Essays From the Deep

Elizabeth & the Catapult is a trip featuring piano, drums, and guitar, though they often add some strings to the mix to flesh out a track. They have found a way to maintain pop sensibilities without it feeling like chamber pop— that’s to say, they know how to make it sound as contemporary as anything on the radio, just put together better and with more heavy-hitting writing.

Dave Godowsky is standing in the gap for us. There are so many things that are in short supply in this world, and he provides two of them with absolute stark nakedness: beautiful piano music, some of which is there simply for its beauty (and to quote Keats, perhaps a bit out of context, “Beauty is truth, and truth beauty”); and incredible vulnerability.

Something about trying to find ways to connect, ways to soothe souls, ways to honor the humanity we see in each other—but against a dark, minor key background with up-tempo and sometimes aggressive drums—is absolutely stunning. It takes it to a different level. It’s almost like the lyrics and the mood of the music are fighting to see which side is going to win—

Brick and I have a lot in common. He has a radio show on NPR called “The Song Show”, I’m often a guest on that show; I love Billy Joel and could talk about how much for 24 hours, he let me talk about how great Billy Joel was on his radio show (though it was couched as an “apologist” episode); we have both fought major medical issues in the last two years and are still re-learning how our bodies and minds operate in artistic mediums that had been natural to us. But Brick Briscoe finished making his record IV (you should ask him how to pronounce it) while he was receiving chemo in the hospital.

When I tell you that Underwater Sunshine Fest’s greatest strength is its diversity, I’m not kidding: and yes, this is the wind-up for the curve ball. This week’s spotlight artist is the phenomenal, Grammy-nominated Yellow House Orchestra. And if you think you will see anything else like them— maybe anywhere— you’re sadly mistaken. You’re going to have to come to the Bowery Electric and see them with us in October. 

Last year, when he released the single “Fire on Bowery,” Andy and I were both in awe. Talk about levels. In the title track, the guitar is alternately driving and slowly moaning over his beautiful voice: “It’s no mystery what went wrong/ Our love was an atom bomb/ And the weight I hold is my own damn fault,” he sings. He doesn’t have to work hard to create a softness and a vulnerability: that’s just who Matt is, shining through.

Simply put, Stew— and his band, the Negro Problem— are unstoppable artistic machines. They take on bigotry effortlessly in a way that lulls you in (and thank God isn’t coming from a 24 hour news network). In songs like “The Dutch Naked Painter,” an entire world of characters, settings, small hurts, and large jealousies are teased out leisurely, with pointed, funny lines, delivered with the joy that can only come from a whole lifetime shrunk into five minutes…

Please believe me when I say, the first time I heard Erica Blinn’s clear Lucinda Williams-register voice burst out of my speaker, I felt the excitement and relief of discovery again. Better than Gold is one of the best records I’ve heard all year, and I’ll be shocked if she’s not part of the national music conversation soon.

In a culture where identity can so easily be misappropriated, listening to him sing from the point of view of a drag queen or a woman is refreshing because it feels urgent and real. Barna describes his music as “slutty folk music,” and I laugh every time I see that. There are so many moments where you see a glimpse of that humor in the EP— not just in the lyrics, but in the joy and expressive quality of his voice.

I’ve been dying to write this review, not just because From A White Hotel is one of the best
records I’ve heard in years— which it is— and not just because Hawks and Doves, despite it
being their first record, is an incredibly intuitive band— but because songwriter and frontman
Kasey Anderson has been a friend of mine for a long time, and I’ve been wanting to do this
justice. So let me start here…

At its absolute best, live music plays a unique role in modern society. In a world of shrinking sacred spaces, concerts are one of the last places where groups of strangers can gather and experience, together, something transcendental, something other and beyond. In the spirit of this idea, I present to you Boom Forest. 

Like molecules are made of different types of atoms (I know I’m writing a music blog, stick with me here), four disparate musicians have bounced together to create a band, and we are lucky enough to have them at Underwater Sunshine Festival. Drawing equal comparisons from melodic psychedelia bands like the Fairport Convention and heavier more progressive rock like King Crimson, the Monks of Doom is a side project composed of Camper Van Beethoven’s Victor Krummenacher, Greg Lisher, and Chris Pedersen, along with David Immerglück of Counting Crows.