Two more festivals moved their events to 2021, as mass gatherings look unlikely for the rest of the summer. Much loved festivals Peach Fest and Camp Bisco (which called Mariaville home for a number of years) will postpone and move their 2020 dates to 2021. Tickets for 2020 are still valid for the 2021 editions of the festivals. Announcements from the two festivals can be seen below.
Nearly two years after the release of their last studio effort, Teddy Midnight has announced an all-new EP with Airdnb, due out May 29. The first single, “My Eyes,” was released this past week and is group’s first collection to be produced, recorded, and mixed entirely in their new Brooklyn studio.
The forthcoming EP is a departure from the disco/house sound of their last release, French Press from 2018, and explores producers Sean Silva and Adam Magnan’s influence from the rhythms of drum n bass, jungle, and hip-hop. The trio spent the past year and a half writing and recording using vintage synths and live instrumentation as the basis for the record. Over the course of the EP’s 5 tracks, the group navigates new sonic territory to bring break-neck tempos and fresh atmosphere to their already diverse repertoire. Guest vocalists Lars Viola and David Schnurman are featured on two separate tracks with instrumentals filling the three remaining spots.
Additionally, the band has debuted a music video for “My Eyes,” in which each member performs via a digital video conference call. The video was recorded during the eighth week of COVID-19 quarantine in New York City.
The single “My Eyes” features New York City rapper Lars Viola in his first collaboration with the group. As the name Airdnb would suggest, the hip-hop track showcases the Teddy Midnight take on drum n bass grooves while leaving plenty of space for MC Lars to paint a picture of a stressful world in need of sweet release from everyday anxieties. His thoughtful discourse is driven by live drums and capped off with impassioned synth work by keyboard player Danny Caridi.
Amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, Teddy Midnight is working to reschedule their postponed spring tour dates with more fresh music to come. After successful winter dates with jamtronica leaders The New Deal and others, newly scheduled shows will highlight material from Airdnb and continue to feature their ever expanding live-production sound.
As the year slowly moves on, more and more musicians are postponing their tours out of respect for public safety. One of those artists is Gabriel Birkby from Buffalo, who goes by the moniker ‘Birkby.’ After cancelling a number of shows around Western NY, Birkby decided to release his first EP, Another Planet, which he had teased to his fans earlier this year. This splendid debut combines uplifting and positive music with vivid lyrics that paint a story line of a society in reform after leaving their homeland. The contrast between the emotional lyrics and the musical style of each song results in a release that is both majestic and captivating.
The album starts with “Change in the Weather,” a song about growth and new beginnings that is brimming with hope and promise. This upbeat track offers a glimpse at some elements that we’ll see through this EP: the pure emotion in Birkby’s voice, the interplay of dreamy synths and joyous guitar, and a chorus that feels like the clouds are parting and the sun is shining down on you. Also featured is Mike Gantzer of Aqueous, who provided additional percussion and a guitar solo on this opening track.
Next up is “Underground Republic,” another song with a cheery sound that really benefits from the impressive way Birkby’s voice dances around his guitar work. The lyrics continue to paint a picture of new growth and uncertainty, but the chorus will certainly speak to a lot of listeners in this sheltered time of our lives when he exclaims “How about a little privacy Cause I know how I get And I’m sure I’ll regret.”
Halfway through the release, we come across “Awake,” which stands apart from the rest of the album. This track is a soulful and synth-heavy jam that features a slower tempo and laid-back vibe, thanks in part to some 808s and beautiful layered vocals in the chorus. Despite the change in style, “Awake” still shares the elements that Birkby excels at throughout this release. His ability to blend multiple elements on his track with mastery is apparent in the way the keys and drums play so beautifully together underneath an emotional chorus pleading, “Can I get a hand over here?”
Shifting musical gears again, “Inconsistent” is one of my favorite numbers on the EP. Each verse has a wonderful bounce to it and with lyrics that praise the search for clarity, salvation and a trust in what you can see for yourself while being skeptical of what the written word holds. But it’s the emotion and funky feeling of the chorus that won me over and this whole track has a flow to it that’s sure to make you smile, as I found myself humming it for days.
Birkby saved the title track for the end of this release and it’s a great send-off that once again showcases both his incredible vocal talent and his guitar mastery as he has the two dance together throughout the chorus. “Another Planet” paints a picture of promise, improvement and encouragement, all while reminding you to “Wake and meet the burning day” because there is “Another future on the horizon.”
Birkby’s first EP release is a must-listen, especially during these days of self-isolation. Another Planet may only 5 tracks long, but it’s a welcomed release in these strange times that only gets better with each listen. You can purchase the digital album or stream it from Bandcamp and the EP will be available to stream on Spotify starting April 20.
Key Tracks: Inconsistent, Another Planet
New York City’s own Allison Leah released her new single, “We Can Still Sing” which summarizes how many are feeling during the COVID-19 pandemic that is gripping the world.
Allison Leah is a songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist who was born and raised just north of New York City and currently resides there. She writes everything from heartfelt originals like “We Can Still Sing” to familiar commercial jingles like “Hess Truck.” Leah released her debut EP Fly Home back in 2018.
“We Can Still Sing” revolves around the helplessness everyone is feeling during this pandemic but that we can stand together and ‘still sing’ and that we aren’t alone even though it feels like it currently. She focuses part way through the song on holding on to yourself and your loved ones and how when this is over eventually. How we will joke about this time of staying inside in the future.
When the song starts it has this sad restless undertones created by the lingering piano. Between the lingering tune and the songs lyrics and their inflections it mirrors these feelings or restless and hopelessness people have been feeling. The song then takes a turn though when hitting the chorus between the piano, acoustic guitar and snapping and shakers it turns into the hopeful song it is.
This EP is definitely worth checking out especially for anyone feeling the quarantine blues. For more information on Allison Leah check out her website.
Hit records celebrating a city are supposed to bring people together. Take Ja Rule’s 2004 smash single “New York,” for instance. Featuring hip-hop heavyweights Fat Joe and Jadakiss, the song was released as the second single from his 2004 studio album R.U.L.E. and peaked at number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100. Having caught on with the masses as a major hit, it should have also served as reminder amongst New York emcees of the bond they share as the proprietors of hip hop. Here you have a global record with an infectious chorus – What native New Yorker doesn’t enjoy chanting “I’m from New York?” – Yet, it served as the fulcrum for the ensuing turmoil between the city’s rap juggernauts.
The year is 2004, 50 Cent – on the heels of his incredibly successful debut studio album Get Rich or Die Tryin’— is the biggest rapper in the world, oh and he happens to hate Ja Rule’s guts and subsequently, anyone who associates themselves with him. Their beef stems from 50 feeling slighted because their big homie Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff, chose to back Ja Rule’s music over him. That along with many other incidents – that have been covered in magazines and documentaries – have led to the two Queens rappers loathing each other for the better part of 20 years. They’ve gone back and forth with numerous diss records and even had an altercation at the world-famous Hit Factory studios in New York City, which resulted in a brawl between each other’s entourages and 50 Cent being stabbed.
While 50 Cent’s contempt for Ja Rule drove his actions, it’s also important to note that although the latter reached fame and notoriety a few years before his adversary, in 2004, 50 Cent had a ton of pull as the most in-demand and popular rap act of the time. Which means, he acted without any regards for what his contemporaries thought, and since he was backed by Dr. Dre and Eminem (the highest selling rapper of all-time), he didn’t need to maintain relationships with his New York counterparts. So, what began as a dispute between 50 Cent and Ja Rule quickly transformed and saw the “Many Men” rapper taking shots at Fat Joe and Jadakiss on his sophomore album The Massacre. On the diss-record “Piggy Bank” – which he also attacked Nas, Nas’ then-wife Kelis, The Game and Lil’ Kim on – he slams Fat Joe, “that fat n**** thought Lean Back was in the club/ my sh*t sold 11 mil, his sh*t was a dud. He then proceeds to go after Jadakiss on the very next line, “Jada’ don’t f**k with me, if you wanna eat/Cause I’ll do yo’ little ass like Jay did Mobb Deep/Yeah, homey, in New York n**** like your vocals, But that’s only New York dawg, yo’ ass is local.”
With that began a division between 50 Cent and two more prominent New York rappers (add them to the list), and since 50 Cent had beef with Ja Rule, Fat Joe and Jadakiss, so did everyone associated with him; including his entire G-Unit crew (because that’s how 50 rolls and who wants to piss off the biggest rapper in the world?).
While New York consistently delivered rappers with hard-hitting lyrics along with plenty of big hits, the division amongst them wasn’t easy to overcome (It wasn’t all on 50 Cent as other rappers like Cam’ron also had the propensity to verbally assault their contemporaries). Nonetheless, as the South grew stronger, major acts like Outkast, Ludacris, Lil Wayne, UGK, T.I. and Young Jeezy were all delivering a stellar product and it was much easier to find cohesion among their power players, eventually paving the way for the south to become the “it” region in hip hop.
50 Cent and Fat Joe have since settled their differences in 2012 when their mutual friend and business associate Chris Lighty passed away, while Jadakiss and 50 have also found common ground. As for Ja Rule and 50 Cent? Well they still can’t stand each other. Yet, the two hip hop legends have given us plenty of hit songs and iconic moments to discuss for years to come and “New York” serves as just a small part of their long and complicated history.
Brooklyn-based Folk duo, Gawain & The Green Knight, are delighted to share their new single “Doctor”. The song continues the two’s exploration of universal aches as told by history’s ghosts- a path first started down on their debut EP, Ghosties.
Written by Alexia Antoniou and arranged by Mike O’Malley, the song considers the strangeness of one’s anxieties manifesting physically in the body and expresses it through a doctor struggling to locate their own particular pain. Featuring the duo’s usual latticework of guitar, bouzouki, and close harmony, the song is worked into a grand panic by a cinematic string section.
The group has been playing across the city at prominent NYC venues, and even in the midst of global chaos, the two folk architects are bringing their music right to your computer with their live streams every Monday at 3pm on their Facebook page. Stay tuned into their social media for news and music updates.
Brazil/NYC-based electro/indie-pop duo B.A.D.A. explore the inner workings of an artist’s journey in their new video for “Exile,” title track to their upcoming album. “Exile” is a dark pop thriller, held almost entirely on a minimal synth bass line, murmured vocals and melodic sorrow.
Aiming for conceptual depth while standing out in the overpopulated electronic-indie-pop scene is B.A.D.A.‘s ambitious mission. Brazilian artist/producer Pedro Cesario and Brooklynite multi-instrumentalist/producer Carey Clayton devoted the whole of 2019 to this mission after the vision for Exile came to Cesario during Burning Man in 2018. The story that underlies the single is very personal to Cesario, who states, “I quit music after experiencing a traumatic experience recording a demo when I was ten years old. The lyrics and film represent the creative hiatus in my life and my search for that grit again as an adult.”
The self-produced, trilingual album was recorded internationally throughout 2019, first in a cabin in Woodstock, NY, then at the Abbey Road Studios in London, and finally in Clayton’s bedroom in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. B.A.D.A. worked with the house engineer of Abbey Road, John Barret (George Ezra, James Bay), several guest musicians, and mastering engineers Luke Moellman (Great Good Fine OK) and Chris Gehringer (Janelle Monae, Harry Styles) along the way to create an auditory and visual experience through their music.
While the album navigates the same sonic palettes as contemporaries Bon Iver, The Japanese House, and Muna, B.A.D.A.’s sound unashamedly flaunts its romance with the dance floor, and each song seems to be specifically designed to soundtrack a lysergic trip. The uniqueness of the concept lives in the fact that the album’s scores are a blueprint of the journey itself, as the artists use their own identity and experience as a white canvas to perform the transformation.
The duo originally started as a remote project between Brazil and New York City, before Cesario decided to join Clayton in the city so that they could materialize the project into the real world. “Exile” materializes an unobvious music journey that reflects the chaotic state of pop in the turn of the decade, where boundaries of language, genre or identity no longer apply.
Music scenes are riddled with a lot of traditions, a lot of staples that go hand in hand with the community and culture that is created around every genre of music . The bluegrass/jamgrass scene has grown exponentially in the last few years and, with that, the traditions have grown as well. One of these is WinterWonderGrass, held this past weekend in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In its eighth year, the tiny, homegrown festival boasted an amazing lineup for its 2020 edition and was a blessing for bluegrass & string music fans across the nation.
This winter wonder festival takes place in the famous mountain town of Steamboat Springs. Nestled in the upper valley of the Yampa River, the picture-perfect, post card scenery overshadowed the fact that temperatures for the weekend didn’t surpass 30 degrees. Day one included intimate sets in each of the three tents from Buffalo Commons, John Stickley Trio, and an amazing new and rising artist, Molly Tuttle, with headlining sets from Grammy-nominated Nashville band Della Mae, the incomparable Keller and The Keels, and one of the hottest acts in music right now, Billy Strings. His first headlining set of the 2020 festival season included a fitting “Steamboat Whistle Blues,” “Highway Hypnosis,” and a “Train Train” encore that concluded an amazing first day of music, and reminded fans in attendance why Billy Strings is everything they love about this great event.
The second day on the mountain started off with a new tradition, a set entitled WinterWonderWoman. A collaborative set of covers and some bluegrass and country classics was performed by a group of amazing female musicians who performed throughout the weekend. On the main stage Nikki Lane, the extremely gifted country rock songwriter, proved to a packed audience that her blues guitar and vintage ’60s country-pop swagger fit right in with the WinterWonderGrass family. Despite all the firsts on the second day of the festival, it was a headlining set by festival veterans Greensky Bluegrass that reminded fans what WinterWonderGrass is all about. With a chilling and emotional “Wish I Didn’t Know” to start it all off, Greensky filled the rest of their set with tracks like “Worried about the Weather” and “Old Barn” and, with Jennifer Hartswick as a special guest, they rocked the mountains with a debut cover of Pat Benatar’s smash hit “Heartbreaker”. There is a special bond between Greensky Bluegrass and WinterWonderGrass that proves year after year how special the bond is between their music and its fans.
As a festival in its eighth year, WinterWonderGrass is very in tune with how quickly things change in the music industry, and the only way to survive and attract new and old fans year after year is to adapt. Day 3 was a look into the future of the festival and how the recent rise of the proclaimed “Outlaw Country” genre has become a perfect companion to bluegrass, this blend of new blood, veterans, country, and bluegrass was the theme of the final day of the music event. With sets from bluegrass legends The Travelin’ McCourys, and another smoking hot set from Billy Strings, the strings element to this eclectic blend was complete. It was the Sunday headliner that added a new sound to this festival and a brand new flavor to this blend of great music. Margo Price has exploded into the country music scene since her debut in 2016 and she did nothing short of that to make her WinterWonderGrass debut. She debuted a new song “Twinkle Twinkle” and even welcomed Billy Strings for a special cover of Janis Joplin’s “Move Over.” She closed out her debut set by sparking a joint, sharing it with the crowd, and encoring with Dolly Parton’s “9 To 5,” a perfect way to close out an amazing weekend of music.
The roving cold weather music festival will continue its 2020 run with stops in Squaw Valley, California from March 27-29 and Stratton, Vermont on April 10 and 11. It still remains one of the top festivals in the country after almost ten years, bringing together multiple genres of music, community, sustainability, and family in some of the most welcoming, majestic mountain communities in the country.
Nicole Mercedes, the Brooklyn-based dream-pop singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, has shared the debut single “Stoop” from her sophomore album Look Out Where You’re Going, due in April 2020.
Mercedes tells Atwood Magazine about the meaning of the track, saying, “This is a song about embracing the feeling of loneliness, about those summer nights where all you’re looking for is a distraction, and a rotating door of friends and strangers to drink with, talk with, make out with. The stoop is my favorite place to do that because things are constantly happening around you and you can kind of just sit there drinking some wine in your slippers, passively being a part of the landscape.”
The forthcoming album is a collaboration with producer Joe Rogers (Laura Stevenson, Rubblebucket) and Deer Tick’s Andy T. Mercedes performs all compositions and arrangements on the LP, and with Rogers has created a sound that is both equally pop and haunting all at once. Mercedes’ previous projects include Debbie Downer and Flocke, but her solo endeavor sets forth a whole new era of lush, cinematic, sex-positive, feminist, self-aware songs.
Mercedes performs next at The Sultan Room on March 19 in Brooklyn. Get tickets here.
Mount Sharp is back with their first release in five years, That Shadow, due out on February 21 via Dadstache Records. They’ve just released the single and video for “Ordinary” ahead of the album’s release and their record release show at Gutter in Brooklyn on Saturday, February 22.
The first taste of the new record came with their first single, “Apostate.” Post-Trash, who premiered the video, said,”Our first taste of the band’s long-awaited new music comes in the form of ‘Apostate,’ a song that pulls from the band’s more serene end, a dreamy song to melt away to during this heat wave. Built on a resonant twang and a pulsating rhythm, the song breathes at a natural clip, drawing between a soft intimacy and a thick fuzzy build up by the bridge. There’s a syrupy quality to the vocals that stick with you after the song has ended, and while you may not instantly remember the lyrics, the melody is now part of consciousness, like a distant memory that repeats in your mind.”
Mount Sharp began on a rooftop in Brooklyn, or on a boat in Maine, or perhaps somewhere in between. The band grew around the bittersweet, poetic songwriting of Swood (Sarah Wood) paired with Bryan Bruchman’s noisy, chaotic tendencies around 2012. On 2014’s WEIRD FEARS EP (with the rhythm section of Ryan Zumsen and Maia Macdonald), the band exhibited a blast of unbridled energy, excitement, and confusion – a fitting soundtrack to a brief, blissful, carefree time before so much changed. The band – now with Sal Garro and Jonathan Pilkington Kahnt firmly holding down the drums and bass – has matured, and the songs are maybe a little more serious, maybe a little more reflective, but no less cutting and catchy. Taking inspiration from the cosmos, sci-fi TV, and the messed up state of the world, Mount Sharp puts all the feels into song.
That Shadow follows, too. It’s full of sticky melodies, lyrics that cut, and surging waves of noise. It’s designed to get under the skin. Inspired by years of watching all the assholes they know win, figuring out how to be kinder to themselves, and all the beautiful and tragic machines in space, the band says the record is everything that pulls them to look behind themselves. They believe we should be looking up and dreaming.
All tracks were produced by Brian Sendrowitz (Beat Radio) at Miracle Flag in Bellmore, NY, mastered by Sarah Register (Talk Normal, Protomartyr, Caroline Rose, Chastity Belt, Big Thief, Lower Dens, and Big Ups), and with artwork using images of textile artist Jenna Breiter’s work, including an original illustration for the LP cover.