"This is the music dreamscapes are made of in outer space. For people who don’t like drugs this might be a good way to explain what tripping is like." (Review Stalker)
Colorado native Peter Spear started Empty Chairs as a solo project when he moved to Brooklyn in 2011. While playing live shows at venues around New York City and recording a self-titled EP, Spear picked up band mates Whitney Broadstreet (keys/vocals) and Matthew O’Koren (drums/vocals). Now the fully formed trio is set to unleash their “swirling, kaleidoscopic foray into prismatic, psychedelic pop” (Unholy Rhythms) on their debut full-length album, Caveat Emptor.
Empty Chairs is holding their record release show at Pianos tomorrow night (Nov. 1st) -- advance tickets are $10 and the band's set time is10PM. There are a number of good bands sharing the bill which include: Boston, MA's Spirit Kid, local experimental pop act Pink Drink and Night Panther. (Small Plates Records' owner Conner McGlynn describes Night Panther as "sex pop...[t]he vocals scream velvet and black lights, the bass lines are assless leather chaps, etc. That sounds utterly ridiculous and it would be if these guys didn't have the quality and musicianship to back it up".)
After forming Empty Chairs as a solo project in 2011, singer-guitarist Peter Spear was joined by bandmates Whitney Broadstreet on synth/vocals and percussionist Matthew O'Koren, following the release of "Empty Chairs" EP. Skewing trends, the band's sound continues to grow outward in all directions.While their first full-length, Caveat Emptor isn't due out until Nov. 5th, Empty Chairs has been releasing a few advance tracks from this forthcoming release over the last few weeks along with a trippy video for the song "Akira" (below). A video for "GTMO" will be following shortly.
Empty Chairs is having their record release show at Pianos on Nov. 1st -- advance tickets are $10 and the band's set time is10PM. There are a number of good bands sharing the bill which include: Boston, MA's Spirit Kid, local experimental pop act Pink Drink and Night Panther. (Small Plates Records' owner Conner McGlynn describes Night Panther as "sex pop...[t]he vocals scream velvet and black lights, the bass lines are assless leather chaps, etc. That sounds utterly ridiculous and it would be if these guys didn't have the quality and musicianship to back it up".)
A few years back, there seemed to be a number of UK bands (The View, Young Knives, The Pipettes, etc.) heading over to NYC who were hyped by the press as the “next big thing”. The View and The Pipettes didn’t come close to living up to their press hype and I don’t think any of these bands ever made it back to NYC after their first tour. The Kestrels aren’t from the UK (they are from Nova Scotia) but have a "UK sound" that crosses the Factory Records sound of Joy Division/New Order with the fuzzed-out noise of Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. With the release of the band’s second disc, A Ghost History (which came out June 5th on Sonic Unyon Records), Kestrels has all the melodic hooks and raw energy to be the “next big thing”.
Kestrels is the brainchild of singer/guitarist Chad Peck and the trio is rounded out by Peck’s brother, bassist Devin Peck, and drummer Paul Brown. Recording of the new disc has been in-progress since 2010 and, to shake off writer’s block, Peck recorded additional material for the album in an unlikely place, the Manhattan apartment of Tim Wheeler, front-man/guitarist for seminal 90’s Irish indie band Ash. Wheeler, whom Peck cites as a defining influence on him as a musician and friend, adds a guitar solo on the track “Dumb Angel.”
The Brian Wilson reference (“Dumb Angel”) is indicative of the band’s multi-layered sound, which is then coupled with the dynamic ebbs and flows in intensity both within and between the different songs. While the album thematically shifts from vivid to ambiguous imagery, A Ghost History’s music too diversifies from bombastic sounding to more subdued overtones throughout. “There was definitely a intent to make it dynamic without sort of doing a typical Nirvana ‘loud, quiet, loud’ type of thing,” Peck explains. “There’s a definite flow to the album that I feel warrants repeat listening. It may be hard in a ‘singles’ culture to have a patiently paced album but it was important to me and for all of us to have that flow.”
The disc starts out strong with “Drowning Girl” which combines Peter Hook style bass-lines with stiff-backed drumming and some pretty cool guitar leads and roaring histrionics. The band goes follows this first track with “Dumb Angel” which has a big J. Mascis style guitar-grunge sound which builds in waves around ringing leads, melodic hooks and big harmonic choruses. “There All the Time Without You” is one of the disc’s strongest tracks (and it is also the first single) due to its strong musical hooks and harmonies. These songs are pretty indicative of the sound of this disc and the disc closes with “The Past Rests” which sounds like an exuberant Brit-pop number with big guitars and even bigger melodies. As much as these songs hit hard – the band hits the songs ever harder in their live set. Photos from the band’s show at Piano’s earlier this month follow the video.
The disc’s lyrics are almost buried beneath the band’s wall of melodic sound but are pretty introspective upon a deeper listen. Peck, who by trade is an English teacher for secondary school, was inspired lyrically for this album by 20th Century French philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s essay "The Vital Illusion". “There’s a lot of reference to the past and memory in the lyrics of the new album. The ghost part in the album title isn’t really about ghosts like Casper or anything. It was just more about the phantoms in my memory. The people that I remember, are they actually how they were or have I created some new personality or new memory of them that wasn’t there to begin with?”
Kestrels are one of those bands that you should see soon as they will be quickly be on to playing bigger venues. In the interim, hopefully there will be another club tour in the Fall.
After releasing a solo disc, Die Young (Autumn Tone Records), in 2010, Blair Gimma hooked up with Sam Axelrod (guitarist/vocalist of Chicago’s The Narrator) to form a new full-band project Future of What. The band released its debut EP "Moonstruck" on June 26th as a free download and this four-track/14-minute disc is blissful trip down the synth-driven, ethereal path that a of a number of 4AD bands (NME cited Chairlift as a reference point) have previously traveled.
Blair wrote the songs on "Moonstruck" over the course of 2011 and, home from her solo tour, found she wanted to play in a collaborative band setting. Quickly, one came together: Seth Waldstein had been playing drums with her since 2010; she met Sam Axelrod through mutual friends; and he knew Max Kotelchuck through his sister. The newly dubbed Future of What further fleshed out and arranged Blair's songs, and began rehearsing in January 2012. After playing their first show in February (opening for a sold out Mirah), the band recorded and mixed "Moonstruck" with Daniel Schlett (Here We Go Magic, Friends, DIIV) at Strange Weather studio in Brooklyn, NY over four days in March.
The disc starts out “Back to the City” which sets the tone for the rest of the disc. This song is a hazy and wistful shoegazer number on which Blair's airy, intimate vocals float over keyboard-driven melodies and the pulse of the drum beat. "I Wait For You" is a plaintive number with pulsing keys and vocals weaving in and out of the lush atmospheric sound. “White Light” comes close to Julee Cruise territory with its ethereal vocals, gauzy textures and moody keys. The EP winds up with the aching, dreamlike pulsing beat and shimmering keyboards of "Party in Heaven".
"Moonstruck" Track Listing:
Back To The City
I Wait For You
White Light
Party In Heaven
The band is still writing and recording in preparation for a forthcoming full-length. In a recent interview with the Village Voice’s “Sound of the City”, Sam Axelrod said “I feel like a full-length will be a bit more expansive. I feel the EP songs are a little similar to each other, as opposed to what the album would be. It'll be a little bit more shuffling the deck. More moods. More variety. It's tricky, when you're in a band and writing songs, every song sounds so different to you because you spend so much time with them.”
I've been working too many hours as of late so I don't get much of a chance to listen to new bands and, when I do, I've got the attention span of a gnat.
Virginia Beach shoegazers Electric Low managed to grab and hold my attention with the track "Broken Glass" from their forthcoming debut EP. The track combines lush instrumentation with compelling vocals and a slow-burn dance floor beat. The band has sort of a School of Seven Bells / Metric vibe. This initial track sold me on the band so I am looking forward to hearing the rest of the EP.
"Two landscapers and a community college student by day, by night Jonathan Anderson, Todd Bunting, and Monica Bjorklund are Electric Low. Melodic electronics, danceable beats, and a satisfying combination of energetic and tranquil guitars display influence from the likes of Stars, School of Seven Bells, and Metric. An Electric Low live show resembles a game of musical chairs, instruments swapped around every time the music stops. These three display an entertaining combination of light-hearted fun and concentrated intensity. Look for their debut e.p., "Speak How You Like," out next month."
Electric Low is playing a free show at Pub One in DUMBO (5 Front Street) on Sunday night along with Carl Vasile and The Vanity Belles.
Right before Christmas, I had the chance to catch up with vocalist / guitarist Sasha Lucashenko from the psych-rock band The Morning After Girls. We talked about the band new disc, Alone, which is coming out next month on Xemu Records (Dead Meadow, Spindrift), the postponed NYC CD release show (which was due to visa issues) and the band's plans for 2011.
The Morning After Girls' forthcoming disc, Alone, marks the first new album from the group since their self titled album in 2005 and the vinyl and cd versions drop on 1/11/11. Recorded in a revamped Church turned recording studio in Australia, this recording takes melodic and shimmering music and captures it in cavernous reverb. Band co-founder Martin B. Sleeman described the recording as "It was in a refurbished church that our friends made into a studio. they kept the basic internal design, the main drum room is in the highest part of the chuch which got this huge echo. there was two ambient room mics hanging from the highest beam of the church which captured this natural cavernous effect. we used them on everything, there’s no digital effects on the album at all.”
“In the world today there are so many distractions that there are no chances to be alone, truly alone. Not in a lonely place but to experience things purely without a filter. This is the headspace we were in when we wrote the record” says vocalist/guitarist Sacha Lucashenko. Martin B Sleeman says “people have a tendency to say something is irrelevant if it’s been experienced before, like a style of music, or the human experience itself, once the popular eye has moved on from it. we feel very passionate about focusing on the human experience with the story of this album. we feel that this album is a story from the past and the present, as it’s initial beauty is there and can be admired in whatever time you sit with it. it’s like ‘feel this album with us and experience what we are experiencing alone’.”
After what seems to have been a long silence, Australia-to-New York transplants The Morning After Girls will be playing their first show of 2011 at Le Poisson Rouge on January 13th.
The band released their latest two discs in 2009 where they continued to evolve their Jesus and Mary Chain meets The Dandy Warhols sound. "The General Public" EP was released early in 2009 and this disc was produced Alan Moulder (producer/engineer for Jesus & Mary Chain, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, etc.). Continuing to work with Molder, The Morning After Girls followed this EP with a digital-only full-length release, Alone, which is now coming out in a physical format next month (Xemu Records).
Tickets for the show at Le Poisson Rouge are $10 in advance and $12 DOS. Doors are at 8PM and the show starts at 9PM.
The Butterfly Explosion is a post-rock band out of Dublin, Ireland whose music ranges from shoegazer alt-rock (Ride and My Bloody Valentine are immediate comparisons) to epic post-rock instrumental pieces (here the comparison is to bands like Sigur Ros, Tortise and Explosions in the Sky). Having released two well received EPs over the last few years, The Butterfly Explosion released their first full length, Lost Trails (Revive Records), in the US earlier this month.
The 11-track/60 minute disc shows the band's songwriting continuing to mature. The songs average five minutes in length which gives the band time to develop expansive soundscapes. Fuzzy waves of guitars rise, fall and crash into exploding choruses; all of which are complemented by subtle and delicate keyboards and soaring, emotive vocals. The lyrics are clear but somewhat vague in nature which adds another dimension to the overall package that is The Butterfly Explosion. While there are some stand-out singles ("Closer", "Chemistry", "Crash/...see you on the other side"), there are also a number of all-instrumental songs that seem to serve as "mood pieces" within the context of the overall album and don't necessarily stand on their own. As such, this is the sort of disc that you are going to want to listen to start-to-finish.
You aren't going to find Lost Trails playing on a happy hour jukebox but there is more-than-enough depth to the music to keep it from floating away.
Here is a recent live video for "Carpark" which is a sweeping, post-rock (think Explosions in the Sky) instrumental.
The Butterfly Explosion's current US tour kicks off tonight at The Khyber in Philadelphia.
Here are the upcoming dates on the current tour:
Mar. 13 (Sat) -- The Khyber, Philadelphia Mar. 14 (Sun) -- Pianos, NYC Mar. 15 (Mon) -- Cameo Gallery, Brooklyn Mar. 16 (Tues) -- The Abbey, Chicago Mar. 17 (Wed) -- Habana Calle 6, SXSW, Ausin (10PM) Mar. 18 (Thur) -- Rusty Spurs, SXSW, Ausin (12PM) Mar. 19 (Fri) -- BD Rileys, SXSW, Ausin (1PM) Mar. 21 (Sun) -- Red 7, SXSW, Ausin Goodbye South-By party (4:45pm) featuring Rival Schools, Junius and more
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