Essays From the Deep

It’s the kind of magic that happens often in New York. Maybe it’s bound to, by virtue of the magnitude and diversity of the population here. New York is a place where a Robyn dance party erupts out of nowhere in a subway station and where a rodent can be seen hauling a whole slice of pizza. And it’s the kind of place where one of my late-night walks through Harlem was interrupted by music that stopped me in my tracks, and led me down into the speakeasy-esque basement at Silvana’s…

Hello everyone! Katie here today. I’m so proud of the lineup we’re already establishing that it’s sometimes like an embarrassment of riches: I am always vibrating with a weird excitement for who I get to write about, and even better, what I’ll be able to share with you April 5th and 6th at the Bowery Electric. This is a particularly special post for me, because I was actually introduced to this band in the basement of the Electric, years ago, sandwiched in a full room, holding my husband’s hand as the band led a singalong. But I’m getting ahead of myself. (It’s the excitement.)

They’ve certainly captured that vibey indie sound, but the combo of Katie Von Schleicher and Gabriel Birnbaum’s voices plus the nature of Gabriel’s songwriting evokes something else I usually call “dream pop”. The songs are haunting and moved forward by driving percussion but they take you somewhere else, sometimes quite literally, while you’re listening to them.

With over one-thousand performances and seven full-length records released; including 2013’s With Innocence and Go Amaze in 2016, both debuting in the Top 10 on the iTunes charts, Taylor Carson comes to the Underwater Sunshine Fest through our pal, and Fest alum, Stephen Kellogg. Taylor opened for Stephen’s Daryl’s House show in upstate New York late last year and caught my attention by stilling the room as he humbly presented his gripping songs of love, life and family…

Honestly, the hardest part about writing this review is that every single lyric is so good, I could write an essay purely discussing the nature of how it interacts with the current political and social climate and how that runs counter to human instinct. Instead, I’m just going to share the first verse and chorus. I want you to listen to the song. Desperately. I want you to go turn it on right now so that we can talk about it. I want you to message me on Twitter about how great “Double Take” is (so not kidding: @kwdarby). That said? Even reading these lyrics delights me…

Bear Cub is a great band, and you can hear some of the reason behind that in the way Hall approaches, talks about, and truly loves music. He listened and he studied and he knows why the pieces fit where they do. He knows how to connect the chambers of the heart. And now he’s doing that with his own music.

Wild Pink is the perfect band to play the Underwater Sunshine Fest, for its very existence can be found in the soul of what this gathering of artists is all about; discovery in music.

To wit: It is a trio that is occasionally a quartet, a rock and roll band that isn’t necessarily or in any way rock and roll, and plays well-structured, singularly-composed songs which find their ethereal form in a free-association band construct. And that is only part of what you can figure out about Wild Pink, if you try. But why waste your time with such nonsense, when this is a band not made for “figuring”. It is made for absorbing, digesting and experiencing; all the things that matter in great art.

Notwithstanding Maria’s haunting and sorrowful onstage demeanor, she is so very lively offstage, attentive with spellbinding eye contact that transforms you into the most charming, likable version of yourself by being the warmest, most personable human imaginable herself  - all with absolutely no trace of artificiality. I’m gushing, but I promise it relates to the music because this warmth of hers also radiates from each of her records in special ways.

But there’s the trick in Petal’s music: while always perfectly relevant to the story at hand, it’s also all building to that last line— “I can’t say I didn’t love you.” Oh, but God, you get that she wants to say that. She wants the boldness, the belief that it could have never happened, that this was the only way either of them could be happy. But that’s never fully resolved. Even in songs like the more desperate “Carve,” Lotz says, “And I wish I could unsee your kindness/ Every upward turn of your mouth/ But I cannot so I'll bury it in sound/ In grace, in erasing myself” before saying, “And God, will they love me if I am honest?/ I would starve until every bone would show/ Just to feel a little lighter/ And still avoid the truth.”

Brooklyn band Fort Gorgeous is hitting the exact tone I’m constantly searching for in winter: thoughtful lyrics but music that is fun, layered, and easy to listen to, similar to bands like Ok Go and Andrew McMahon & The Wilderness. There is some great guitar work and some mild existentialism that’s washed over well with ninja-levels of un-dated synth and beautiful vocals. There’s not a track I’ve found so far that I didn’t hit “repeat” on. Though the band is out of Brooklyn, it has enough of a soft California tone that you almost miss the clear edges of the songs. Before I talk a little more about the individual tracks, though, I want to introduce you to the band itself.  

…she can move from a breathy longing to a strong, burning desire in the middle of a line. She has the ability to sing something clippy and playful, but she can sing long, stretched out notes that feel either sexy or sorrowful depending on the spin she puts on them. Like a pitcher, every note is supposed to land: she is quick to spin from self-reflection to an application in a current relationship: It’d be easy enough to write a song called “You Can Have Me,” and either slowly slink through it as an appealing offer, or you could be self-excoriating and use that kind of pain in your voice— instead, like in the lyrics (which she sings back and forth with Drew Robinson, whose voice matches hers excellently), she explores the past while projecting the future:

Comprised of singer/songwriter/pianist Jackie McLean and multi-instrumentalist/producer Shawn Strack, Roan Yellowthorn is a perfect ethereal pop act: brilliant, playful lyrics; creative, sparse production; and music that, like liquid, would fill whichever glass you poured it in.

It turned out that being migratory at the start of a transitional season was the perfect circumstance to hear Klassen's album, Big Intruder. With buoyancy, dark ideas, and a touch of the fantastically whimsical, Big Intruder is a soundtrack for a hero's journey. One of the songs especially, "Yer Cure," brings to mind the sort of music you'd hear playing in the colorful, expansive universe of the acclaimed television show Adventure Time - that is, music that delights with novel arrangements and universal, adult lyrical themes. I often find myself talking about the album as if it's a magical entity, made of some sparkly, reflective substance, which I hope comes across as the high praise that it's meant to be.