Musicians
Savoir Adore are a two-piece fantasy-pop-rock outfit from Brooklyn, NY consisting of Deidre Muro and Paul Hammer. Their EP, The Adventures of Professor Pumpernickel and the Girl with Animals in Her Throat, demonstrates the duo's musical knowledge and appreciation of its influences, ranging from classic rock to gypsy music. "Savoir Adore are most definitely headed down the path to Buzz Band Land... delivering a debut of shimmering electro-pop echoing a refined Mates of State." - The L Magazine. Their new full-length album is set to be released in mid 2009 on Cantora Records.
Established in 2003 in New Brunswick, N.J., Scream Hello's plan was to never write a song that sounded like the previous, while maintaining a catchy and friendly consistency. Scream Hello has released the bulk of their catalogue with Red Leader Records along side bands such as Marathon, The New Dress, and Nakatomi Plaza. Touring most of the country in a series of substandard vans, stalling careers to screw around on musical instruments, gaining graduate degrees, not giving sexual favors to industry types because music is sacred, Scream Hello is the modern, great American band.
Neil Halstead, of cult shoegaze band, Slowdive as well as indie pop favorites Mojave 3, released his first solo record 'Sleeping on Roads' in 2002. His second solo album, Oh! Mighty Engine, out now on Brushfire Records, "coasts along on fingerpicked and strummed nylon-string guitar in consistently reflective moods that lean toward the tender melancholy that always borders sunny bliss." S.F. Music Examiner Time Out London has called Neil "one of Britain’s greatest songwriters" and NME hailed him as "Britain’s best keep secret." Last summer saw him on tour with Jack Johnson.
Mixel Pixel, the spooky, lo-fi, art pop trio and multimedia collective from Brooklyn, come at you in 2009 with their highly anticipated 6th album, THE MALL. With a show 10 years in the making, Kanine recording artist, Mixel Pixel, create sensory bending sounds and sights with their eclectic mix of casio pop, video game samples, tape loops, and folk music accompanied by video projections. Mixel Pixel accompanied Of Montreal on their last tour and has shared the stage with Grizzly Bear, Man Man, Ra Ra Riot, Chairlift, and We Are Wolves. "Mixel Pixel are the proprietors of a sound that sews together the seemingly disparate parts of pop, electronica, and rock. And that's just one element of who they are--Mixel Pixel are also visual artists, t-shirt makers, and lip balm brewers, among other exploits." -spin.com
Made up of programmer/keyboardist Sammy Rubin and vocalist Jeremy Haines, Project Jenny, Project Jan spans a surprising musical range, from the sinister beats of "320" to the feel good "Summertime"; from the singalong swing of "Brooklyn" to the expansive Bollywood feel of "The Dialogue." Billboard called their live show a "shockingly dynamic, danceable, and hilarious affair." While VanityFair.com called the band "awesome" and enthusiastically recommended its show "to anyone with functional knee and elbow joints." In 2008, they were featured in the film Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, performing their rowdy crowd-pleaser "Negative." Project Jenny, Project Jan are set to release a collaboration album, The Colors EP, on April 14, 2009.
The band, holding many shapes and forms, evolved originally from experimental Americana music to a certain cinematic form of rock music. The authentic journey down the lyrical pathways that the band explores is guided patiently and with utmost care by the musicians involved. At times introverted and often tense, the music is the direct result of a reflection of the band's experience. Lowry has also just completed recording a track for the follow-up to Engine Room Recordings overwhelmingly successful Guilt By Association compilation which is currently available. "If Ok Computer is what happened when Britpop decided to listen to progressive rock, Love Is Dead is its Americana counterpoint: banjos, mandolins and guitars are layered with a prog-rock studio sensibility. Musically speaking, this is an interesting and rewarding album to listen to." - Online Rock
Frances is a coed sextet from New York. Their debut full-length, All the While, carries on the great tradition of pop music that plays with itself, taking the fun parts and discarding the dumb ones, flirting with chaos but always returning to a gloriously catchy, melodic center. It's resolutely childlike, fanciful stuff (toy instruments abound, as do sing-sung lyrics about stagecoaches and telephones made of paper cups and string); but then, Frances are correspondingly serious in their execution, employing whiplash-inducing chord changes, bizarre stylistic touchstones (Van Dyke Parks' pop oddities, classic AM-radio rock, a little Stravinsky, a little Sondheim), and darker moments that hint at something terrifying lurking behind the swooning strings and oom-pah horns.
Fresh off the heels of their latest full length release, "Swell", the band — which features Trevor, Seth, Brian, and Bryan — will be hitting the road in hopes of exploring the great golden state of California. Swell's 14 tracks deftly straddle the better parts of coastal American music: folk-punk, country-surf, Afro-rock, and psychedelic-soul, careful throughout not to fall too heavy on either side of those hyphens. In 2008 the band played over 100 shows, which they booked themselves. They are currently nominated for SONG OF THE YEAR for the 2009 MAVRIC AWARDS. www.independent.com said of SWELL: "It's an album that will make you dance, and smile, and even work your mind a bit."
Jeffrey Lewis was raised in New York City and is a maker of brilliant comic books, beautiful folk songs, and fuzzed-out garage rock. Live shows also incorporate "low budget videos," Jeff's large illustrations displayed to accompany certain songs. With brother Jack on bass and David Beauchamp on drums, the Jeffrey Lewis band (currently dubbed Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard) is set to release their new album "'Em Are I" in the US in May of 2009 on Rough Trade Records.
Plushgun is the brainchild of Daniel Ingala and grew out of the cramped confines of his overpriced and undersized bedroom in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. After creating the song "Just Impolite" and posting it to his MySpace page, the project quickly took off with songs featured in the web-TV series "We Need Girlfriends", rising to #1 on the Alternative Rock Channel on Ourstage.com, and being featured repeatedly in MTV's "The City". Pins & Panzers will be released on Tommy Boy in February 2009. Plushgun bounces in to the room, passes out the glowsticks, hands you a beer and tells your ass to dance.
In 2003, Drummer Danny Molad, vocalist/guitarist Jessica Martins, guitarist Tom Deis and bassist David Lizmi formed Via Audio at college in Boston. Their debut release, saysomethingsaysomethingsaysomething, produced in collaboration with Spoon's Jim Eno, was featured on Pitchfork as, "Finally, a catchy pop record that's serious: not gloomy, not mournful, and not pretentious." It caught the attention of Death Cab For Cutie's Chris Walla, who dubbed Via Audio his "favorite new band" in Under The Radar Magazine.
La Strada channels the romance of old-world instrumentation through new world amplification. With soaring vocal harmonies, accordion, and string-driven melodies revved up on rock and roll, La Strada transports you to the hills of the Balkans, a street corner in Paris, and back home beneath a Brooklyn skyline. "One of the most promising bands in the city. Think Beirut and Neutral Milk Hotel with more focus on traditional Americana." -The L Magazine. La Strada's self-titled EP is set to be released February 24, 2009, on Ernest Jenning Record Co.
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