Blog Archives

[Photo courtesy of Erica Sackin for FREEwilliamsburg]

Since we last saw Twin Sister at Mercury Lounge in April, lead vocalist Andrea Estella has made a stark change in her look – instantly changing her stage presence from a slightly aloof, cool Euro crooner to the stage-stalking glamstress we saw at Brooklynvegan’s Northside Festival showcase this past Saturday at Music Hall of Williamsburg.  The visual change was a smart one, as it takes a “bigger” band all around to fill out Brooklyn’s largest and fanciest music venue.  Capitalizing both on a roster filled with mostly like-minded bands and the goodwill generated by their positive coverage in Pitchfork, Twin Sister lit up the stage with their bouncy-but-chill songs, including one new one whose title I do not know, which you can stream below, as well as songs from their two EPs.

This set was recorded in the same manner as the ZaZa performance, and the quality is excellent.  Thanks again to BrooklynVegan for the high-quality showcase and their support of NYCTaper, and to the organizers of the Northside Festival.  Enjoy!

Stream the new song:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/T8240TwinSis2100/twinsis_new.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files (HERE).

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Twin Sister
2010-06-26
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY  USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com

Equipment: Schoeps CMC641+DPA 4021>Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) (24/44.1)
Position: Clamp to left side of sound booth, mics at 8ft, DPAs ORTF, hypers DIN
Mastering: 2×24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (mixdown, set fades, tracking, EQ, amplify and balance channels, downsample to 16bit)>FLAC Level 8

Tracks [Total Time 40:18]
01 Eastern Green
02 Daniel
03 I Want A House
04 The Other Side of Your Face
05 [banter]
06 Ginger
07 Lady Daydream
08 [unknown]
09 All Around and Away We Go

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Twin Sister, visit their website, and order Color Your Life direct from Infinite Best Recordings here.

[Photo by acidjack]

I had made a mistake in not seeing Hooray For Earth sooner than I did.  I knew they had played with our friends in ArpLine (a like-minded band, in a loose sense) but somehow (well, I know how – it’s called “regular job”) I had managed not to make it to one of their shows.  FREEwilliamsburg fixed that issue with a Northside Festival showcase that had no wrong calls, with Hooray For Earth in the 2nd opener slot behind Keepaway (posted here).   Hooray For Earth have a dense, anthemic, approachable sound, bridging the gap between hard dance beats and rock emotion.  Their style is exemplified by the closer of their Momo EP, “Rolling/Nectarine”, a song rich with the baggy beats and infinitely hummable lyrics that many songs today lack or ignore.  Hooray For Earth’s songs serve up head-bobbing beats as well as quality songcraft – music huge enough for an arena, sure, but easily compelling enough for a Sunday night Northside Festival showcase.  As their booming sound washes over you, even though it’s Sunday night, you feel yourself waking up.

I recorded this set from the same location as the Keepaway recording – against the right stack.  In my opinion, it does not quite do this band’s expansive sound justice – listen to their studio tracks for proof – but it is still a solid recording after significant editing to compensate for the heavy bass and unusual microphone placement.  Hooray For Earth plays all over this city, so please, do the right thing and see them for yourself.   Enjoy!

Stream “Rolling/Nectarine”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/H7206HFE0201/hfe_rolling.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Hooray for Earth
2010-06-27
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com

Equipment: Schoeps CMC641>Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) (24/44.1)
Position: ~12ft from right stack, 12ft up, pointed at stacks
Mastering: 24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (set fades, heavy EQ, amplify/balance channels, downsample to 16bit)>FLAC Level 8

Tracks
01 Intro
02 Form
03 Comfortable, Comparable
04 Get Home
05 Surrounded by Your Friends
06 [unknown]
07 Scaling
08 Rolling/Nectarine

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Hooray for Earth, visit their website, and purchase Momo from Dovecote Records [HERE].

[Woods at Music Hall on March 12, 2010.  Photos courtesy of Frank Siringo]

Each time we see Woods (and it’s been quite a few lately) we are struck by the evolution of the band.  Despite not being a particularly longstanding act (though I suppose they are by the scene’s current standards), they already feel, in a sense, like godfathers of the scene.  Part of that is that comes from their status as the foundation of Woodsist Records, a label that has spawned groundbreaking acts coast to coast (the West Coast feel of many of their offerings is undeniable).  But it also comes from their music itself, which evolved from the typical 3-4 minute rock format into sprawling, layered psychedelic compositions. I cannot call what they are doing “jamming”, for one because it is so anathema to the local aesthetic, and also because it feels pejorative and limiting.  What Woods are doing is gradually expanding their sound and sharing their virtuosity on their instruments with us – not aimlessly noodling for a bunch of wookies.  Being part of the Woodsist showcase at the 2010 Northside Festival, this performance at Music Hall of Williamsburg did not boast anything as massive as the 16-minute “Bend Beyond” we witnessed at the Abrons Arts Center performance, but it did feature a stretched out “I Was Gone,” “Blood Dries Darker,” “The Hold” and a still-respectable 9-minute “Bend Beyond.”  The show was packed, and the audience was treated to another can’t miss performance that cued up another fantastic set from Real Estate to close out the night.

The NYCTaper team recorded this show from our usual spot at the soundboard booth using two separate recorders and a combination of six mics.  The results are exceptional and even better than the Real Estate recording.  Enjoy!

Stream “To Clean”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/W2206Woods2990/Woods2010-06-25_nyctacid_t03.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Woods
2010-06-25
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY  USA

Six-Track Digital Master Recording
Recorded from Front of Soundboard Booth

Neumann KM-150s + DPA 4021’s + Schoeps CMC641s > 2xEdirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 3 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper and acidjack
2010-07-02

Setlist:
[Total Time 48:02]
01  I Was Gone
02  Blood Dries Darker
03  To Clean
04  [banter]
05  Suffering Season
06  Down This Road
07  The Hold
08  Rain On
09  Bend Beyond

If you email nyctaper for access to these recordings, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Woods, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their official releases, including their latest, At Echo Lake, from Woodsist Records.

[Photo courtesy of Janice Chou for FREEwilliamsburg]

I had absolutely no idea who Oh Land was when I saw her on the bill for FREEwilliamsburg’s Northside Festival showcase at Brooklyn Bowl.  And initially, I didn’t care.  It was Sunday night, there were five acts on the bill, and Hooray for Earth was up next.  All I needed was another 35 minute set in my life.

Then I saw her.

A tall, stunningly gorgeous Danish woman takes center stage, looking like a hipster Heidi Klum, with a DJ/beat specialist off to the left.  Oh, and she’s wearing a wolf hat, which she takes off for the first song.  And high heeled boots.  And short shorts.  In front of her, a keyboard.  To her right, a giant black box contraption with electronic drums stuck to one side, balloons tied to the top.  Suffice it to say, Oh Land didn’t look a bit like any of the other 16 or so bands I saw last weekend.

Then, I heard her.

From note one, former ballerina Nanna Øland Fabricius (Oh Land, get it?) proves that she has the voice and music to match her striking looks.  Her initial approach is simple.  “Hey, I’m Oh Land.  I’m going to play a song called ‘Perfection’.”  Huge beats drop, drowning out the bowling.  She starts to sing.  The song sounds like flying, a simple but beautiful love song, Fabricius’ voice strong and clear over the beat.  It is perfection; perfect, dreamy pop.  Although Oh Land is known in her native Denmark, and has an EP and a record (Fauna) out, her profile in the U.S. has been relatively minimal, with an SXSW gig earlier this year being the first big exposure.  Fabricius tells the audience it is her first time playing these songs live, yet the rest of the performance is spot-on.  My favorite song was the quietest, “Lean,” which you can stream here.  Throughout Oh Land’s short but extremely well-received set, I’m running the simple math: voice + songs + looks = rock star.

It turns out I am not the only one who thinks so.

Oh Land has already been snapped up in the U.S. by Epic Records, a “major label” that is home to a few other artists you may have heard of, like Michael Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne, Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand and Shakira.  Good for Epic, and for Oh Land – I think they’ve got a winner here.  Epic plans to release Oh Land’s record later this year, with her first single, “Sun of a Gun” set to drop in early September, album to follow.  Epic was gracious enough to grant NYCTaper permission to release this recording prior to the album’s release date, provided that we edited out a few numbers and a bit of tuning.  While it is our normal policy to only release complete shows, we felt that our readers deserved to hear anything we could give them by this incredible artist.  Please check out Oh Land’s record and “Sun of a Gun” (available for download with the complete set below) when Epic releases it.  Also, Fabricius just moved to Williamsburg – so if you see her in the neighborhood, please say hi.

I recorded this set in the same way as the Keepaway recording.  This set is particularly strong sound-wise, as my “stack tape” method works well for Oh Land’s relatively simple keys/beats/vox setup.  Thanks to FREEwilliamsburg and Epic Records for making this happen.

Read an interview with Oh Land on FREEwilliamsburg here.

Stream “Lean”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/O0627OhLand0210/ohland_lean_2010-06-27nyctaper.mp3]

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the show in FLAC [HERE].

Oh Land
2010-06-27
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY  USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com

Equipment: Schoeps CMC641>Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) (24/44.1)
Position: ~12ft from right stack, mics A/B, pointed at stack, 12ft up
Mastering: 24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (set fades, EQ, tracking, amplify channels)>FLAC Level 8

01 Perfection
03 Wolf and I
06 Break the Chain
07 Lean
08 Sun of a Gun

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Oh Land, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their forthcoming Epic Records release as well as Fauna, which is most easily purchased in the U.S. on iTunes.

[Photo by Janice Chou for FREEwilliamsburg.  Used by permission.]

Brooklyn’s Keepaway are having quite a year.  Having just released their debut EP, Baby Style, they already scored an opening slot for Yeasayer at their recent Governor’s Island show.  That must have made for a logical pairing, as Keepaway serve up tribal, live dance music with beats and keys served up live along with drums and guitar – this is not “press play” dance music.  The closer dance music and rock music get, the tougher they are to tell apart, though it is fair to say that compared to, say, Yeasayer, these guys fall a bit further toward the dance side of things.  Drummer Frank Lyon anchors the trio with an unusual drum setup that abandons the kick drum (since the deep bass is coming from Mike Burakoff’s beats), while Nick Nauman rounds things out on guitar, with all three participating on the vocal end of things.  This show saw the band anchoring FREEwilliamsburg’s awesome Sunday night Northside Festival lineup at Brooklyn Bowl.  The venue’s massive sound system did Keepaway justice, with a bass-heavy, aggressive house mix that shook the entire place.  If you aren’t a fan yet, check out Keepaway and the other offerings from the well-curated Lefse Records, which is home to several excellent like-minded bands.

Thanks to FREEwilliamsburg for putting on this excellent showcase, and thanks to Lefse Records for their support of NYCTaper.  More recordings from this night and other Northside Festival showcases will be appearing on this site throughout the week.

I recorded this set in a somewhat unorthodox manner (for us, anyway), in that the layout of the room dictated placing my two Schoeps hypercardiod mics about 12ft from the right stack on a mic stand extended 11ft above the crowd.  While the sound is different than our normal offerings – which give a better sense of the room – it is an excellent capture.  You can stream the band’s first single, “Yellow Wings” below, and the entire show is properly tagged for importing into iTunes.  Enjoy!

Stream “Yellow Wings”:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/K2706Keepaway0021/keepaway-yellowwings.mp3]

Download the entire show [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Keepaway
2010-06-27
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY  USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com

Equipment: Schoeps CMC641>Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) (24/44.1)
Position: ~12ft from right stack, mics A/B, pointed at stack, 12ft up
Mastering: 24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (set fades, EQ, tracking, amplify channels)>FLAC Level 8

Tracks [Total Time 36:47]
01 5 Rings
02 Royal Jelly
03 Family of the son
04 Head
05 Sideways Smile
06 Yellow Wings
07 100

If you download this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Keepaway, visit their MySpace page, and purchase Baby Style (available on vinyl direct from Lefse Records, or on iTunes and other retailers for download).

[Photo courtesy of Jessica Amaya and Brooklynvegan]

ZaZa are a Brooklyn-based trio that boasts an unusual modus operandi – they never play the same exact set twice.  While the band, consisting of Jennifer Fraser (formerly of The Warlocks), Danny Taylor and Dru Prentiss currently has only their excellent Cameo EP to its name (with a full length on the way this year), they stretch their material by transitioning songs with unrehearsed free playing.  With a shoegaze-electronica sound that has landed them opening slots for like-minded bands such as The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, ZaZa’s EP grabbed early attention, and this performance at the 2010 Northside Festival’s BrooklynVegan showcase at Music Hall was the type to guarantee more attention when the full record drops.  Although stuck with the unenviable task of taking the early slot, those who made it early were rewarded with a strong performance that debuted excellent new material (new to me/not on their EP in any case), including my personal favorite of the set, “Distance Creator”.

We recorded this set from our usual spot at Music Hall with the four-microphone rig.  The sound quality is outstanding.  Enjoy, and look for more Northside sets to be on this site in the coming days.  The entire ZaZa show is available for streaming on this site and the FLACs and MP3s are properly tagged for iTunes.

Thanks to BrooklynVegan for this outstanding showcase and their continued support of NYCTaper, and to the Northside Festival and The L Magazine for organizing it.  Finally, thanks to Danny from ZaZa for his help with the setlist, and a great performance!

Stream the entire show:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/Z2606ZaZa0210/zaza2010-06-26mhow_acidjack.mp3]

Download the entire show in MP3 [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

ZaZa
2010-06-26
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY  USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com

Equipment: Schoeps CMC641+DPA 4021>Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) (24/44.1)
Position: Clamp to left side of sound booth, mics at 7.5?, DPAs ORTF, hypers pointed at stacks
Mastering: 2×24bit WAV>Audacity (mixdown, set fades, tracking, EQ, light compression, downsample to 16bit)>FLAC Level 8

Tracks
01 Sooner or Later
02 Are What You Aren’t
03 Arms Length
04 Distance Creator
05 Burn and Build
06 Faith in the Faithless

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT ZaZa, visit their MySpace page, and purchase their EP Cameo from Kanine Records here.

[The Fresh & Onlys at Monster Island Basement earlier this year. Photos courtesy of Erin Kilkenny]

The Fresh & Onlys have a delightfully San Francisco sound, modern rock n’ roll with just a dash of 60s hippie.  Despite getting lumped in with the garage/lo-fi crowd (in no small part due to the analog/DIY style of their latest, Grey Eyed Girls), these guys are serious players, and their live sound is transporting.  This show at the Woodsist showcase at Music Hall of Williamsburg for the 2010 Northside Festival was a highlight of the festival so far (as was, frankly, every act on this bill).  I was first introduced to The Fresh & Onlys when they opened up for Thee Oh Sees last year at Mercury Lounge(Oh Sees recording here), and they have only gotten better since then.  We are pleased to offer both last night’s recording (in streaming and download) and that recording (download only) to our readers.  Many more Northside Festival sets will be posted in the coming days, but please do yourself a favor and come out and see the last day of shows.

Thanks to Jeremy and Woodsist for putting on an amazing showcase and their continued support of NYCTaper.

I recorded this set with a four-microphone setup from our usual spot at Music Hall, and the sound is excellent.  Enjoy!

Stream the Music Hall show:
[audio:https://www.nyctaper.com/F0625FreshOnlys2010/freshonlys2010-06-25mhow_acidjack.mp3]

Download the Music Hall MP3s [HERE]

Download the Mercury Lounge MP3s [HERE]

Download the Complete shows in FLAC [MUSIC HALL] / [MERCURY].

The Fresh & Onlys
2010-06-25
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY  USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com

Equipment: Schoeps CMC641+DPA 4061>Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) (24/44.1)
Position: LOC, clamp to sound booth, 9ft, hypers DIN, omnis 1.5ft split
Mastering: 2×24bit/44.1kHz WAV>Audacity (mixdown, EQ, set fades, tracking, amplify channels, balance levels, downsample to 16bit>FLAC Level 8

Tracks
01 Fascinated
02 Feelings In My Heart
03 [unknown]
04 Endless Love
05 Invisible Forces
06 Grey-Eyed Girl
07 You’re Known to Wander
08 August In My Mind
09 Waterfall
10 Diamond In the Dark
11 I’m a Thief

The Fresh & Onlys
2009-10-08 Mercury Lounge, New York, NY

An acidjack master recording

Equipment: AKG ck91 (Busman active mod)>custom BB>R-09HR (24/48)
Position: Clamp to right side of SBD cage, 11ft total height, DIN
Mastering: WAV>Audacity (set fades, tracking, EQ, downsample)>FLAC Level 8

Tracks
01 intro
02 D.Y.
03 Feelings In My Heart
04 Fascinated
05 Summer of Love
06 Grey-Eyed Girl
07 Invisible Forces
08 Come Dance With Me
09 Happy To Be Living
10 Endless Love
11 [unknown]
12 Clowns (Took My Baby Away)
13 Laughter Is Contagious

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The Fresh & Onlys,visit their website, and purchase their records from Woodsist Records here.