Before acts foreign & domestic head to Austin for South-by-Southwest (QRO preview), they hit up New York City for the Lower East Side’s New Colossus Festival, Wednesday-Sunday, March 6th-10th.
Dedstrange showcase @ Piano’s
Carinae
Hadley’s Carinae rolls six-deep, a psych prog crew that includes multiple keyboards, multiple guitars including an electric twelve-string, drums, and a sampler. The last item is notable because it signals a kind of statement of intent to distinguish the western Massachusetts band from the usual run of crunchy Pioneer Valley jam bands. These are some real musical heads that craft complex rock n roll symphonies for tripping in the new millennium. Not your average bowl of granola.
Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys
Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys, out of Germany, performed as an electropop duo. Tech issues straight out of the gate that delayed the start of the set. With different bands crisscrossing stages all day and all night long, it’s amazing that sound issues aren’t more prevalent. It’s a testament to the general level of expertise on hand. The German duo soldiered through to present a stark mélange of dark poetry and Blair With-style tattoos. Extra points for their synth percussion, a rubberized drum pad that they smacked with a single stroke of the mallet at the start of each song, letting the digital thump slowly and steadily on repeat until the last measure.
Them Airs
Connecticut’s Them Airs is rock n’ roll that’s big on energy. So much energy, in fact, the fronter busted his high E string on the first song. No worries, he was mostly mashing chords while the lead guitarist at his right handled the precision stuff. Shout out to the keyboardist with no keyboard stand, popping a squat in the corner while she romanced the synth. Shades of Supermarket Parking Lot’s synth squatter.
Prewn
Did Prewn roll out the same drummer as Carinae? Two Massachusetts bands. The former band is from Northampton, the latter from Hadley, so it’s all good in the Pioneer Valley hood. The fronter for Prewn, Izzy Hagerup, is capable of A+ indie rock warbling. There are shades of Elizabeth Cotten in the tremor and persistence of her vocals, and a lot of water under the bridge in her lyrics. The band’s latest album Through the Window is a psych-inflected indie rock hill worth climbing. Bring a water bottle and dress in layers.
Ducks Ltd.
One of the higher-interest acts at New Colossus ’24 was Canada’s Ducks Ltd., with their great new record Harm’s Way (QRO review). There was certainly a lot of interest in their Piano’s performance, with the back room so packed it was at capacity, the door guy having to enforce the ‘one out, one in’ rule (and all without a bartender in said room). Their indie-pop sounded great, but was harder to enjoy in such a setting.
Showcase @ Piano’s
Last Waltzon
A hard rocking four-piece out of Montreal, Last Waltzon. You could barely hear the vocals through the mix, but it hardly mattered. This band was here to grind away on heavy instrumentals that bridged the distance between half a dozen genres, from pop, punk, rock, psych, jam, and back. A superb drummer and propulsive bass-playing allowed the other guitarist freedom to run wild atop the rock solid rhythm section. They released a pair of singles at the start of 2024, “Down Under” and “I Can’t Cook” – worth a listen.
Langkamer
Give credit where credit is due. The fronter for the U.K. indie rock four-piece dropped some dry British wit during soundcheck, comparing the infernal buzz coming out of the monitors to the droning soundtrack of a Christopher Nolan. The stage banter did double duty, gently calling attention to their transatlantic credentials while also begging a quick fix for the monitor situation. Upstairs at Piano’s (QRO venue review) was a dicey sound proposition on Saturday afternoon. A band like Last Waltzon is noisy enough at a baseline level that you may not notice issues, if present. With a group like Langkamer, which is going for a kinder, gentler indie rock experience, you might notice it.
Holiday Ghosts
While Ducks Ltd. brought indie-pop in Piano’s main room, upstairs also saw indie go pop (or is it the other way around?) with Holiday Ghosts. Again, it was a packed house, which played against the enjoyable band who were just performing on the same floor as everyone else, but at least there was a bartender here…
Showcase @ Rockwood Music Hall
OSKA
Just as upstairs at Piano’s can be a bad place to see a band, so too sometimes at Rockwood Music Hall (QRO venue review), thanks to the tables and chairs on the stage floor, and a piano taking up much of the actual stage. However, Vienna’s OSKA really made it work by playing hushed and solo to a hushed and mostly seated crowd. That kind of setting can be overwhelming for a young artist, but the audience was definitely there to see her, real fans, and her sweet music was aided by her charmingly awkward banter with the crowd (from a fan who’d drove three hours to see her, to noting someone getting up who had to explain he was only going to the bathroom – OSKA added that we’d all be listening…).
The Spanish Wave showcase @ Heaven Can Wait
Country-specific showcases at festivals are lackluster when it’s just a room full of the regular locals scoping out a few sleep-deprived bands, fresh off a long journey by plane, train, or automobile. You want the real deal; a room full of foreign nationals representing their country in every aspect of the music industry, from artists, to agents, to promoters, to bookers, to roadies, to the hangers-on. That’s what we got at The Spanish Wave, a room full of paisanos, and it was glorious.
Reme
Four-piece? Five-piece? Hard to tell, there was so much equipment stacked on top of the postage stamp-sized stage at Heaven Can Wait. Small stage, yes, though the semicircular platform offered the crowd a good chance to see about 270 degrees of the musicians at work. Not quite theatre-in-the-round, but more than halfway there. Reme impressed with a twin keyboardist attack that pitted the keymen face-to-face like dueling pianists out of a Looney Tunes sketch. Spanish Wave or not, strong Britpop vibrations emanating off this outfit.
Airu
The band Airu announced itself as a Basque band, out of Bilbao, which gives you a preliminary sense of the complicated waters that artists swim through when a separatist band plays a nationalist showcase. But like Phillip Jeffries of Twin Peaks said, with more than an air of mystery: “We live inside a dream.” And who knows which flag will be raised up the flagpole when we wake? The indie rockers played more than a few tracks off their latest full-length, Con lo bueno y con pena, a dream pop delight.
Los Premios
Straight outta Valencia (and sharing the drummer for Yo Diablo), it’s Los Premios. A psych-rock quartet that can throw a few proggy hand grenades into an otherwise pop-forward mix. The band draws a crowd, and life at Heaven Can Wait was shoulder-to-shoulder club living. But the youth culture in Spain starts hitting the club scene before most of their American counterparts can apply for their learning permit. A packed club is like a green pasture for this crowd.
Niño Disco
Niño Disco is neither Spanish, nor Basque, nor any other option off the Iberian Peninsula. The disco artist is a NYC local with Ecuadorian roots. After centuries of colonial rule, though, the least Spain could do is offer the artistic sons and daughters of The Country of Four Worlds the closing slot of the showcase. Roger Cabrera, the man behind the moniker, did not disappoint the late crowd.
-words & photos: Ted Chase & Michael Gutierrez
Check out Hump Day News‘ video from Piano’s:
