by Bill Pearis

Next up was Mozart's Sister, the solo project from Caila Thompson-Hannant of Think About Life (and Shapes and Sizes before that) which brings and electro twist to R&B style pop. Anyone who has seen her other bands live before knows she has an amazing set of pipes and a magnetic stage presence to match, which is more than enough to carry the minimal live show which included a guy on bass and a second singer (last night was the debut of this configuration). It was also enough to make up for the sound issues that were clearly frustrating the hell out of Thompson-Hannant, who cracked jokes through her annoyance. - [BV @ M for Montreal 2012]

Caila released Hello, her second EP as Mozart's Sister, last month. Synthpop and R&B are filtered through Thompson-Hannant's idiosyncratic style and you can stream the whole EP below. She's also putting the finishing touches on her debut album but will bring Mozart's Sister to NYC at the end of the month for two shows: April 26 at Cake Shop and April 27 at Cameo with Joywave and Cascading Slopes (Jacob from The Drums' other project). Dates are below too.

Continue reading "Mozart's Sister (Caila from Think About Life) released new EP, playing NYC shows this month (dates, streams)"

Frightened Rabbit @ T5, Nov. 2010 (more by Lionel Bergeron)

SXSW has just announced another round of bands for the 2013 edition of the annual music festival that will happen March 12 - 17. This brings the total current number of acts to around 1300. Someome of the highlights include Vampire Weekend, Frightened Rabbit, The Thermals, Black Lips, Camera Obscura, Merchandise, Bleached, Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, Eagles of Death Metal, Parenthetical Girls, Indians, Night Beds, IO Echo, KEN Mode, Prince Paul, Pure Bathing Culture, Sepalcure, UK motorik post-punks TOY, Finnish instrumentalists K-X-P, Toronto's Moon King, UK indie rockers Splashh (not Brooklyn Splash with one "h") and loads more. Head to BV Austin for the whole Round 3 list.

photos by Amanda Hatfield

Emmy the Great visited the US for a couple of shows earlier this month. Her band wasn't able to make it over for the shows but Emmy enlisted the help of Brooklyn band SpaceCamp to back her. After touching down in the US she played a show in Philly on August 17 and then came to NYC's Studio at Webster Hall the next night (8/18). She played a set mainly of material off her recently released LP Virtue, saving time for a few older cuts as well. She ended the show by bringing out Devonte Hynes (aka Blood Orange) to join her for a cover of Weezer's "Island in the Sun."

Joywave opened the NYC show. More pictures and a video are below...

Continue reading "Emmy the Great (and Joywave, Spacecamp & Dev Hynes) @ The Studio (pics & video)"