The Bowery Presents

The Mercury Lounge upcoming shows

Mahogany
11:30
Blacklist
10:30

Home Video
9:30
Cruel Black Dove
8:30
The Depreciation Guild
7:30

DJ Young Elliot (RCRD LBL) spins between sets!
Venue:
The Mercury Lounge
Date:
Sat 2/28
Notes:
21+
Doors: 7:30 PM / Show: 7:30 PM
$10
Tickets
Mahogany
official website
myspace
Once a 3-piece performing with reel-to-reel electro beats – think OMD or Human League – at other times an 8- to 15-piece sonic orchestra evoking a hybrid of ELO and the JAMC, Mahogany is an ever-dynamic entity. The group's most recent LP Connectivity! garnered rave reviews and led to sold-out shows with Vampire Weekend, Clinic, Ulrich Schnauss, and a UK tour with Bloc Party.

With a new set of streamlined, silvery songs, the ensemble has now galvanized as a quintet, consisting of founding composer Andrew Prinz with Odell Nails (Majesty Crush, Spahn Ranch, Hunters), James Minor (Blacklist, National Skyline), chanteuse Ana Breton, and Matthew Filler (Monocle, Friendly Bears).

Hand-picked by Kele Okereke to support Bloc Party on their recent UK tour, Brooklyn-based Mahogany found themselves in the odd position of playing their debut UK shows to thousands of people at the not-small-in-any-way likes of the Brixton Carling Academy. But while most support acts are chosen simply to make the headline band look good by comparison, Mahogany are a brave exception: 'Connectivity!''s fuzzy pop hooks and discreet electronic burbling are exactly the kind of thing that people in the early-1960s imagined we'd all be listening to in 2007, in between eating meals in pill-form and taking the daily 7.58 space shuttle to work on Saturn.
(NME)

Referring to an antiquated vision of the future is easy, but finding and expanding upon that timeless kernel of forward-thinking excitement and systematic rigor is no small feat. Connectivity! is as much a structural achievement as it is a simply gorgeous record, cultivating a graceful, time-collapsing sense of modernity.
(Pitchfork)
Blacklist
official website
myspace
Combining postpunk intensity with the volume and force of heavy metal and the sonic density of shoegaze, Blacklist represents a new breed of rock and roll maximalism.

After joining forces with NYC's experimental Wierd Records, the band contributed two tracks to the label's "Wierd Compilation Vol. 1," which caught the attention of Artforum and other art/music cognoscenti. Subsequently they released their first official EP, "Solidaire," which featured one of The Big Takeover's Top 10 songs of 2007, 'Shock In The Hotel Falcon.'

Since then, the band has shared the stage with underground legends Psychic TV and Mark Burgess (The Chamelons) as well as with current acts such as The Warlocks, A Place To Bury Strangers, IAMX, and The Mary Onettes. Blacklist is set to release its full-length debut LP 'Midnight of the Century' in 2009. Recorded in NYC throughout 2008, the album was mixed in London by Ed Buller (Suede, Slowdive, Pulp).

"...soaring Comsat Angels meets Sisters of Mercy coldwave"
(Other Music)

"Witty and biting, with powerful washes of reverb and echo-laden guitar, propulsive basslines, and strident, baritone vocals. ...while the stage was smoke-free that night, the figurative fog machines were turned up to eleven."
(The Big Takeover)

"They may be from New York, but they are set to rule the world..."
(Post-Punk.com)
Home Video
official website
myspace
Home Video are Collin Ruffino and David Gross, transplants from the misunderstood landscape of New Orleans, now living in the brooding brownstones of Brooklyn, New York. Here they revel in a self-created world of references to Edward Gorey, Massive Attack, The Brothers Quay, Smashing Pumpkins, and a dusting of Chopin, references that they have been collecting for nearly ten years.

They connected in high school art class in 1997. Under the instruction of an eccentric painter, who claimed to have been raised in a Louisiana chateau where servants peeled grapes for him to eat, they spent hours drawing still lives of twisted vegetables and rendering the chiaroscuro of adolescent self portraits. Outside of art class, they made a short narrative video starring David, and directed by Collin, a collaborative set up that continues still and perhaps an influence for their band name.

At the time Collin wore all black, listened to Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins, and was in a band called The Great and Secret Show. David, a classical pianist in training and the son of two classical musicians, had been sheltered from the Top 40, or anything composed after 1900. It wasn't until Collin played him a cassette tape of The Great and Secret Show that David realized pop music had the potential to be as emotionally impacting as classical. Collin continued pulling him into the 20th century, introducing him to albums like Mezzanine, Dummy, and OK Computer. David started playing keyboards for the band.

College scattered the members of the Great and Secret Show, David in Boston studying music and philosophy, Collin in New York studying film, but they remained in touch and created music together during summer breaks. Once the distraction of higher education was out of the way, they reconvened with New York as home and soon discovered a new sound as their latest incarnation, Home Video. The first Home Video song came to them in the dead of winter, the blizzard of 2003. As the piling snow erased the landscape outside his window, David huddled over the warm vibrations of an analog synthesizer creating the simple loop that first inspired their minimalist sound. The fear and anxiety of New York's atmosphere at the time had eaten its way onto the pages of Collin's tattered notebooks and became their confessional style of lyrics. Underlined by a thumping, bass-rich beat, the pairing of the two worked well and the song evolved into "Melon," the first Home Video song created and the closing track on the album. Inspired by their new philosophy, other songs quickly followed and the band sent out demos.

Originally discovered by Warp Records, the label released Home Video's first two EPs in 2004, both packaged in sleeves illustrated by Collin's dark, Gorey-esque drawings. "That You Might", a 10" single, immediately picked up considerable attention in Britain from BBC Radio 1 and the NME, while the five song Citizen EP earned the band a feature in Rolling Stone. In 2006, New York based Defend Music released their debut full length, No Certain Night Or Morning. Grammy-nominated DJ Sasha picked two of the songs from this album to remix for his recently released Involver 2, which also included reworked songs from Thom Yorke, Ladytron, M83, and Apparat.

As electronic-rock producers and performers, they record everything themselves, then adapt it live into a full on rock show with live drums and hypnotic visual projections. After sharing a bill in London at the start of Home Video's first European tour, Blonde Redhead were so impressed that they invited the band to support them for three weeks of shows in North America. Since then they have opened for such diverse acts as Justice, Yeasayer, Flying Lotus, Pinback, Colder, Radio 4, and His Name is Alive.

It Will Be OK is the first new material Home Video have released since 2006, and illustrates the band's new direction in both sound and attitude. The new music has a thickness and complexity that their early minimalist work lacked; the gloom and darkness gives way to glimmerings of hope marked by sublime swells of sound. For the first time, they've been recording with their touring drummer, Jim Orso, who adds a third dimension and brings new life to the beat.

Surrounded by the trend-infested-quick-high of the New York music scene, Home Video are slow-burning pop that will invade your dreams and memories.
Cruel Black Dove
official website
myspace
For those who need evidence that NY's dark underground is about to boil over, all fingers point to Brooklyn's Cruel Black Dove.

Their Full Powers mini-LP may play like mid-period Depeche Mode, but live, Cruel Black Dove is a whole different experience - pulsing electronics with a humanism that's bold and raw in all of the right places. Cruel Black Dove unashamedly pulls from the electronic alternative groups of the 90's without seeming retro, opting for weight and substance over the kitsch of the current indie scene.

The band recently played Iceland Airwaves Festival in the fall of 2008 and contributed a cover of The Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way" to the Barcelona-based Buffet Libre's Rewind 2 Project.

...sex, spite, angst, hurt and revolution.
(RCRD LBL)

... well crafted and perfectly produced... one of those rare moments we find a diamond... some of the most polished tracks from an unsigned band that we've heard this year... one of Brooklyn's best kept musical secrets.
(Thetripwire.com)

... a buzz-worthy female-fronted electronic rock outfit who set the stage on fire with their blend of passionate, hard hitting Lynch-esque music. Slinking back and forth in perfect rhythm, adding to the mood with ominous red lighting, fuzzed out bass, and a knack for on-stage exorcism, part Nick Cave, part Patti Smith, and all unpredictable ferocity. I was floored.
(Limewire)
The Depreciation Guild
official website
myspace
The Depreciation Guild is a fuzzed-out, reverb drenched rock/electronic duo consisting of Kurt Feldman (guitar, vocals, programming/chip-tunes, toys), Christoph Hochheim (guitar, vocals), and Anton Hochheim (live drums). Backed solely by a Nintendo Entertainment System, the band blankets their sound with the crushing blows of its 8-Bit 2A03 sound chip. Drawing inspiration from a wide array of classic shoegaze/dream-pop bands such as My Bloody Valentine, Pale Saints, and Cocteau Twins, as well as electronic composers such as Bill Nelson and YMO, The Depreciation Guild have artfully cultivated a unique sound that strikes a balance between progressive and retro-chic.

The band’s first EP, Nautilus, released by 8 Bit Peoples in January of 2006, is a blissed-out, swirling, guitar-heavy epic that was received with international acclaim.

In December 2007, their first full-length, In Her Gentle Jaws was released, which takes the band’s songwriting and arranging to breathtaking new places. From the sonic attack of Sky Ghosts to the lullaby calm of Heavy Eyes The Depreciation Guild have created a piece of music designed to be heard as a whole - an album filled with highs and lows, saturated in color, and drifting into dream.

The album is available as a free download from the In Her Gentle Jaws website.
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