Tagged with " New York"
Introducing: Salt Cathedral
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During my second week living in New York, I found out that some of my Florida buds, Hundred Waters, were playing a show in Hoboken. Obviously, I went to the show with much excitement to see friends and go to my first show in the city. After many hugs and warm embraces, the first band went on, which at the time, I didn’t recognize. I soon found out that this band was Salt Cathedral (formerly known as Il Abanico) and I was floored by their performance. The harmonious guitar work, the sweet vocals, the energy; the mixture is cohesive and really brings something refreshing to the ears.
We have their new single, “Take Me to the Sea”, which is off of their upcoming self-titled EP. We also have an exclusive free download of the track for all of you to take with you. Also, this past weekend PORTALS was lucky enough to chat with the Brooklyn-based band over some really delicious Indian food. We spoke about their insane visa situation, their tour with Freelance Whales, and their upcoming works. We invite you to read this fun interview while listening to their newest single below.
From left to right: Silvio Vega, Nico Losada, Juli Ronderos, and Stefan Bildy. Photo: Daniel Dorsa
Where did you guys meet and how did you form as a band?
Juli: We met in Boston. Nico and I started the band together. We played with a different line up than it is now. The other people who formed with us randomly moved to Japan, so we started playing with them (Silvio Vega and Stefan Bildy).
Now that you have this solid crew, does everybody get involved in the writing process?
Nico: Everybody except Silvio. [laughs]
Silvio: Yeah! [laughs]
Nico: I’m kidding. The writing process basically starts with me, and then we try to figure out stuff as a whole band after.
Stefan: Nico will do the structure of the song, Juli usually does the lyrics and melody, and I’ll just write drum parts.
I heard you guys have some kind of crazy visa. What is it?
Juli: “Aliens with Extraordinary Abilities in the Arts.”
How did you guys get that?
Stefan: Well first off, we’re aliens. [laughs]
Nico: Basically, this is an artist visa that you get for three years and you have to have a portfolio. You have to prove that you have amazing abilities in the arts to stay in this country.
Juli: It’s ridiculous. It’s very time consuming and it’s a very long portfolio. Three hundred pages where you have to detail and explain every single aspect of your artistic career and why you deserve to be here. Basically, the government knows that they have great American musicians, they don’t need to import people. So, why do they need to import you? You basically have to prove why you’re different from every American musician. You need recommendation letters, contracts—it’s endless. It took me a month and a half working on it like a full-time job gathering information. We sent it to the government and they ask for more stuff. They finally approved it. It’s kind of amazing because it’s the only way we could actually be here.
Nico: Yeah, basically it is pretentious shit to stay here. [laughs] If you go out of the country and they see that visa, people are like, “Oh! You’re an ‘artist’. I see.”
Where are all of you guys originally from?
Nico: Stefan is from Canada, Silvio is from Florida, Juli’s from Colombia, I’m from Colombia, and Tmmy, the bass player, is from New Jersey.
Awesome. When did you guys move to New York?
Juli: We moved in January of last year. We left Boston and toured our way to LA. We lived in LA for three months, said, “fuck this”, and moved to New York.
You just got back from touring with Hundred Waters and Freelance Whales. Was that your first big tour?
Nico: Yeah, it was totally awesome. The guys from Hundred Waters are dope and also the guys from Freelance Whales.
Juli: It was amazing. Most of the shows were sold out. Everyone was so grateful. It wasn’t like one of those tours where you’re the opening band and nobody makes it our early. People were there early and waiting.
What did you learn from this tour?
Stefan: After playing the same set night after night, you become very comfortable with your set. It becomes second nature after awhile. You can see why bands that tour a lot are always very tight as a band. They spend so much time playing live which is probably the best thing for a band to do. Play live and lots of it.
Juli: I think I realized what makes a show is the crowds attitude and it changes completely from city to city, night to night, and venue to venue. If it’s dark, if it’s an underground basement, if people are drunk, if it’s on a Friday, if it’s a Monday in a small town, it just changes completely. You have to learn how to measure what kind of people are out there. That’s why Florida was awesome because people were really open.
Stefan: We played one show in Alabama and the crowd didn’t respond to anything. Not just us, but to every band except Freelance Whales who they came to see. Even then, people were very stoic and cold in the crowd. Golf claps after all the song. It was really strange.
Nico: The surprise of the tour was that Brooklyn was the best show. You would think that Brooklyn is really snobby about the music, but people were flipping. It was awesome!
Juli: Everybody was dancing!
That’s great! Any memorable moments on the tour?
Nico: We had such a great time every night! We were like the free spirited band because we didn’t have anything to lose. We played at 8pm for half an hour and then we put our stuff aside and party.
Juli: I think the highlight was the Hundred Waters house in Gainesville. We went canoeing, lit off fireworks, it was fun. Also, the last night of tour was another highlight. All three bands are backstage singing “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith. They kicked us out of the venue.
Nico: Our bass player was pretending he was a totem or some shit.
A totem?
Nico: Yeah. He was acting like a totem for two hours!
Juli: The last night was where the singer of Freelance Whales lives. We all went to his house; eighteen people stayed there.
Silvio: And then Stefan put on a dress and walked around the house.
Nico: With a monkey.
With a monkey?
Nico: Yeah, with a monkey.
Juli: I wake up and Stefan has a pink dress on and a huge monkey. He starts waking everyone in the house up with the monkey.
Nico: THAT’S the highlight of the tour. Oh, then we met Muhammad Ali. [laughs]
What do you mean?
Juli: There was this dude who came up to him [Nico] and said, “Hey man, I’m homeless.” Nico replies with, “YOU’RE MUHAMMAD ALI?!” [laughs]
[laughs] Awesome. Why the band name change?
Juli: Because nobody could pronounce it. [laughs]
[laughs] Straight up because nobody could pronounce it?
Juli: Straight up. No one could remember it either.
Stefan: Even people who spoke Spanish couldn’t say it properly.
Nico: We felt like the name was really pretentious. I like being pretentious, but no one understands my pretentious-ness. [everybody laughs]
You have a new album in the works right now?
Nico: We have an EP. We’re in the process of releasing those songs every two weeks.
I heard you’re adding a visual component to all of them too?
Nico: Yeah. Right now, we’re working on a visualizer for the second single. There’s another one that’s going to include a video that they are working on in Colombia, which is going to be dope. We’re working on a full length as well.
Sick. I think that’s it. Thanks so much!
Curated by Tiny Waves.
Lotide - ‘Iboga Nights’
Throughout his debut EP, lotide acts a seer, gradually strolling alongside the listener through old, haunted scenes. The scenes repeat and grow familiar, often forming a meditative loop. Clacks, crumples, and various other found sounds form percussive patterns that create a railing for the stumbling listener to follow through the four parts of Iboga Nights. Not unlike an intoxicated midnight stroll, the abstruse New York producer’s entrancing calm is reminiscent of nascent clarity, but he ultimately leaves me in a drowsy state as hazy as the one I had departed with.
Download Iboga Nights from lotide‘s Bandcamp, explore some of his mixes on SoundCloud, and follow him on Facebook.
Here’s what Devon Hansen, the hand behind the project, had to say about the release:
These are the first four tunes that started to feel definitive of what exactly lotide is supposed to sound like. I’m really stubborn and particular about what kind of imagery and sound I’m going for, so when I finished this material I felt like I was finally on the right track. The development has continued of course, so there’s a lot more stuff on the horizon that I’m excited to get out there.
Gracie - “Habits” / “Creature Pleaser”
The best thing about this site is that each of us post about once a week. On a good week, I have many things I want to post, meaning some of that music must find another virtual home or be hoarded in my own private musical stash (do people have these anymore, like stuff they keep to themselves?). This sets up the perfect scenario for an in-home battle of the bands/artists/”I just started playing music yesterday” every time I go to write on PORTALS. I’m positive this experience is mutual between me and all my other fellow PORTAL’ers. So what I’m getting at is this: what you read and listen to on this site is pretty much our personal crème de la crème.
All the above rambling was to properly set the stage for what I’m posting today, two tracks by Gracie, off the upcoming Bleeder EP and 7″ from Small Plates Records. “Habits” is easily one of the best tracks I’ve heard in quite some time. Dare I say, this song is perfect, from the first notes of the familiarly epic keyboard introduction to last high-hat and croon. Be sure to check out the big and bouncy b-side “Creature Pleaser” too. Thanks Gracie, it’s people like you that are only encouraging the continuance of my own habit, forever and happily stuck in this portal.
Jack Magma - “Cat Got Your Tongue”
So I haven’t been this excited about a new song since…I don’t know when. The New York-based upstart Jack Magma keeps things extra cool and rolls in real slick with his debut single ”Cat Gotcha Tongue?!?”—a wildly beautiful and bizarre piece of rainbow-colored R&B that was quietly unleashed at the tail end of 2012. Jarri of Disco Naivete accurately points to the influential sounds of Jai Paul & Justin Timberlake, which seems to be the general reaction that I’ve been getting from people after showing them this song (Nick Zanca aka Mister Lies called it “FUTURE SEX/LOVE SOUNDS 2013″).
Ahhh this is just…extremely addicting, and I think I’m losing my mind a bit. But it’s also truly inspirational and completely thrilling to see a DIY bedroom artist making next level pop songs that could potentially surpass some of the high budget singles that have been sweeping the current music blog landscape.
“Cat Gotcha Tongue?!?!” will be featured on Jack Magma‘s debut EP, An Electric Purple, due sometime this year.
Stream it below:
From Jack Magma:
I’m a 21 year old that spent one year in college realizing that my time was being wasted unless I took everything into my own hands as far as art and music is concerned. I decided to drop out and work on developing an identity as an artist. As a visual artist prior to discovering my knack for sonic art, I quickly became infatuated with bringing cinematic/visual energy into my production process. I plan to make that intriguing energy a staple throughout my career and to evolve as an innovator of my style of “sonic delivery” so-to-speak. If I could make a quote that describes my first project, ‘An Electric Purple’, and how it chronicles the last 4 years of my life I would say it’s,”a smooth, melodic foundation shattered by colorful bursts of percussion within a dense, electronic jungle.” Maybe that makes absolutely no sense, or maybe it’s just a testament of how interesting I am (wishful thinking). Nonetheless, I’m a songwriter, a storyteller, an artist and a kid…but a “kid” who’s becoming a man and ‘An Electric Purple’ is a modern Bildungsroman of literary and sonic discovery that chronicles that journey quite well.
I literally woke up out of bed one morning and started “story-boarding” the lyrics to this song. It sounds like a whimsical, yet psychotic memoir that somehow splashes a bunch of color onto a dark psychological state. This is a story that chronicles a love abruptly lost and the mind-state it left behind. It’s like a vulnerable self-whisper that’s not even really meant to be shared. It lands as the first single off of my debut EP titled, ‘An Electric Purple’, which will be released early 2013. I’ve been working on this debut EP over the last 2 and a half years…searching for identity and distinction. It’s sounding like Late 70′s/early 80′s groove/funk records (SOS, Gap, Dazz etc.) combined with being a cold, esoteric, progressive rock-esque, electronic novel in sonic form…somewhat of a groovy, sonic cinema…if you will.
Cube Face - ‘Fair Use’ EP
Coming down amidst the leaves. Falling through the layers of blankets—soft, rolling feathers, dipping into the bed. Reading books from heroes and heroines long past—absorbing their pearls of wisdom for a later date. Crying as the endorphines from the weekend are spent, they leave you one by one in a wailing mess. Amidst the warmth, amidst the leaves. Coming down, coming down.
I’d stumbled into my house after two days out and six or seven hours of sleep. Cube Face‘s latest graced the stereo-system for the first time as I nestled into my own bed. “Intro” warbled into my speakers, as I laid the delicacies of the weekend at bay. Only feeling, only feeling. We’d spoken truths and now we were reflecting. Cube Face was dictating the reflections.
Silence, silence.
There were regrets intermixed with that crackle. Intimacies laid at bay.
I don’t have too much to say about Cube Face‘s latest EP that I haven’t already said in a roundabout kind of way. The first track, “Intro”, is amazing. It flows through crackling beats and systems of delicacy to reach “I Guess”—again a track of complete honesty and intensity.
