CMJ Day 2

I made my way over to the cake-less Cake Shop on the Lower East Side for a daytime showcase sponsored by the college radio promotions company, Terrorbird. Win Win, a Boston via New York trio of producers and DJs turned musicians, kicked off the festivities in the basement lit dimly by Christmas lights.  Before their set, I sat down with Ryan, a.k.a. Ghost Dad, to talk about the band and their new record Double Vision, out this week on Vice Records.

KRTU Could you explain how three producers doing different things came together to form Win Win?

Ryan Well, Alex [XXXchange] produced a record for the rapper Spank Rock and Chris Devlin and Alex toured with Spank Rock for a while after that. I got involved just being a Spank Rock fan and would DJ after parties and shows and stuff. We started working on music together in the background of all that. Alex was producing for a lot of different people and we would go to the studio and work on music. We had all this extra music that didn’t have a home, so we turned it into our own band, Win Win.

KRTU Where was this happening?

Ryan That was here in New York, me and Chris were living in Boston and we were commuting, but now we live in New York. That was over like 2 years. It was cool, it came together in a fluid way because we had time and didn’t know what we wanted it to be yet.

KRTU So Double Vision came out this week? Could you explain the recording process?

Ryan We produced it ourselves, using Alex’s resources again. He has a house in Maine and we went up there last summer, then we went back to Maine this summer and finished it. Double Vision's got a lot less to do with what we did before - like DJ'ing and the electronic side of it - and more with playing guitar and drums and playing as a band.

KRTU We've talked about it a bit, but could you explain how Win Win differs from what you did independently?
Ryan We're all anxious to experiment and assume new roles. Instrumentally, songwriting, it's kind of a fully conceptual project that we're doing all the aspects of.
KRTU One of the singles from the album, Releaserpm, features Lizzie from Gang Gang Dance. What was it like working with her?
Ryan It was cool, Alex was doing a lot of work with Gang Gang Dance on their album Eye Contact. It was an interesting process, she came in and laid down vocals on a different song we were working on. We eventually stripped that song away and built a whole new track around it.
KRTU Favorite record of the year?
Ryan Tame Impala Lonerism. The guys from Tame Impala have another band called Pond. The recent Flaming Lips stuff. We've always listened to music from a production standpoint and now we're listening a lot more from a songwriting standpoint. I at least have a new appreciation for that.
KRTU Thanks for sitting down with us. By the way, Ghost Dad may be the best DJ name I've ever heard.

Prince Rama

After an extended homework break, I came back to check out the audible oddity of Prince Rama, a trio that met in a Hare Krishna community outside Gainesville, Florida.  The mantric nature of their 2011 album Trust Now explodes on stage - feral, call-and-response chanting, pulsating bass, and eastern rhythms on western instruments created a cacophony of weirdness that mesmerized the basement's audience. In the final song, the band cast aside their instruments, letting their synth tracks and vocal loops run wild as they joined the audience with a coordinated freak-out dance routine, channeling the dancing styles of Dandina and boy band back-up dancing.

SKATERS

Later that night, I caught the Champion showcase at the Bowery Ballroom and after three bands that sucked pretty hard, SKATERS came on the stage, saving the audience from two hours of lame, much-too-happy indie pop from San Cisco, Solid Gold, and Pacific Air.  The Brooklyn bred quintet played a Strokes-stlye appropriation of punk, but with an extra dosage of the Misfits.

Local Natives

It really speaks to the size of New York City that Local Natives can announce a show the day  of and sell it out before doors even open.  But that's taking credit away from the LA auteurs, whose 2009 debut Gorilla Manor was a moving, gorgeous affair in a year packed with memorable albums.

The band came on stage looking unexpectedly nervous and excited; it was their first show in ten months, their first in New York in over two years. The setlist was split between cuts from Gorilla Manor, to which the cloud swayed and chanted, and the material from the forthcoming album Hummingbird, produced by The National's Aaron Dessner. 

The arrangements set forth by Taylor Rice, Kecley Ayer and Ryan Hahn are truly unique - polyrhythmed and layered to perfection, they structure songs with an emotional intensity that rises and falls as the band jams in and out of their choral harmonies.  It was a real pleasure  hearing the songs off Hummingbird the first time they've ever been played in front of an audience. Especially the set-closer "Bowery," the eponymous ode to the venue we were in.