Back for the second time in the past year, Death From Above 1979 appeared this time at Racket, a venue in the former Highline Ballroom that opened only this year. It was my first trip to the Manhattan space, and my first time seeing DFA1979, and I was anticipating the experience.
Opening duties were handled by HXLT, the rap/punk/electro project of Chicago-born Nigel Holt (fka Hollywood Holt.) Holt is an able performer, prowling the stage with great energy and losing himself in the music and crowd response. An MC and veteran of rap battles, Holt has been open about his punk rock influences and even recorded with Kathleen Hanna. He hasn’t abandoned his rap background, though, and there is a great focus on flow in much of his singing, even as he is backed by a guitarist, drummer, and apparently his brother on synth/sampler.
HXLT undoubtedly picked up some new fans with their high energy performance. It was, however, quite distracting to have a videographer with a phone on stage throughout the entire show. I assume they were capturing footage for a video, which is understandable, but I would hope they limit that to only a few songs in the future.
Death from Above 1979 are one of my favorite bands, and I was heartbroken to miss their stop here at Music Hall of Williamsburg last November (see our coverage). They more than lived up to the hype I built in my mind with an intense, non-stop set. The Canadian group is known for conjuring a punishing, relentless sound with only two members—Sebastien Grainger and Jesse F. Keeler—and they filled the space with that signature bass and drum combo. The pair were visually contrasting, Keeler in black and Grainger in white (now with bleached hair) but completely in sync on every song. Keeler is a constantly moving wizard on the bass, with an enviable mustache and a large pedal board, although according to a 2014 rig rundown much of his sound comes from amp distortion, which I don’t doubt after seeing those things. (Many of the pedals likely run off the synths, which Keeler also provides.) He rarely approaches a mic, instead hypnotizing the crowd with hyperactive bass lines played on two Lucite Ampeg Dan Armstrong Plexi basses.
A drummer who sings is almost a novelty, and I’ve always wondered why. Is it the limited movement? Do people who shun the spotlight take up drums on purpose? Is it difficult to play them and sing? I wouldn’t know; I find drumming to be like trigonometry and do not attempt it. But Grainger is a compelling singer, overlooked in my opinion, with emotive, at times desperate vocals. His beats are in no way an afterthought, and in a two-piece band his drumming is able to draw a focus in a way he might not be able to in a more traditional four piece group. For all their noise, DFA1979 make extremely danceable music, with grooves to be found in their most hardcore of songs. This was a show where I could throw up the horns and headbang while also shimmying my ass off.
And that spirit seemed to extend around the room. The crowd was very into the set, which pulled from all four studio albums, and sang and thrashed and bounced along, especially when Grainger jumped out from behind the drum kit on “Romantic Rights” (a funny version of that trick can be seen here). For the final song of the encore, “Pull Out,” HXLT appeared from side stage to take the mic back and ended up crowdsurfing, infused with the same energy as the audience, an energy that continued buzzing well after the set had ended.
Scroll down for setlist, pics of the show (photos by Kate Hoos)
Nomad, One + One, Virgins, Turn It Out, Caught Up, Free Animal, Totally Wiped Out, Modern Guy, Little Girl, White Is Red, N.Y.C. Power Elite Part I, N.Y.C. Power Elite Part II, Freeze Me, Going Steady, Black History Month, Crystal Ball, Trainwreck 1979, Romantic Rights, The Physical World Encore: Right On, Frankenstein!, Pull Out (with HXLT)
Back in 2020, Palehound was getting ready to tour in support of the album Black Friday; not only were those plans canceled, singer, songwriter and guitarist El Kempner’s romantic relationship dissolved as well. Their latest album Eye On The Bat is what Kempner calls “a documentation of illusions shattering in the face of profound change.”
Eye On The Bat kicks off with “Good Sex,” a story song for the ages that paints a picture of an intimate moment gone wrong while Kempner loses their composure a bit and can’t help but laugh as they sing “bad sex makes a good joke that anyone can get.” In fact, many of these songs are intensely personal, particular moments that on the surface pertain only to Kempner’s experiences, but the affable way they deliver the tales makes them relatable.
After the strolling acoustic strum of “Independence Day” the record moves into full-on rock with “The Clutch,” one of the highlight tracks for me (read our previous review of the single).The guitar solo cuts like a knife; later on the album “Head Like Soup” brings around another moment of guitar brilliance. Kempner’s solos sound like catharsis and command attention.
Eye On The Bat is a record made up of varied approaches, from the previously mentioned rock to the electronic bop of “U Want It U Got It” to the lazy country roll of “Route 22” and the folky “Right About You.” It can make the album seem like a collection of tracks rather than a cohesive whole, but Kempner’s personal stamp on all the songs manages to tie everything together. In a statement, Kempner said of the album “It’s about me, but it’s also about me in relation to others… After hiding for so long—staying inside and hiding your life and hiding yourself from the world—I was ready. I think I flipped.” It’s a deeply confessional record, one on which Kempner pulls no punches, even with self-blame, singing on “My Evil” “I’ve become the person I’d wanna punch in the face If they ever treated you this way.”
For all that Eye On The Bat captures stories of shattering, the music never gets bogged down with bitterness nor is it a brooding album in any way. It was recorded with multi-instrumentalist Larz Brogan, who Kempner has been playing with since their DIY days, and who they say pushed them to be experimental and vulnerable in the studio. Kempner and Brogan, who Kempner calls “their platonic life partner” wanted to capture Palehoud’s live sound, and while the record doesn’t sound overproduced, it is far more layered than that statement might belie. It was recorded “in brief stints” at Flying Cloud Recordings in the Catskills last year and co-produced by Kempner and Sam Owens.
Since Palehound’s debut album Dry Food back in 2015, Kempner has been carving out a place for their songwriting and guitar skills, and now with a break-up album under their belt, their storytelling has reached new levels. Palehound seems poised for bigger things (some opening slots for boygenius in September are sure to introduce them to new audiences) and they seem ready: as stated on their Bandcamp, “if you made it through that, you’ll handle whatever comes next.”
Eye On The Bat is out now via Polyvinyl and available on Bandcamp and all major streamers.
If you enjoy playlists based on vibe rather than genre, then the new EP from local artist Shopjail will scratch that itch. Jumping through hip hop beats, pop-punk melodies, and electronic music, LARCENY is both a solo project and a collaborative effort, featuring many artists who are friends and inspiration to Samuel Krebs, the mind behind Shopjail.
Krebs has been a member of various Brooklyn bands including Killafün, as well as a stint in Nevva playing bass. Shopjail as a solo project rose out of lockdown, with Krebs releasing the first mixtape under the name in 2022 (PROSPER).
LARCENY starts out with “ONE EYE KOMODO,” featuring a beat provided by NYC (formerly South Florida) based producer Charmonthebeat and a verse from MC JimmyIII (who is also NYC based but hails from the Chattanooga, TN scene.) Backing the verse is a screwy, gritty dark bassy synth line. It’s almost whiplash when the second track kicks in, as “OK” is a much poppier song, with an anthemic chorus (“I just want to feel OK“) and a verse from comedy-writer and musician Booshell (Matt Buechele, who Krebs tells me is “lowkey TikTok famous,” though I’ll have to take his word for it since I don’t Tik the Tok yet).
“ACHES” feels like a mix of the first two tracks, with an upbeat verse and slowed down interstitial. The lyrics are relatable (“these old bones they don’t jangle like they used to… they just ache now when I awake“) and are drawn from poet Matt Stromberg, of whom Krebs says “he’s a poet from where I’m from in Pittsburgh. He put out some work recently, and I was immediately drawn to the words in “ACHES.” I could talk about that at great length. He gave me permission to write a song about it, and that’s where “ACHES” kinda came from.”
The EP then takes a turn into a gentler sound, with the ballad-esque “2LATE.” There’s a late-90’s/early 00’s feel here. Local singer CHARMAINIA (aka Charmaine, who also plays drums in Nevva and Cult of Chunk) is featured on this track, and her strong vocals make for a compelling duet. After an instrumental with vocal samples (“EGO DEATH”), “PROBLEM” is another anthemic song, although darker in tone than “OK.” “PARTY’S OVER” is a dancey bop and a fitting ending track.
It sounds like Krebs had a lot of fun making LARCENY, which was mixed and mastered by Owen Traynor of Hazing Over. Krebs said he “loved what they were doing with the engineering on their own stuff. I wanted the pop tracks I was making to get that harder edge that I wasn’t getting from other pop/hip-hop producers & engineers I was meeting with.” The album is self-released, and while Shopjail doesn’t have any shows upcoming, you can check out a live show demo here on Vimeo (Krebs is a cinematographer, and shot the “To Us” video for CHARMAINIA, which we loved at FTA.)
TEKE::TEKE are a band that contains multitudes, from their influences, which range from psychedelic rock to surf to garage to Japanese folk, to their own melding of modern and vintage sound, to their Canadian and Japanese identities. Each of the seven members of the Montreal-based group are also multi-instrumentalists, with the credits for the album reading like an orchestra: Maya Kuroki (vocals and guitar), Sei Nakauchi Pelletier (guitar, synth, percussion, vocals), Hidetaka Yoneyama (guitar, vocals), Yuki Isami (flute, shinobue, taisho koto, synth, vocals), Etienne Lebel (trombone, gaida, percussion, vocals), Mishka Stein (bass, synth, percussion, guitar, vocals), and Ian Lettre (drums, percussion, synth, piano, vocals). Yet never on their newest album Hagata do they seem to get lost or mixed-up, rather charting their own course through a heady stew of genres to emerge with something stronger. Indeed, Kuroki says of the album’s title: “Hagata is a very deep word, something present but also something leftover from someone or something no longer there. It’s like waking up from a dream, or being connected to the other side of something.”
The melding of immediacy and dreamlike is a perfect way to describe the overall sound of Hagata. Much of it feels very nostalgic, with 60’s and 70’s pop and psych tones to the guitars and woodwinds, all while Kuroki’s vocal delivery twists and turns, a playful growl here and a soulful melody there. Yet there is a punchy quality to most of the songs and their production, and never does the album get dragged down by looking backwards.
Hagata starts off strong with lead track and lead single “Garakuta,” one of my top songs of the year so far. A psychedelic march with a driving flute lead and intense vocal delivery, it sets the stage for the rest of the album, drawing the listener into the trippy work of TEKE::TEKE with an immediate bang. Kuroki’s words (presented in this article through a provided English translation) speak of the heaps of trash people have left on this planet, seemingly from the point of view of the trash: “This flower is made from plastic, that snow from polystyrene / that hill in the distance is a mountain of cellphones… these are voices of waste that cannot return into the ground / our day will come.”
The second single is also the second track, and “Gotoku Lemon” (“Lemon Enlightenment”) is groovy and funky with interweaving guitar and flute melodies, while Kuroki plays the part of some sort of snake-oil/lemon seller, cajoling us to “everyone come closer! / divine effect, immediate remedy for all diseases! / try these lemons, try them! / try these magic lemons that wake you up with just one drop!” The accompanying animated collage video was created by Kuroki and Pelletier.
Hagata doesn’t drop off at all after these first two singles, with a strong lineup of tracks throughout. Highlights of the album are “Onaji Heya” with its slinky guitar riffs and thumping drumbeat, “Doppelganger,” the third single that features a cinematic vintage feel, and “Setagaya Koya,” which moves through an interesting arrangement and rhythmic experimentation. The longest track is the seven minute epic “Kaikijyu,” with a slow build akin to sinking down into the ocean; indeed the lyrics speak of the sea but also move through surreal imagery:
“In the pouring rain, a car stops in the backstreet
Out comes a never-ending stream of men in identical raincoats
Coming in from the back door, instantly filling up my house
Losing my space, I dive into a giant mirror
Inside is a thick and revitalizing deep ocean
Like moving kaleidoscopic and colorful lights,
Like the striking of an empty clock, there is this beautiful sound
Inconspicuously, I turn into a whale
Under the day moon, spreading my fins like wings,
I rush onto the sea with great speed.”
The production quality on Hagata is richly blended, with no part of their layered sound lost. The album was recorded and mixed by Daniel Schlett at The Outlier Inn Studio in Mountain Dale, NY; Schlett also works out of Brooklyn, but the band chose the countryside, and credit the setting (and studio owner Josh Druckman’s vegetables) with contributing to the recording, with Pelletier saying “we wanted to explore the TEKE::TEKE world further, to enrich all the senses, and feeling that comfort made a real difference.”
TEKE::TEKE aren’t only good in the studio, however—they are a compelling live act. FTA caught them live last year at Public Records, and I also had the pleasure of seeing them open for Unwound at Irving Plaza this March, where they put on a vibrant, energetic show. I highly recommend checking them out if they come through your city.
Hagata is out now via Kill Rock Stars and available on all major streamers.
No longer the young indie darlings of the 2010’s, Beach Fossils have stood the test of time and emerged thirteen years after their debut album as stalwarts of the scene, perfecting their dream pop sound. Their newest LP Bunny shows frontman Dustin Payseur honing his craft to a fine point. According to Payseur, Bunny “represents strength through vulnerability.” He notes “when I wrote the first record, there were no choruses; it was instrumental guitar parts in between verses. This is the first record where I’ve consciously thought about writing a chorus.”
There is indeed a lot of growth on this record, not only in sound but in theme, with topics ranging from friendships moving on to becoming a father. Still, there is a lot of searching, or at least reflections on moments of feeling lost. Payseur might be grown up but he isn’t settled down, still hitting up house parties (“Dare Me”) and doing hungover morning bike rides (“Don’t Fade Away”).
Lead track “Sleeping On My Own” gets things started with the jangly guitar and a catchy vocal melody; by the time the song hits the chorus it feels suddenly expansive, like arms spread wide presenting the album. This gives way to the dreamy “Run To The Moon,” which chronicles Payseur’s feelings on the arrival of his daughter, and “having absolute freedom, the fear of losing it, but then tapping into myself in a way that felt more real.” There certainly seems to be a lot of happiness reflected in the pastoral music video as band members Tommy Davidson (guitars), Jack Doyle Smith (bass), and Anton Hochheim (drums) frolic in the fields.
Their second single “Dare Me” is as Payseur says “about conflict, friendship and the intoxication of new love. Willing to let yourself be stupid, vulnerable, pissed off and forgiving” Those emotions are certainly all mixed up into the song: “you said if you’d get yourself together you’d be alright / but nothing feels better than wasting time / I’ll be your / contender / if we can live forever / caught in this / landslide / are we’re gonna be running till the end of our lives?“
Other highlights include “Anything is Anything” (which gave me a sense memory of listening to Blur’s “She’s So High” although that’s maybe just me), “Seconds,” a track that follows their old classic formula of verses interspersed with instrumentals, with gorgeous vocal harmonies, and “Numb,” a bass forward track with swirling guitars that evoke a summer night.
Payseur recorded and produced the album himself, with mixing from Lars Stalfors, and the mix is perfectly attuned to what Beach Fossils fans expect—guitar-focused dream-pop with a solid underpinning, layered over with Payseur’s strong yet lilting voice. Overall Bunny is an album of a band doing what they do best while not resting on their laurels.
Bunny is out now on Bayonet Records (the independent label Payseur co-founded in 2014).
