DOWNLOAD: Heavenly Beat - "Messiah" (MP3)

Xeno and Oaklander at BV-CMJ 2011 (more by Amanda Hatfield)

Brooklyn synth goths Xeno and Oaklander have an upcoming local show this week at Public Assembly on Friday (5/11) with Frank (Just Frank), and DJ sets by Bauhaus/Love & Rockets bassist David J, CREEP and Todd Pendu. (There's also an open Asahi beer bar at 9:30.) Tickets are still available.

Next month, the band will head to Austin for Chaos in Tejas, and upon returning home, they'll play another NYC show at The Studio at Webster Hall on June 11 with fellow goths Plastic Flowers and Religious to Damn and fellow electronic artist Autre Ne Veut. Tickets are on sale now. The flier for this show is below.

In related news, Martial Canterel (aka Sean McBride aka 1/2 of Xeno and Oaklander) is opening for Iceage at LPR on 7/22 with Dirty Beaches and RØSENKØPF. Tickets are still available

RØSENKØPF also plays Glasslands with King Dude soon, in celebration of a new record. That record has a song called "Light The Way" which has a video which you can watch below.

In addition to DJing the Friday Public Assembly show, David J is also DJing tonight (5/10) at Elmurst club Arena Queens. Besides his gigs in Bauhaus and Love & Rockets (and Porno for Pyros and The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy), David J has a long solo career as well, having released his eighth album, Not Long for This World, last year on Starry Records. You can stream some of it here.

In more related news, Plastic Flowers have a NYC show coming up at Glasslands on July 10 with Captured Tracks bands Cosmetics and Beach Fossils side project Heavenly Beat (who has a new song out, download above), and Psychobuildings. Tickets are on sale now.

Speaking of both Cosmetics and Dirty Beaches, Exclaim points out that Montreal's Grand Trine have broken up and member Shubhayan Roy has joined Dirty Beaches while Tobias Rochman has joined Cosmetics.

All dates, stream, and flier below...

Continue reading "more Xeno & Oaklander dates; Autre Ne Veut; David J the DJ; new Heavenly Beat MP3 & a RØSENKØPF video too"

Black Marble

Brooklyn's Black Marble have a show with a pretty solid local bill TONIGHT (2/27) at the Delancey with Plastic Flowers, Young Boys, and Frank (Just Frank) (DJ). They play at 10 PM and admission is $6.

Black Marble, who you might recognize in the above picture from their last project Team Robespierre, also just made a video for "Backwards" off their Weight Against the Door EP which is out now digitally via Hardly Art. You can check that video out below.

If you miss Black Marble tonight, they've got some other upcoming NYC shows including one at Glasslands on 3/9 with TRUST and DZ Deathrays. They also open Light Asylum's record release party at Le Poisson Rouge on 5/3 with oOoOO. Tickets for the Glasslands show and the LPR show are still on sale.

Black Marble aren't playing SXSW, but their label Hardly Art is hosting 2 nights of SXSW showcases at Hotel Vegas this year. Black Marble aren't on either of those, but La Sera, Xray Eyeballs, K-Holes, Jacuzzi Boys, Seapony and others are.

Plastic Flowers and Frank (Just Frank) will be sharing a bill at the Delancey tonight for the second time in less than two weeks. They both opened for Eleven Pond at Glasslands on 2/16. How was that? Plastic Flowers say it was magical.

All Black Marble dates and the video below...

Continue reading "new Black Marble video & a show tonight (updated dates)"

by Bill Pearis

There are so many good shows happening tomorrow (2/16) this column could be renamed This Thursday in Indie. But I won't because that would be dumb. What about next week? And the week after? Thursday might be totally dead those weeks and then look what I'm stuck with.

But I digress. Basically everything covered below (apart from the daily picks section) is happening tomorrow. Such as Australia's Woollen Kits who are wrapping up a North American tour, pulling into Brooklyn for a show at Death By Audio. Not unlike fellow countrymen The Twerps (who play Mercury Lounge on 3/30), Woollen Kits play the kind of stripped down guitar rock that can be traced back through Flying Nun and K Recs, Jonathan Richman and the Velvet Underground. When guitarist Thomas Hardisty sings baritone, the band veers towards Beat Happening; when drummer Tom Ridgewell takes the mike, Woollen Kits are more Clean-like. The band just released their debut album on R.I.P Society records and it's quite good.

You can stream the single "Out of Whack" at the bottom of this post and watch its video. The DBA show is with Home Blitz, Harpoon Fever and Parquet Courts. The band have a few more shows before heading home to where it's currently warm, and all Woollen Kits dates are at the bottom of this post.

Slow Club

Also on Thursday (2/17)  is the return of Slow Club who play The Bell House. It's their first show in NYC since September when the duo's second album, Paradise, was released. The record expands greatly upon the folk-pop of their debut, Yeah, So, giving them a much bigger sound, perhaps due in part to producer Luke Smith (who was in short-lived but great mid-'00s band Clor). It still sounds like Slow Club, mind you: winsome, charming, joyous. You can stream the whole thing via Spotify if you haven't heard it yet.  The band are even more charming and joyous live.

The undercard for the Bell House show is pretty strong as well: Air Waves, who are back in Brooklyn where they belong after a stint in Austin, and Chalk & Numbers who I don't think have played live since last year's NYC Popfest.

Eleven Pond (in the '80s)

If the thought of something winsome, charming and joyous makes you want to puke, you might do better at Glasslands which is hosting the first show in 23 years by Eleven Pond. The Rochester, NY band's sole album, 1986's Bas Relief, is considered a lost classic by darkwave aficionados and was reissued a couple years ago by Dark Entries records. (You can stream it here.) Showing respect to their elders will be two bands from Wierd's roster:  Frank (Just Frank) and Plastic Flowers. Expect Glasslands' smoke machine to be turned to the Peter Murphy setting for this show.

Palomar

And finally, Palomar, who recently opened for Nada Surf at Bowery Ballroom, are having the record release party for their new album, Sense & Antisense, at Littlefield Thursday night. These three ladies and one dude have been together for over ten years, outlasting all sorts of other more hyped Brooklyn bands and scenes, putting out quality indie rock LP after quality indie rock LP. Their sticktoitiveness is as strong as their ability to write catchy tunes and harmonize.  Sense & Antisense, the band's fifth, is a keeper.

You can stream the LP on Spotify and purchase it directly from the band, either at their website or at tomorrow's show. Also playing are Jaabs (feat. Roman of the Oranges Band) and Art Con. The Wrens' Charles Bissell is also performing Palomar covers, so I'm told.

OK, that's the main stuff for me this week. There are some good non-Thursday shows this week and my other picks are listed day-by-day below.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15

It's a night of quality local bands at Pianos, with High Highs, Phonetag, Ski Lodge, and Field Mouse. That's a good show! (and if you miss it, High Highs also play Pianos on 2/29).

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16

Didn't I give you enough Thursday options above?

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Continue reading "Woollen Kits, Slow Club, Eleven Pond, Palomar, Natural Child & more in This Week in Indie"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Cloud Nothings - "No Future/No Past" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Cloud Nothings - "Stay Useless" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: My Best Fiend - "Higher Palms" (MP3)

Nada Surf

The column comes early as it's a busy week and there are lots of shows to talk about. First up, venerable NYC trio Nada Surf's new album, The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy, is out today and the band play Bowery Ballroom this evening to celebrate. Tonight's show is sold out but Nada Surf will be streaming the show live via their YouTube channel starting at 10PM. The band then head out for a good two months of touring and all dates are at the bottom of this post.

The band's seventh album, The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy, is another fine record in Nada Surf's catalog of positive-vibe guitar pop, bolstered this time out by Doug Gillard who provides a lot of great lead work. This kind of music may not be in fashion right now, but it also never really goes out of style. And they do it really well You can stream or download the ebullient first single "Waiting for Something" at the bottom of this post and Spotify users can listen to the album here.

Cloud Nothings - 'Attack on Memory'

Also out today: Cloud Nothings' Attack on Memory which, as Andrew noted a couple weeks ago, is much more sophisticated and agressive than the tuneful pop-punk the band have released in the past. They're still writing catchy songs -- check out "Stay Useless at the top of this post -- but the shift is fairly radical, so much so that main man Dylan Baldi briefly considered changing the name of the band. (It's not that radical.) It's a very good album, and you can listen to it on Spotify and watch the brand-new video for "No Future/No Past" at the bottom of this post.

The album, you may have seen, got Best New Music on the 'Fork yesterday, and despite this there are still tickets to be had for Cloud Nothings' show this Thursday (1/26) at The Studio @ Webster Hall though I imagine not for long. Knowing how good the band are live (what a drummer!) I'm really anxious to hear these songs live. It's a one-off show, but the band will tour starting mid-February including, need I say it, time in Austin for SXSW. All dates are at the bottom of this post.

The Hundred in the Hands - Bowery Ballroom Feb. 2011 (more)
 

The Hundred in the Hands are playing their first show in a long time this Friday (1/27) at Glasslands, which will give us the first taste of the duo's second album which will be out on Warp at some point this year. While they haven't released any tracks from it yet, they are still updating the THITH Zine, the band's culture zine that most recently interview artist Zander Blom. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the archives that's worth checking out.

My Best Fiend

A lot of people will be at Glasslands on Friday just to check out THITH's Warp labelmates My Best Fiend whose album In Ghostlike Fading is out February 21. My Best Fiend are not your typical Warp act, closer to the space blues of Spiritualized or My Morning Jacket (or Neil Young) than the electronic music that fills most of the label's roster. The band have been plugging away in the Brooklyn scene for upwards of seven years and its good to see it pay off for them. You can download album-opener "Higher Palms" at the top of this post and you can stream "Cracking Eggs" (which features Light Asylum's Shannon Fuchness) further down.

The Glasslands show also features duo Bikini who make unapologetic four-on-the-floor dancefloor fodder, and Bear in Heaven will be DJing between sets, hopefully not playing all the records at 400,000% slower than normal.

Guy Harvey

And finally we have Florida's Guy Harvey, which is a band and not a solo artist and should not to be confused with Elbow frontman Guy Garvey which I did for half a second. The band are on tour with Gainsville residents Averkiou and hit NYC this weekend for two shows: Friday (1/27) at Cake Shop and Saturday (1/28) at Death by Audio. All GH/Averkiou dates are at the bottom of this post.

You may recognize Guy Harvey frontman Adam Perry from his moonlighting gig as an auxiliary member of Surfer Blood. There's not a lot of Guy Harvey music out there to listen to, but both sides of a 2010 7" (streamable below) are ace, with a strong Flying Nun influence. If you liked the Twerps album from last year, give Guy Harvey a listen. Averkiou, meanwhile, make fuzzy, shoegazy pop not too far from early Teenage Fanclub. Check out a few streaming tracks at the bottom of this post.

Friday's Cake Shop show is with Byrdsy locals Slow Country whose new album is a name-your-price download at their Bandcamp and is quite nice. Saturday's show at Death by Audio also has underrated Brooklyn bands I'm Turning Into and Bright Lights. Either show is worth checking out. Or go to both!

That's the main stuff for this week. Below are a few more picks, day-by-day, of shows not covered otherwise.

The Hairs

TUESDAY, JANUARY 24

There's a TWII-approved line-up at East Village mainstay Lit Lounge -- that is now booking bands I've heard of again -- with The Hairs (new single out next month), Pigeons, and Gross Relations.

Friends have shown up on most of the "Bands to Watch in 2012" lists. Go watch them in 2012, tonight, at Cameo as part of a very solid bill with Phonetag and Spanish Prisoners.

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Continue reading "Nada Surf, Cloud Nothings, Hundred in the Hands, My Best Fiend, Guy Harvey, Averkiou & more in This Week in Indie"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Plastic Flowers - Strange Neighbors (MP3)

Given the brittle, gloom-n-romance sounds he creates, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Sean Earl Beard named his musical pseudonym Plastic Flowers after the song by The Wake. (He's also a Felt fan.) Beard recently relocated from Tallahassee, FL to New York and has found a good home at Wierd Records who just released his new 7" "Strange Neighbors" which you can download at the top of this post. The video for it is below.

Plastic Flowers plays tonight (11/30) at the weekly Wierd night at Home Sweet Home which serves as both a record release party for the single and Wierd's 8th Anniversary celebration. DJing amongst the smoke machines will be Pre-Op Trans, Anthem(Frank(justFrank)) and Frankie Teardrop.

Click through for a couple more streamable Plastic Flowers tracks below (including the very good "Take Me Home") plus the "Strange Neighbors" video and tonight's Wierd flyer...

Continue reading "Plastic Flowers released a 7" on Wierd Records, playing the label's 8th Anniversary tonight"