and worth a listen, especially if you’re in a nostalgic mood and need a soundtrack for your sorrows. Brad stars in the video for instrumental track Psrip, in which you will never be able to get enough of his piercing gaze. Psrip was an homage to folk artist Pete Seeger’s instrumental interludes (hence the name, P.S. RIP). Brad says that he actually wanted to add more versions of himself into the video, but maxed out, limited by the processing power on his computer. If you need a palette cleanser afterward, check out the video below for Glass Valley’s Friction Burns, which does not feature Brad but instead some adorable slow-mo birds lunching in a Manhattan park. Enjoy. Continue reading →
You might expect Reggie Youngblood to be in the internet know—his indie pop band Black Kids blew up as an internet sensation after posting their EP Wizard of Ahhhhs on Myspace back in 2007. But he will be the first to admit that he has not kept up with the inter webs. After a decade of working, not working and then working on Black Kids’ newest album, Rookie, Youngblood decided they should share it on Bandcamp. Who could argue with free downloads? But offering this thought was not alluring to fans, he joked, “..no one really wants to download things anymore, and that everyone really just wanted to get the record streaming on Spotify or Apple Music.”
Youngblood has seen changes in the way bands interact with fans nowadays and he misses being on the hunt for more information on musicians, along with the sense of mystery when all you knew about them was their music. Now, most bands rely on being a voice on Instagram, using all social media channels to show their personality and to keep in touch with fans.
Simply put, Swedish New Wave quintet The Sounds rocked Warsaw (261 Driggs Ave.) last Tuesday night. As their first stop in NYC during their North American tour celebrating the ten year anniversary of their hot sophomore album, Dying to Say This to You, Tuesday’s show may as well have been a stop on the original album release tour, gauging by the energy in the room, from band and audience alike.Continue reading →
Some people may have heard of Greenpoint-based musician Andrew Shapiro as that guy who played modern classical piano at a McDonald’s in lower Manhattan every Sunday for nine years. Other people might vaguely recognize his name when hitting “like” on his song Mint Green on Pandora (it’s got several million plays). Still others might know him as the musician who recently collaborated with author and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman, who wrote the lyrics for his song Bash Street Worlds. This summer, Andrew released an ambient classical album and a synth pop album in the same month. Boring, he is not—his songwriting has taken him around the world—and some of those gigs he owes to being down-to-earth and confident enough to play at Mickey D’s. For a solo classical musician and an Oberlin Conservatory-trained pianist, one might assume he’s reserved and bookish; but in person Andrew is quite talkative and energetic with an innate curiosity about the diversity that is New York City. Continue reading →
Caroline Polachek from Chairlift, doing her best La Roux impression.
Moth is the third album from Chairlift, a band composed of Greenpoint residents. It’s a breezily-pleasant release, their first since 2012’s Something. Out January 22nd via Columbia Records, the album, while not groundbreaking, fills a need for apolitical, genuine, carefree and casual pop.
Maintaining their relevancy as a North-Brooklyn “indie-pop” band well after their 2008 track Bruises became popular and a ipod Nano commercial, Chairlift continues to craft anxious-yet-exciting love songs that capture a particular moment of transition.
By that I mean moments like the excitement of the first glimmer of the city lights on a Friday night, or experiencing New York for the first time, or the awkward ginger-ale-like-fizzy-feeling of hopeful danger when starting to fall in love. Continue reading →
Richly layered with afro-beats, jazz rhythms, pop hooks, and Sachal Vasandani’s opalescent vocal timbre, the ten anfractuous and soulful tracks of sophisti-pop on Slow Motion Miracles flow like one body of water into another.
There is a spirit of cautious optimism in our neighborhood this week. Ice has disappeared from the sidewalks. There are fewer sightings of G train commuters cobbling together bus and Uber rides after unannounced service delays. In fact, some have even suggested that the G is a more reliable train than the neighboring line to our south. It’s a great time to celebrate with some notable live music.
Floral pop crew The Meaning Of Life curates this week’s mixtape — just as McGolrick’s daffodils start peaking from the tundra. You guys: this morning I woke up to the sound of birds singing. RIP Winter.
