Straight Outta Brooklyn

Walk down Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn and just try to count how many band stickers you see slapped on lampposts and fire hydrants. We’re guessing, like, three billion. And the locals rushing down to the G train platform practically wear their musical allegiances on their sleeve tattoos. But, really, the music scene is about much more than just flash and image—with an industry in flux and talent busting out from McCarren Park to Bed-Stuy, the sound of the city has never been more eclectic or unpredictable.

As proud residents of BK, we here at Heeb couldn’t help but get in on the action. For this year’s SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, we’ve teamed up with our favorite neighborhood record store, Other Music, for a collaborative showcase featuring musicians who are pushing boundaries and reinvigorating the spirit of Manhattan’s little brother: Chairlift, Suckers, Harlem Shakes, Telepathe, Nite Jewel (a Los Angeles act with Brooklyn soul) and Crystal Stilts.

For our first-ever Music Issue, we were fortunate to be welcomed into these artists’ practice spaces, where creativity flourishes and music comes to life. In the following pages we step into their private lairs, capturing moments of the musical process—stolen
time snatched from busy touring schedules and recording sessions. So turn up your radio and turn the page—the buzz of Brooklyn is waiting.

Nite Jewel (pictured at top)

L.A.’s own Ramona Gonzalez, or Nite Jewel, as her debut album
cover proclaims, doesn’t need your fancy technology and big-budget recording studios. The arty musician/Occidental College philosophy student likes to record her distinctively lo-fi electropop “solely on a portable 8-track cassette deck.” And the results are impossibly charming—Good Evening is the perfect soundtrack for the comedown after a night of hard partying, enveloping listeners in hazy warmth. For her live tour, Gonzalez has recruited mixed-media artist Emily Jane, the addition of which makes Nite Jewel twice as precious.

Telepathe (pictured below)

Melissa Livaudais, one half of the electro-pop duo Telepathe, said in a recent interview: “Busy [Gangnes] and I are hookers. [Because] we are totally into making music with sick
hooks.” And with their debut album, Dance Mother, the two definitely fulfill their illness quota. After years spent experimenting with various sound, including spoken word diatribes or organic drone, Telepathe has finally committed itself to robotic pop—a perfect meeting point between fragile femininity and Euro-computer trance music. Clearly, Telepathe can read minds, because this is exactly what we want to hear.

Harlem Shakes (pictured below)

On the galloping indie rock anthem “Strictly Game,” off their debut album, Technicolor Health, the Harlem Shakes prophesize that “this will be a better year.” You could posit that this is naive hope in the face of an otherwise dismal economic forecast, but, then again, a few moments later, singer Lexy Benaim proclaims that he simply wants “to hold your hips.” Modest goals aside, the old-school, pop-inspired Brooklyn collaborative has opened for every buzz band in recent memory, and, this year, the Shakes are getting their fair share of buzz. “I know I’m just a singer—” Benaim croons (again with the modesty!) on “Nothing But Change Part II,” “—but I feel it in my fingers. There is a change coming soon.” The optimism is overwhelmingly warranted, boys.

Chairlift (pictured below)

Calling Chairlift’s success over the last 12 months surreal wouldn’t even scratch the surface. When the band was still virtually unknown, it scored a coveted Steve Jobs high-five: the disarming retro-pop duet “Bruises” was licensed for an iPod commercial (and despite the spot’s ubiquitous rotation, it was still impossible to grow tired of the song). And now, just a few months after Brooklyn independent label Kanine Records distributed their debut album, Does You Inspire You, to critical acclaim, chanteuse Caroline Polachek, guitarist Aaron Pfenning and drummer/bassist Patrick Wimberly will re-release the disc with bonus material through their newly signed label, Columbia Records.

Crystal Stilts (pictured below)

Of all the descriptors used to illustrate the Crystal Stilts’ sound, its safe to say that “feel-good music” is not one of them. In fact, while the Brooklyn band’s signature mope has been likened to Joy Division, there are moments on the debut record where even Ian Curtis would have told singer Brad Hargett to cheer up. Alight the Night‘s fuzzy, detached coolness (courtesy of guitarist JB Townshend’s impressive cloak of melodic noise) sits comfortably alongside your Velvet Underground box set and The Jesus & Mary Chain’s Psychocandy, but the band would dismiss those comparisons as purely superficial. The Crystal Stilts have referenced The Fall, Suicide, Clean and Bo Diddley as influences, saying, “If you don’t make chirpy music, people always bring up the same bands.” It should be noted, though, that those bands all happen to be legendary.

Suckers (pictured below)

If MGMT introduced the masses to the concept of sugarcoated chaos and pop experimentalism, Brooklyn colleagues Suckers are following suit by upping the ante. Cousins Quinn Walker and Austin Fisher, along with Brian Aiken and Pan (yes, just “Pan”), imbue their psychedelic sing-alongs with a playful spirit so vibrant it’s bubonic-like contagious. And after witnessing the band’s energy firsthand, you’ll realize that their rousing live staple, “It Gets Your Body Movin'” (off their debut EP), is less song title than mission statement.

What do you think?