Lily Mao and The Resonaters- Human Being Animal

Lily Mao and The Resonaters- Human Being Animal

Lily Mao and The Resonaters Human Being Animal 

 

Lily Mao may have done it. “It” being having delivered a near perfect pop record. And along with the help of their backing band, The Resonaters, the Brooklyn singer-songwriter just may have indeed done it.

 

Mao’s Human Being Animal is the latest release from Vanessa Silberman’s A Diamond Heart Production and it rises to the likes of The Promise Ring’s Very Emergency or even The Cars self-titled from songwriting to production to execution. It’s really really good.

 

Mao leads out front on vocals and guitar and is backed by The Resonaters—Nate Jasensky on guitar, Gabby Borges on drums, and Tui Jordan on bass. For a number of years now, Mao has continued to stand out as one of Brooklyn’s most unique voices, and we here at FTA have obviously been keeping tabs on the band as they dropped their two singles “Wolves” and “Tiger” late last year.

 

Lily Mao & The Resonators performing at 3 Dollar Bill

Lily Mao and The Resonaters in 2021 (photo by Kate Hoos)

 

The guitars throughout the entire record (apart from the ripping lead on “Tiger”) are pulled back a little to let their strange cool voice poke through in all the perfect places. Chock full of quirk and teeming with skilled implementation, Mao knows the way around their own vocal chords in a way most pop-rock singers can only dream. But while the vocal takes center stage for the most part, it’s truly the band that provides all the framework to really make these songs shine. The drums punch, the bass is locked tight, and the guitars are delicate when necessary and big right where you want them. It’s a really good record. 

 

And I’m no stranger to the themes highlighted on Human Being Animal as my own band, Nihiloceros, covered very similar ground on our last record. The line that separates the human species from the rest of the animals on this planet can be hazy and often imaginary. Mao says the song “Wolves” specifically questions “what it means to be a human within a society overrun by disinformation…how capitalism is a pillar of many human rights issues intertwined with white supremacy, misogyny, and homophobia. It’s a warning cry that the ruling class cyclically take away the working class’ rights using deception. [It attacks] all the powers that recurrently suppress and de-humanize human beings for profit. At times we tried to show compassion to humans who have fallen to disinformation using a calmness in our tone, while other times we were intense and loud as acts of self-compassion and truth.”

 

 

Mao indeed calls attention to these societal ills while satirically tiptoeing around classic idioms on “Wolves” and “Tiger.” They are rife in clever animal word play and nuanced metaphor and indeed function as a strong opening to the EP (see our previous thoughts/coverage here). But for me the secret standout is “Chewed Food,” sitting in the middle of the back half booked in its guitar hammers, and “Summertime Blues” pop delivery. A rather grotesque take on fleeting happiness and heartbreak, the chorus run and catch-up turnaround vocal mid-phrase gives me goosebumps every time. It’s a song that makes you feel ok about not feeling good.

 

Alternatively, “Pills” closes out the record by pulling feelings of discomfort to the surface. There’s an ultra specific tension that is almost tactile as Mao croons “the pills make me interesting. My guard is a puddle. If you were here right now, I’d probably get off if we cuddled. I feel a rainbow latching on my spine. But I’m in trouble as the bottle gathers air, I start biting myself as I become more aware.” And it continues to spiral downward along a dark helix of religion and pain and addiction. Wrapped in sharp images it stretches taut over the melancholy of the instrumental strings that complement their voice in a way that feels almost Fiona Apple or Tracy Bonham in mood.

 

Lily Mao & The Resonators performing at 3 Dollar Bill

Lily Mao and The Resonaters in 2021 (photo by Kate Hoos)

 

Lily Mao & the Resonators are continuing to help carve out the reputation of Silberman’s A Diamond Heart Production. Recognized by Alternative Press as one of the top new LGBTQIA+ and women-owned labels that are changing the music industry, Silberman’s extensive experience in multiple facets the industry puts her in a unique position in developing artists and offering a space for any and all artists to have the opportunity to be a part of a music-driven community. Human Being Animal is just another shining example and like I said before, it’s a really really good fucking record.

 

Human Being Animal is out now via A Diamond Heart Productions and available on all major streaming platforms.

 

 

 

Premiere- Whenwolves Release New Song, Minutes, Announce Debut EP

Premiere- Whenwolves Release New Song, Minutes, Announce Debut EP

Whenwolves (photo by Michael Lefco)

 

Whenwolves, who self describe as “Brooklyn art rock to be blasted while howling at the moon,” grew out of the isolation and pent up creativity of the early days of the pandemic when Bobby Lewis found his band, Mustardmind, left idling in 2020. What resulted was a new project unencumbered by the expectations of what came before as Lewis explains the onus of “picking up the pieces and starting work on new music fell solely on his shoulders, as there were no other bandmates to develop the songs with at the time.” What resulted was a new angular project that incorporated the familiar electronic elements of his previous project but with a new focus that forged a new direction and in doing so, their debut EP, Recon for the Weirdos, was born. 

 

Ahead of the record’s 3/3 release date, lead single “The Minutes” is a cool and slightly mathy track with bouncy corners awash in synth and electronic piano to set the dreamy mood as it plays off the underlying bass groove. It’s as much God Lives Underwater as it is Church Crush, but at the same time it feels like a trolley ride through the Land of Make-Believe. Eric Slick (of Dr. Dog) was scooped up to play drums, Kristin Slipp (of mmeadows and Dirty Projectors) contributed backing vocals, and the 2022 live lineup became complete as Kelsey Rodriguez and Bobby’s brother, Billy Lewis, joined the group to play bass.

 

We here at Full Time Aesthetic are super happy to be premiering the track “Minutes” ahead of its official release and will be keeping close tabs on the band’s give song EP as we approach the 3/3 drop date. The band will play a release show to celebrate on 3/1 at The Broadway. Take a listen to the brand new track below and check out the art for the EP.

 

whenwolves

Recon For The Weirdos album art

 

 

 

 

Live Survives Photo Show Opening

Live Survives Photo Show Opening

Photos by Cirsty Burton 

FTA recently sponsored a group photography show, Live Survives, which was curated by local photographer/booker, Jeff Schaer-Moses. What better way to demonstrate the persistence of the arts than to bring photography and live music together under one roof to celebrate the NYC community? The photographers were in the trenches these past few years alongside the musicians documenting the ever-changing conditions and challenges faced during the pandemic.

To quote our EIC, Kate Hoos (who also had work in the show):

“Music photography is many things—a window into the dark and subterranean world of live music and the various scenes that surround it, an obsession for those partake in it, and even more than that, it was a living archive and a lifeline when we were all sidelined during the early days of the pandemic and all shows were shut down.”

 

A lot of photographers whose work I love and respect and who’ve shot my bands over the years before and during the pandemic were on display. And many bands I love and respect were showcased with many of them there to support too. There of course was live music at the event too, with performances by noise punk band Red Tank! and singer songwriter Juan Soria. There was a cool moments while I was watching Soria perform and to my right was Brad Wagner of Paste Magazine in the flesh with his wife and to my left was a video screen of mixed media art with Brad Wagner interviewing musicians.

 

Soria, who hails from Argentina and who has traveled the world playing music, shared that he had spent the last 30 hours traveling from Argentina to Chile to the US only to catch a couple hours sleep in NJ before performing at the show. That truly represents the spirit of live survives to a “t.” Red Tank! was supremely woven into the fabric of the show as a performer and also as a photo subject in the show, and their singer, Clipper, designed the poster for the event.

 

As for some of my favorite photographers, Pete Perry and Aleksei Postinov were both huge huge documenters of the scene throughout the pandemic and I worked with them both separately on various events related to the war in Ukraine. I met both of them from them shooting my band, Nihiloceros, at many many outdoor, backyard, rooftop, street corner, public park spaces and they eventually followed us back into the venues when music came back to the stages. I believe it was the first time for both of them showing their work in a physical way at an event. And both of them graciously went out of their way to find me and individually thank us for coming out and supporting.

Photos by Pete Perry

Photos by Aleksei Postinov

 

Live music returning to the BIG stages was definitely a thing too and to document that, our very own EIC, Kate Hoos, had a collection of photos from artists such as IDLES, Bikini Kill, Otoboke Beaver, Julien Baker and more, all of whom hit the road post pandemic; she blended this work with coverage of the local scene as well. Jeanette D. Moses (of Frida Kill) also did a piece on bigger stages that focused on her time touring with hometown heroes, Thick. And for me, that really reinforced the “underdog success story,” since the pandemic hit right as they were about to make good on signing to Epitaph. They released their first album with the label, 5 Years Behind, on March 6, 2020 and right as their biggest dreams came true, it was all torn away…almost forever. But…fortunately, Live Survives, it always does.

Photos by Kate Hoos

Photos by Jeanette D. Moses

 

At the end of of the night, we kept talking in the back of the room as BandNada and Full Time Aesthetic came together to brainstorm ideas to sustainably support each other and be a resource for the music scene. If that’s not the epitome of the spirit of the night, I don’t know what is.

Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Kate Hoos)

 Curator Jeff Schaer-Moses

Photos by Cirsty Burton 

photos by Video Punk’s Not Dead

photos by Jeff Schaer-Moses

photos by Michael Jung

SORIA

 

 

RED TANK!

 

 

 

 

Skull Practitioners- Negative Stars

Skull Practitioners- Negative Stars

Skull PractitionersNegative Stars

 

New York’s Skull Practitioners recently released their first full-length album, Negative Stars (In the Red), almost ten years into being a band, and it was well worth the wait. The sludgy-pop-psych-noise trio perfectly teeters between grime and sugar on this latest release, a slightly slicker follow up to their 2019 lower-fi Death Buy EP. 

 

The band itself was born out of a Craig’s List ad and a band idea misfire. All the members were playing in other bands at the time, most notably Jason Victor in The Dream Syndicate, when Kenneth Levine (bass), put out an ad for more members to expand his then current project. “We wanted to go to a five-piece, and needed a drummer and another guitar player,” he says. “We put an ad out on Craigslist and met Jason (Victor, guitar/vocals) and Alex (Baker, drums/vocals) that way. Alex was just two weeks into living in New York. We played together for a while, and then it just sort of dissolved. Jason, Alex, and I actually had more of a shared, common musical perspective, and the three of us decided, ‘Let’s stick together with just us three.’”

 

So Skull Practitioners was born and they quickly recorded a limited cassette-only debut, st1, which they self-released in 2014 and out of necessity left sole vocal duties to Baker while behind the kit. And thus began their search for someone to front the band to provide the right voice. “We kept looking for a new singer, and that person never came,” says Victor. “None of us wanted to sing at all. After a while, we had been together as a three-piece for so long that we had our thing, and it became difficult for someone to fit into it. So we pulled a Genesis! The best thing about it is that now all three of us will sing, and that takes the pressure off just one of us.” Levine adds, “Whoever writes, sings. It’s their expression, so they should say what they have to say.”

 

Skull Practitioners portrait

Skull Practitioners (photo by John Bottomley)

 

The opening track “Dedication,” sung by Levine, is a garagey post-punk masterpiece full of discord and resolve. Its thunderous tom-tom onset, pounds through a wall of noisey guitars and snotty quick vocals, letting you know from jump that this record isn’t fucking around. By the time you get to the lead hook and octave anti-chorus fakeout, it’s the perfect pop overdose. I barely get to expertly syncopated guitar solo 4/5ths of the way through before I gotta start the track over to re-up my fix.

 

No stranger to long songs (the tracks on 2019’s Death Buy range from two minutes to well over ten), on Negative Stars the band seems to strike balance for the most part somewhere in the middle. You’d think the heftier run times would fall to the instrumental tracks, “Fire Drill” and “Nelson D,” which both allow the trio to really flex their skill over myriad musical landscapes. However, it is in fact the standout slower stripped back groove, “Intruder,” sung by Victor, swirling in X-esque chorus effect for seven and a half minutes that feels like late night driving through the shitty parts of the city in your rusted out Pontiac Firebird.

 

Skull Practitioners performing

Skull Practitioners performing

Skull Practitioners performing

Skull Practitioners live (photos by Kate Hoos)

 

From start to finish, Negative Stars is buried in so many catchy melody layers that erode away and crack in all the coolest places, carrying along with it an underlying hint of doom. And while on this LP, the band may have reached their truest form to date on record, nothing beats seeing them shred live. Says Levine, “I think the band is represented at its best in a live setting. That’s where we’re in our element. Playing live, we’re out for blood.” Victor adds, “With the live thing, we just want to destroy, in the nicest, most friendly way—we’re nice people. Someone said about us, ‘These guys look like a bunch of accountants.’ People don’t really know what to expect before they hear us. I think they’re all a little surprised, maybe, and we like having that element of surprise— ‘We’re gonna blow your minds a little.’”

 

Having opened shows for Lydia Lunch, Hammered Hulls (see our coverage), Live Skull, and In the Red label mates the Wolfmanhattan Project, Skull Practitioners will be playing next with Jon Spencer & The HITmakers and Licks at TV Eye in on February 4th.

 

Negative Stars is out now via In the Red and available on Bandcamp and all major streamers. 

 

Heavy Lag- Another Year Closer to Whatever

Heavy Lag- Another Year Closer to Whatever

Heavy Lag Another Year Closer to Whatever (art by Anthony Careccia)

 

The thing I love about Heavy Lag is that their music, which they lovingly refer to as “dirt pop,” somehow manages to crank all the knobs of my punk rock nostalgia loves straight past 11 without losing focus or sounding like a throwback. At times Von Zippers, at times a little Squirtgun, sometimes Dillinger Four, and other times almost Descendents and certainly The Wipers too. You might say, Mike, aren’t those all just punk bands? But any punk will tell you that’s categorically untrue; there is so much more nuance to it than that. And the Brooklyn garage punkers in Heavy Lag clearly understand those nuances and play to them extremely well. What Another Year Closer to Whatever really manages to do is do everything at once without doing anything at all other than rocking the fuck out.

 

Heavy Lag performing

Heavy Lag performing

Heavy Lag in 2021 (photos by Kate Hoos

 

The guitars are loud and dirty but less overdriven than you’d expect, allowing the rhythm section to punch and the guitar leads to pierce right thru the pop-sensible wall of sound. In fact, the vocals are probably the most distorted thing on the record, perfectly skirting that line between garage rock and punk rock sound. Catchy standouts like “Dirtpop” and “Splitting Headache” not only embody this, but also have the perfect titles to sum up what this fun record is all about, while slower mid-tempo grooves like “Heist” only add to its character. The album was recorded by Pete Steinkopf (of The Bouncing Souls) who lent his stellar studio sensibilities for capturing great punk and power pop records and gave it that extra push.

 

 

Bottom line, this is a really good rock n’ roll record. It’s not trying to do anything other than that, and in doing so, it really delivers. Another year, another great band, and another Heavy Lag record closer to whatever.

 

Another Year Closer to Whatever is out now via Bloated Kat Records and is available on all major streamers. They will play a record release show on 1/19 at TV Eye with School Drugs, Radar, Substitute and Sadlands