Posts Tagged ‘ indie ’

Palm: January 29, 2016 Palisades

February 3, 2016
By

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The band Palm bring an impressive amount of music experimentation to the table, especially for a fairly young band. The compatriots, who met at Bard College upstate, but now reside in the independent music hotbed of Philadelphia, claim to be short on formal training, but I’m calling B.S. on that. Or rather, if their ability to produce intricate, jazz-inflected songs filled with unusual, shifting time signatures is something they just came up with on their own, then formal training may as well hang it up. On this packed weekend night at DIY-ish Palisades, the foursome came ready to wow us, playing only one song from their standout 2015 LP Trading Basics, released by Exploding In Sound. So we got the (relatively) hooky “Ankles” from that record, paired with a slew of relatively new or very-new songs, many of which the band themselves don’t have titles for. You could see that at points the members were feeling the songs out among each other, casting glances across the stage, but you wouldn’t have known it without looking at them; this material feels dialed-in and ready for primetime. What Palm are doing certainly has its cultural touchstones — some of the great “math rock” bands of mid-late-90s like Faraquet, Smart Went Crazy, June of 44 and Polvo — but it’s also daring and fresh at a time in “rock” music where the norm is more often party music that keeps a low bar. If the band’s subsequent releases have anything in common with what we heard tonight, or Trading Basics, then we’re going to be impressed by them for a very, very long time.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK22 open cardiod microphones onstage together with a soundboard feed from Palisades FOH Ariel. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Palm
2016-01-29
Palisades
Brooklyn, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded by acidjack and nyctaper
Produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK22 (ORTF, stage lip)>NBob cables>PFA + Soundboard (engineer: Ariel Bitran)>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, narrow onstage image)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects)>Audacity 2.0.3 (track, amplify, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks
01 [new song 1]
02 I Don’t Want to know
03 Ankles
04 [new song 2]
05 Crank
06 [new song 3]
07 [new song 4]
08 Two Toes

SUPPORT Palm: Facebook | Bandcamp

Car Seat Headrest: October 15, 2015 NYCTaper Unofficial CMJ Show, Cake Shop

December 4, 2015
By

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[Photo courtesy of Cereal + Sounds]

Twenty-two year old Will Toledo, who performs as Car Seat Headrest, is one of those songwriters whose skill actually matches his high level of output and obvious ambition. That’s a clear reason how, at a young age, and after already writing, performing and producing eleven albums (!!!) on his own on bandcamp, he’s found himself signed to Matador Records, where he’s about to release Teens of Style. Lest you dump this music in the category of mumbly lo-fi bedroom recordings that we’ve all seen a hundred times before, I’d point you to the very first song of this set at our NYCTaper Unofficial CMJ Show, “The Ending of Dramamine,” which was fourteen minutes of off-kilter pop-inflected rock reminiscent of bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the Cars and R.E.M. Or there’s how Toledo, prior to his affiliation with a “big time” label, had already sold 25,000 copies of those bandcamp-only releases. Oh, and those earlier efforts weren’t made in a bedroom — the story goes that the only place Toledo could find peace and quiet to record was the family car, hence the band name.

Toledo’s songs are lyrically dense, at times funny, at times teenage-confessional, unflinchingly honest. We were excited that Matador offered us the chance to have this artist close our show, because Teens of Style has already appeared on many best-of lists since its October 30 release. All of these songs appeared in some form prior to Teens of Style, but expect to hear brand-new versions of the last three — “Times To Die,” “Something Soon” and “Oh! Starving” — on that record. In the meantime, enjoy these right-on live performances, and expect much more to come, including a show on December 5 at Baby’s All Right.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V microphones in front of the stage and a soundboard feed from Cake Shop engineer Jeff. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Catch them at Baby’s All Right on December 5. Get tickets here.

Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Car Seat Headrest
2015-10-15
NYCTaper Unofficial CMJ Show
Cake Shop
New York, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK4V (onstage)>KC5>CMC6 + Soundboard (engineer: Jeff)>>Edirol R-44>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, fades, compression)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects, EQ, image)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 30:19]
01 The Ending of Dramamine
02 Times To Die
03 Something Soon
04 Oh! Starving

If you enjoyed this recording, check out Car Seat Headrest’s bandcamp page, and buy Teens of Style from Matador Records.

 

The Prettiots: October 23, 2014 NYCTaper Unofficial CMJ Day Party, Cake Shop – FLAC/MP3/Streaming Set

November 7, 2014
By


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[photos by Dean Keim]

The Prettiots are that practiced sound of not giving a fuck. The New York trio, comprised of Kay Kasperhauser, Lulu Prat and Rachel Trachtenburg play songs that touch on many of the woes of a woman in late teenhood to her early twenties — boys, high school, self-loathing, etc. and they do so with an endearing, off-the-cuff stance that makes you almost not notice another important fact about them. The secret sauce of the Prettiots is not only that ukulele that Kasperhauser busts out, but that they can actually play. Trachtenburg has a long history as a musician dating back to childhood and the band Supercute!, of which Prat was also a member. If the songs feel, as Lucky put it, like “an epic sleepover”, they’re also executed with a kind of professionalism that bands whose promo flyers include pictures of butts and orthodontic retainers don’t always have. The Prettiots are especially well-traveled in the press for a band with not yet an album to their name, having made several swings through the blogosphere and actual print. This day show at Cake Shop was packed from start to finish — ABC News was even in the house filming the band for Taxi TV — and after the raunchy opener, a cover of Miguel’s “Pussy is Mine”, it wasn’t hard to tell why. These girls are indeed “adorable”, and their songs like “Stabler” and “Kinski” have a habit of sticking around long after the show is over.

I recorded this set as with the other recordings of the day, with Schoeps MK4V microphones at the stage lip and a soundboard feed from the house engineer Clint. The sound is outstanding. Enjoy!

The Prettiots hit Piano’s on November 18. Get tickets here.

Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the full set: 

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links.

The Prettiots
2014-10-23
NYCTaper CMJ Day Party
Cake Shop
New York, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Schoeps MK4V (stage lip)>KC5>CMC6 + Soundboard (engineer: Clint)>>Edirol R-44 [OCM]>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (light EQ, exciter)>Audacity 2.0.5 (tracking, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

01 Pussy Is Mine [Miguel]
02 18 Wheeler
03 Stabler
04 Anyway
05 Kinski
06 Dreamboy
07 Skulls [The Misfits]
08 High School
09 I Probably Won’t Kill Myself Today
10 Lil’ Andy

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT The Prettiots, visit their website, and listen to their music on Soundcloud.

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