Bronze "Bronze"
From Under the Radar Magazine:
Chicago indie band Bronze are set to debut their self-titled LP, a record that hearkens back to a bygone breezy and sun-dappled era of AM radio pop. Band members Dylan Ryan, Scott McGaughey, and Nic Johns are all veterans of the indie rock underground, having played with bands like The Motels, Cursive, Ben Lee, Red Krayola, and Man Man, but found themselves wanting to pursue a pop experiment. They were united by a shared love of the soft rock and yacht rock of the ‘70s like Roxy Music, Robin Gibb, and Steely Dan.
The band created Bronze as an attempt to evoke those influences, playing with sleek studio craftsmanship on a DIY budget. They have been sharing a series of new singles from the record this year, “Jewelry is Magic,” “Light on Shadow,” and “Grand Canyon,” and today they’re back with a final taste of the album, “Mezzanine,” premiering with Under the Radar.
Their latest singles have further proven the band as devotees of vintage radio pop, with each track playing with a slightly different tone. “Jewelry Is Magic” was flashy and catchy while “Light On Shadow” and “Grand Canyon” felt lithe and airy. “Mezzanine” immerses the band in a similarly kitschy retro pop veneer, but pulls them in a simmering nocturnal direction, akin to bands like The Blue Nile. The track pulses with subtle bass grooves, weaving luxuriant funk undercurrents amongst the sleek guitar licks and drum machine beat. The results feel exceedingly smooth and effortlessly playful, offering the sort of easygoing charm born from a studied love of the band’s influences.
Caribou "Honey"
Upon first listen, two things about Honey are immediately clear: First, it is an entirely new kind of Caribou record. Second, in being an entirely new kind of Caribou record, it is in keeping with Dan Snaith’s discography, each new album marked by radical thematic and sonic shifts. Honey is not a departure from the Caribou we’ve known up to this point but rather the product of a lifetime spent listening to and crafting immaculate pop music.
After two intensely personal Caribou albums (Suddenly and the Grammy-nominated Our Love), Snaith now pulls himself away a little in search of music that isn’t about any one person and is relatable to everybody. It also brings Snaith’s two personas, Caribou and Daphni, closer together than ever before. On Honey, Snaith fuses their strengths into a record that grabs you and moves you like Daphni before it uplifts you like Caribou. Huge dancefloor tracks twinkle and surprise in a way only Snaith’s productions can, with a freshness that defines an artist who is too excited by music-making to ever truly settle into any one sound.
Nonpareils "Rhetoric & Terror"
Nonpareils, aka Aaron Hemphill, presents his second studio album, Rhetoric & Terror, out September 20th on CD and vinyl (limited to 500 copies worldwide).
The album follows 2018’s Scented Pictures, and finds the Berlin-based artist – previously known as co-founder and co-songwriter of Liars – compelled to write more structured music, with specific parts and intentions that allude to visual imagery and emotional states. No stranger to reinventing his approach towards composition, Rhetoric & Terror feels like we are, perhaps for the first time, opening a doorway into Hemphill’s personal life, as well as his disparate sonic influences, wide-ranging journeys through philosophy, and through that, find him reflecting on his own role as an artist.
The album features his wife Angelika Kaswalder on vocals throughout, plus multi-instrumentalist Morgan Henderson (a longtime friend since Henderson’s time in the post-hardcore band The Blood Brothers) adding woodwinds and additional arrangement on ‘Unscripting With The Snake And The Swan.’
Rhetoric & Terror, despite its intimidating name, is welcoming and playful, even during its most intense moments.
Dave Guy "Footwork"
When you hear Dave Guy play his trumpet you know it is him right away. Like many of the greats before him he has a distinct tone and sensibility that sets him apart from his peers. Unless you are the type to read album credits you may never have heard his name, but you have heard him play. In fact, you have likely seen him play. Whether in person at a show or on national television he has lent his talents to a who’s who list of world famous artists both in the recording studio and on stage. And now, with his first solo LP on Big Crown Records, Dave is stepping from a band’s flank straight to the front—with a well deserved light shining directly on him and his sound.
Raised in NYC’s East Village, Dave was surrounded by hip-hop and the hustle that defined the city in the ’90s. In those formative days, he and his playing were influenced by jazz greats like Donald Byrd and Hugh Masekela but also by the Native Tongue sounds of A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. His time at LaGuardia Performing Arts High School furthered this path. Dave remembers sharing playing time with Big Crown co-founder Leon Michels and drumming powerhouse Homer Steinweiss. “Being in the All-City Jazz Big Band, I would see them rehearsing all the time,” Dave recalls. “They were already doing things with the Dap-Kings back then—which was crazy.” It was here Dave’s voice as a player began to take shape and continued to be refined through his studies at the Manhattan School of Music and The New School.
After a few stints with live hip-hop group Dujeous—Dave was touring with The Sugarman 3, an organ-driven soul jazz group. Through those gigs he was recruited to play with the late great Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, touring with and recording on all of her albums until her untimely passing. During those years he lent his playing to countless records from the likes of Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson, Pharell, The Menahan Street Band, Lee Fields, Al Green, and countless others. But fast forward to now, and you may best know Dave Guy as the trumpeter playing with Black Thought, Questlove, and the rest of The Roots crew—both on tour, in the studio, and on TV with Jimmy Fallon.
On his new record Dave steps to the front of the stage with a debut album that could have only come from a seasoned veteran. It’s a record that mixes his musical influences with the energies of the city that raised him. A New York jazz record that pushes the boundaries of the genre by incorporating shades of hip hop and soul making it both unique and modern. This is what you get when someone hones their talent for years while rubbing elbows with the best of the best. As fate would have it, a classic case of “when one door shuts, another opens” was really what got the ball rolling. “I never wanted to force my own project,” Dave explains. “There was always a lot going on between things—the timing was never right.” But then, that timing finally fell into place. The Tonight Show had to pause with the writers’ strike and unexpectedly, there was a free moment. Within days Dave started recording at NYC’s fabled Diamond Mine studio with friends and longtime collaborators Homer Steinweiss and Nick Movshon. What started out as just looking to make music and create, quickly took shape and direction and they ended up laying down something wildly special and authentic. An album of songs that capture different moods and an invitation into the world as Dave Guy sees it and feels it.