Among the many peculiarities of NYC's music, 22 year old Bri Arden is one of the reasons it's so hard to make any reasonable attempt at pinning down our city's music sound convincing. The Americana singer/songwriter looks and sounds like she just flew in from Texas, but Arden was in fact born right here in downtown NYC. Listening to songs from her second record "Awake," like barnburner 'Mr. Anonymous' or the wispy 'Wherever You Go,' your first impression might be of an alt-country singer filed somewhere between Carrie Underwood or Lady Antebellum. She has an unassuming and relaxed charm usually associated with the bible belt heartland that young female country singers call home, so she's something of an anomaly here in our neck of the woods. Arden's latest record was fashioned while majoring in Gender Studies at Columbia University, and on it you're going to hear a lot more talk about boys than about the kind of female relationships she writes about in some detail on her blog. I know I shouldn't stereotype philanthropic feminists (she also gives much of her time to causes like orphanages and AIDS charities), I guess I just wasn't expecting Arden to sound so relatable and well...vulnerable with her gifts. Most of her record deals in the working out of complex girl-meets-world emotions ranging from lovestruck longing to lovestruck heartache and similar lovestruck emotional negotiations. Arden's material construct a bridge I didn't know existed between country soul and urban power-pop. The urban cowgirl shows off a side of things I didn't see coming out of NYC, but it's good to know Muskogee doesn't have anything on Manhattan. - Mike Levine
Parc nelwols?!?! Just what are you smoking dude? The FACT you and your sock puppet have used the exact same IP address twice on different days son.Why does ?parc nelwols? and YOU have the EXACT same IP?193.200.150.82 this weekEven when the IP changes on different days?193.200.150.125 about a week or so agoFriends, relatives, sock puppets ? by chance?
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Which of these acts should be The Deli's next NYC Artist of the Month?
We've always been big fans of Luke Temple, and it's good to see that, together with the Here We Go Magic crew, the man is keeping at it with increasingly beautiful records and videos. The band's new album "A Different Ship" (stream it here) will be out on May 8, and betrays at least a partial return to Luke Temple's more intimate and melodic sound from his solo repertoire - in this regard, lend a ear to "Hard to Be Close," "Alone but Moving" and "Over the Ocean". This is welcome news for fans like us who always thought that in most HWGM material Luke's noteworthy songwriting skills seemed a little sacrificed on the altar of textural experimentation. This doesn't mean that the band's signature hypnotic, impressionistic sound is lost - it's just that these two elements work together better than they did in past records, and this is what makes this album one of the NYC highlights of the year so far. Indeed, this collection also features songs more in line with the band's past releases ("Make Up your Mind", "I Believe in Action"), which follow on the steps of brainy-pop icons like Brian Eno and The Feelies, but there's definitely a balance here, also betrayed by the almost perfect alternation of melodic songs and less traditional ones.The just released video of "How Do I Know," telling the story of a rejected dancing robot that ends up revitalizing an older man's appreciation for life, seems to reflect on this brain/heart, mechanic/organic dichotomies and somehow bring them to unity. - PDG
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