Long white cloud settles over New York for the 2011 CMJ Music Marathon.
Princess Chelsea, Pickachunes, Popstrangers, The Golden Awesome, Street Chant, Andrew Keoghan, and Cairo Knife Fight
Tuesday October 18th at (le) Poisson Rouge
An exciting line up of bands from Aotearoa will once again grace the stage at this year’s 2011 CMJ Music Marathon festival in New York. The NZ@CMJ Showcase is one of CMJ’s opening night events and is hosted by the New Zealand Music Commission. Joining them for the evening will be long time supporter’s 42BELOW who will be providing complimentary Vodka cocktails, DUB Pies who will be providing food with those small pastry cases of goodness, and partners NZ On Air.
Having showcased bands such as, The Brunettes, Liam Finn, Cut Off Your Hands, The Ruby Suns, Bang Bang Eche, The Naked and Famous, Surf City, Die Die Die, Kids In Space, David Dallas, Zowie, Street Chant, Electric Wire Hustle, Ruby Frost, Lawrence Arabia and Kids Of 88, they now bring you the latest offerings from the land deep in the South Pacific.
New Zealand is excited to announce its annual showcase at CMJ set to take place on October 18th at (le) Poisson Rouge. The event will feature new and emerging acts, Princess Chelsea, Pickachunes, Popstrangers, The Golden Awesome, Street Chant, Andrew Keoghan, and Cairo Knife Fight. Bios and event details below:
Event: NZ@CMJ 2011. Tuesday October 18th, (le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY10012.
Doors: 5:45pm and show starts at 6:00pm sharp.
Admission: Entry is free with a CMJ badge or RSVP to international@nzmusic.org.nz RSVPs are valid for one person per unique email and admittance is granted on a first come, first served basis. Media RSVP to jerry@thesyn.com
Watch New Zealand @ CMJ 2011 Video!
Princess Chelsea
Princess Chelsea is the moniker of New Zealand composer, Chelsea Nikkel. Nikkel studied classical piano throughout her childhood and teenage years as well as dabbling in drums, guitar and clarinet. While at high school she discovered her love of composition, writing and recording her first song “Monkey Eats Bananas”.
After leaving high school, Nikkel formed “circus punk” act Teen Wolf with Brad Fafejta (creator of Princess Chelsea’s album art). Nikkel went on to spend the better part of her twenties developing her recording and production skills while also touring as a member of Sub Pop darlings The Brunettes. The results of these experiences is the debut Princess Chelsea album Lil’ Golden Book, a triumph of high concept production.
Absolutely sublime.” -- Rolling Stone
”…you’ll have a very hard time getting this catchy, witty number out of your head.” – Dangerous Minds
Contact
Website: www.myspace.com/wonderfulprincesschelsea
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wonderfulprincesschelsea
Official Showcase: Oct 22 -- Princess Chelsea -- 7pm at Local 269
Andrew Keoghan
Andrew Keoghan’s music fuses groovy early eighties’ new wave sound with today’s carefully constructed new-folk for some contemporary good measure. His debut LP Arctic Tales Divide was recently released to critical acclaim in his homeland, with The New Zealand Herald calling it ‘a magical, multi-layered pop gem’ and ‘an early contender for local album of the year.’
Arctic Tales Divide mixes pop, folk, classical and electronic influences and through the looping of electric guitar, violin and one-man-choir backing vocals, this Caribbean-born Kiwi offers an intriguing and truly international album about unexpected encounters and confused love.
A busy touring schedule has seen Keoghan hone an intense live show. He’s joined at CMJ by drummer Dan Ward (Lawrence Arabia).
Contact
Website: www.andrewkeoghan.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/andrewkeoghanmusic
Official Showcase: Oct 22 -- Andrew Keoghan -- 8:30pm at The Living Room
Pikachunes
McDougall had studied the instrument since childhood while also playing piano, guitar and trombone. Unfortunately, his injury left McDougall unable to play or study during rehabilitation and out of frustration, he turned to his love of digital production and the result is Pikachunes, a first person account of moving to a new city and the turmoil of building a name as a new musician.
The Pikachunes album impressed Lil’ Chief Records and was soon picked up by the label and mastered by Jonathan Bree of Sub Pop band The Brunettes. Fully recovered, McDougall soon began working with great vigour to earn the recognition (which he quickly began to receive) as one of Auckland’s most prolific and popular live acts.
His debut album “New Fiend” highlights McDougall’s ability as a beat maker, using pulsing electro beats to create a party tune that’s both groovy and awash with heavy club thuggery. This is hook and riff based pop music in its most basic form with lyrics borne of honest observation.
Contact
Website: www.myspace.com/pikachunes
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pikachunes
Official Showcase: Oct 22 -- Pikachunes -- 9pm at Kenny’s Castaways
The Golden Awesome
The Golden Awesome are a four-piece band from Wellington, New Zealand. Following a series of successful shows with acclaimed local acts such as the 3Ds, Die! Die! Die! and Disasteradio, and playing one of the key slots at 2011’s Camp A Low Hum festival The Golden Awesome were signed by Brooklyn label M’Lady’s Records.
Stylistically, The Golden Awesome are easily identifiable as a shoegaze band. Slow, blissful major-key riffs generated by a heavily overdriven guitar and bass provide an enveloping background to the seraphic harmonized multiplied voice of Stef Animal. The song structures are simple and immediate throughout, leaving ample breathing space for the band’s dense sonic textures and sparse melodic highlights. Compared to their contemporaries, The Golden Awesome are less interested in dancey, Manchester-informed sample sequences than in a sonic indie rock band sound, bridging the gap between distortion-heavy noise rock and classic shoegaze pop bliss. The band features former members of prominent New Zealand bands Mink, Cloudboy, and Mestar, amongst many others.
Contact
Website: www.myspace.com/thegoldenawesome
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/The-Golden-Awesome
Official Showcase: Oct 21 -- The Golden Awesome -- 8pm at Trash Bar, Williamsburg.
Popstrangers
Auckland trio Popstrangers burst onto the live circuit early in 2009, and immediately began making waves with their truly unique celebration of grunge, punk, and noise music winning punters over wherever they went.
The band self-released an EP of their early hits in September of that year, with song after song sitting pretty on both the bNet and New Zealand Alt Radio Charts for weeks on end.
Before long the group were in serious demand, and wound up playing with everyone from Peaches (US) to Crocodiles (US) and Die! Die! Die!
They released their sophomore EP, Happy Accidents, with the singles Happy Accidents and Arrest Your Body being played heavily on Alternative radio.
The band has just signed to New Zealand record label Flying Nun and has also been nominated for the Critics Choice Award at the 2011 NZ Music Awards
Contact
Website: www.popstrangers.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/popstranger
Official Showcase: Oct 19 -- Popstrangers -- 1am at Bowery Poetry Club
Street Chant
Since their coveted Critic’s Choice Award at last year’s New Zealand Music Awards Emily, Billie and Alex have spent most of the year on the road tearing up stages around NZ and Australia as well as playing at the iconic SXSW festival.
Brooklyn Vegan called them “darlings of the night” at last years CMJ and the Guardian named them in the Readers Choice picks at SXSW earlier this year.
With their sophomore album close to being finished the band return to CMJ, with a hand full of new songs and shows booked around New York throughout October.
Contact
Website: www.streetchant.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/streetchant
Official Showcase: Oct 20 -- Street Chant -- 9pm at Dominion
Cairo Knife Fight
Tooled up with an arsenal of drums, guitar, synth bass and loop pedals, Christchurch New Zealand 2 piece Cairo Knife Fight pack a riff-driven punch that has seen them hold their own against title holders they’ve shared stages with – names like Foo Fighters, Them Crooked Vultures and Queens of the Stone Age.
The collective back story of drummer/main vocalist Nick Gaffaney and guitarist/loop guru Aaron Tokona reads like a brag sheet of some of New Zealand’s finest musicians including Anika Moa, Fat Freddy’s Drop and Dimmer, as well as Tokona’s own former contenders, rock outfit Weta. It’s as a duo however that they’ve blazed their very own trail, finding new ground between the power of Led Zeppelin and the fearlessness of Radiohead.
Contact
Website: www.cairoknifefight.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cairoknifefight
Official Showcase: Oct 19 -- Cairo Knife Fight -- midnight at Local 269
Also showcasing at CMJ but arriving after the New Zealand party are…
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Unknown Mortal Orchestra first dropped into the world in late 2010 as a bandcamp account carrying a single, sweet little dose of ear candy called ‘Ffunny Ffrends’.
‘Ffunny Ffrends’ was everything you imagined it might be – alien beatnik pop music that echoed 60s psychedelia and krautrock minimalism with just a hint of gentle weirdness that suggested its roots might equally lie in the verdant indie of the equally distant New Zealand scene.
‘Ffunny Ffrends’ was immediately feted on hundreds of blogs worldwide. By the time a self-titled UMO 7” EP was then released from behind a veil of secrecy on the UK label, Sounds of Sweet Nothing, ‘who is Unknown Mortal Orchestra?’ was more than just a question on people’s lips, it was a full scale clamor for the unveiling of one of the most exciting new bands of the moment.
Ruban Nielson is a New Zealand native who had transplanted to Portland with his band Mint Chicks. UMO was a project conceived as Ruban’s escape hatch to a new musical dimension where his vision of junkshop record collector pop could be realized in a sound that recalled Captain Beefheart, Sly Stone and RZA jamming on some kids tv theme too dark to ever be broadcast.
Out of the home studio, Ruban was joined by local Portland producer Jake Portrait on bass and teenage prodigy Julien Ehrich on drums. They have been on the road all year, sleeping in ditches and running drunkenly from venues when needs be, curling ears and turning heads with their intoxicating sound all the way.
The Unknown Mortal Orchestra are playing at Cake Shop on October 21st at 1am and Brooklyn Bowl on October 22nd at 10pm.
Contact
Website: www.unknownmortalorchestra.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/unknownmortalorchestra
