Jack Deezl

MF Parm & EuniQ DJ

DirtyDave

Nomster

Night Kids

Airbird: Part of The Game

Airbird out of good ‘ol Brooklyn continues the trend of tribal beats mixed with synths and faded out vocals. Providing a unique electro cover of The Beach Boy’s Surfer Girl, Airbird transfers the feeling of a face full of sunshine as you lay on a warm, sandy beach with his lilting echoing vocals and dancey beats. A track to defiantly pull out when those mid-winter blues hit. Part of The Game provides a heavy pounding drumbeat mixed with a more rock jazz keyboard and a deep tenor creeps in. Defiantly a track to put on when feeling a bit down and contemplative.

Raw Thrills-Making Love on a Piano

Maybe its the Nagel portrait in the background of this artists face shot, or the ode to classic rock n roll standards that make this act stand out personally. The chill yet noisy ambiance brought on through lo-fi production create a catchy droned pop aesthetic. Raw Thrills is out of New York, with albums released from Olde English Spelling Bee Records. Zak Mering is the man behind this dreamy nostalgic machine, with a slew of synth goodies, and raw tendencies outside of the typical hipster realm of expectation. 

Well, maybe not the whole city–but Brooklyn-based Agata Olek does manage to crochet over a good sampling of it. She crochets over people and found objects, translates the words of text messages and medical reports into yarn, crochets scenes inspired by the movies that she watches while she works. And like what’s lurking beneath her brightly colored yarn, her blog is full of neat stuff too.

by Shawn Johnson

Kittens in outer space. Awesome.

New Jersey is a state that gets its fair share of abuse. Often overshadowed by its neighbor New York City, the images New Jersey usually brings to mind are toll roads, the passive aggressive phrase “What Trenton Makes the World Takes”, and yes, “The Jersey Shore”. Ridgewood, New Jersey might change all that and give Brooklyn a run for its money thanks to the town’s burgeoning music scene headed by the record label Underwater Peoples.

Brooklyn’s lo-fi masters Beach Fossils have generated quite the buzz on the indie scene since releasing their self-titled EP back in May. Along with their constant touring, the band just released a 7-inch with their new singles “Face It” and “Distance”. Singer/guitarist Dustin Payseur was kind enough to take some time between shows (Beach Fossils are currently touring in Europe) and exchange some emails with me about the band’s formation, creative process, and the Brooklyn music scene.

Photo by Asher Fritz

The last year or so the indie scene has been taken over by two factors: Brooklyn and the shoegaze, chillwave, lo-fi sound. With any music movement there is a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. One band that clearly falls into “the good” category is Brooklyn’s Beach Fossils. They manage to capture a laid-back sound, but don’t allow that slacker vibe to overpower it (et tu Wavves?).

Brooklyn weirdos Friends offer a coarse handful of melodic tunes for download over at their bandcamp page. “Friend Crush” is a paean to the ol’ social problem of unwanted lingering hands on shoulders and nice (fantasy) plans for the weekend. Kayaking? She has a beautiful voice, anyway. Maybe they’ll feel bold enough to release a picture of themselves soon, or any other information for that matter.

Richard Greenan.

While Vogue’s Anna Wintour and her cronies dominated Lincoln Center and Manhattan’s West Side this past week with their version of fashion, the real worthwhile talented designers can be found in Williamsburg, Brooklyn this weekend. For the seventh season, Williamsburg Fashion Weekend will be celebrating indie fashion designers who are truly the artists on the outskirts of the fashion community. There is no need for traditional runway shows here; the designers are unique and innovative in their presentations combining live music, dancers and “mixed media extravaganzas” of all shapes and sizes.

The Enchantments-Forever Juice

The Enchantments-Life’s Pretty Good

Back in July our buddies from the The Enchantments sent in a few songs from their upcoming album The heavenly sounds of the…Enchantments, now you can download the whole thing  from their bandcamp page. Their abrasive blend of toy keyboard bubblegum covered in murky tape dust has an innocent quality thats sure to please. Besides their poppy quirkiness they also incorporate psychedelic  influences into their sound with spacy layers of vintage sythns that create cosmic backdrops of celestial proportions dirtied up with blow out guitar-twang and underwater vocals.

Simply, Shark? is badass. The Brooklyn-based band is a low-fi, tangy, contagious explosion that will have you humming their songs for hours. Gorgeous baritone vocals similar to Joy Division’s late lead singer, Ian Curtis, fill each track giving them a gloriously disturbing appeal; and the lyrics? Well, they’re ridiculously fun. For example in “Audi5K,” you kinda get addicted to the chorus: “I don’t wanna drive your Audi/I don’t wanna drive your Audi/I don’t wanna drive your Audi/I just wanna be your friend.”

It’s been almost 100 degrees in New York City for about two weeks straight. Even the few pockets of rain have not relieved the thickness of humidity that has settled on the city. The air conditioners can’t keep up and Con Edison, NYC’s electric company, has been reporting outages all over the five boroughs. Despite this, we know how to party and dance until dawn, and we know a perfect soundtrack for such debauchery: Hank and Cupcakes.

Grizzly Bear became a critical darling in 2009 with the release of its third studio album Veckatimest.  The Brooklyn-based indie folk rockers combine harmonious vocals with psychedelic waves that practically ask you to just chill out and relax, man.  The band found its way onto many a summer playlist last year with the release of “Two Weeks” that is right from the get go undeniably catchy with it’s peppy piano beat and spacious layered vocals.  Don’t let the seeming across the board praise turn you away.  Take a listen at the band’s Myspace.  Summer’s here after all.

After spending many years on opposite ends of Brooklyn’s music scene, Jesse Cohen and Eric Emm have joined forces somewhere in the middle to become Tanlines. Part club beats and part indie rock, Tanlines are the kind of pop music that, thanks to its breadth, can be played anywhere from Berlin to New York to your basement. Minor preferential differences matter less than they would if the music of Tanlines was more dedicated to any particular genre, but that’s what you get when you fuse post-punk together with math-rock and a beat. Throw some calypso disco in there and you’ve got the perfect soundtrack for a pleasantly sweaty summer night (also proof of how appropriate a name this band has). Their debut EP, Settings, is available now on True Panther Sounds.

If the Dirty Projectors were to spawn, their offspring would be Ava Luna. The seven piece Brooklyn-based band is an eclectic layering of synthesized sound and vocals that are so distinct and skilled, they could stand on their own. Yes, if the power goes out, Ava Luna could give any seasoned a cappella group a run for their money.

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While they don’t necessarily strive to be charming, Brooklyn punk rockers The German Measles will make you want to party with them anyway. They wield a youthful innocence not unlike Ian Curtis in his early days, but similarly to The Ramones in theirs, they’re really not out to impress. Declaring their desire to get “So fucked up, our brains are leaking” on new-ish track “Wild Weekend”, they’re a punk rock party band at a time when the world may need just that. Comprised of Nik Curtin and Serge Pinsky, as well as two former members of the now disbanded Cause Co-Motion!, the quartet was conceived as an experiment slated to last two weeks (and formerly titled Japanese Beetles), and changed their name during an impromptu introduction at a live show. As infectious as the dreaded Rubella itself, The German Measles have reinstated a kind of punk rock all too commonly blanketed by modern and self-aware derivatives that tend to miss the point. Their recent 7″ release, Color Vibrations (out on Wild World Records), is noisy and belligerent. Packed with messy reverb and strung together by the catchiest of hooks, it is everything that Brooklyn punk rock should be: quick, careless and totally sloppy.

Photo by Bobb Lovett

Atlanta’s The Booze is in the wrong decade. Their sound is straight out of the 1960’s Brit pop era, and their look is completely mod in tapered pants and fedoras (Don Draper would be proud); each beat conjuring visions of British schoolgirls twisting away to their music as it pours from old school record players. However, sometimes being in the wrong decade is a good thing, especially when you’re offering something new and invigorating.

[wpaudio url="http://sickoftheradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/High-Places-On-Giving-Up.mp3" text="High Places- On giving Up" dl="0"]

Los Angeles-based experimental duo High Places have been on indie radar for the past year, repeatedly scoring critical acclaim from influential publications such as Pitchfork, Drowned in Sound, Paste, Allmusic, Spin and others.