Article I wrote for a SUNY Purchase College newspaper.
This article was written about “Culture Shock,” a big music festival held every year at SUNY Purchase College, NY. It was written as a preview of the performers in the days leading up to the festival.
Le1F
The BBC’s Music website describes a track off of rapper Le1f’s latest album as “an eerie cut with gloomy production juxtaposed with a lyrical deconstruction of Skype sex.” The track in question is Psy Lock from his 2013 album Flyzone, and it is not alone in its edgy strangeness. Spa Day, another song from the album, is described by BBC Music as “a clawed beast settling down for a pedicure.”
Watch videos of this Upper West Side rapper’s performances, and you’ll have an equally odd visual to pair with the description of his music. And if that isn’t unusual enough, get this: he’s openly gay. Still, he tells Spin Magazine that “gay rap isn’t a genre,” suggesting that he wants people to listen to his music without being preoccupied with his sexuality.
Wanna find out more about Le1f? Listen to tracks from his albums at Soundcloud.com. He’s got a website, and is also on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.
Le Rug
It’s impossible to use only one word to describe Le Rug’s sound, so let’s use more: post-punk, noise rock, with elements of indie, hardcore, pop, punk, and prog-rock.
Ray Weiss, from New York City, has already had a band before. Named The Medics, it formed when he and the other bands members were still in high school. But due to chaos and conflict within the band, and within Weiss himself, the band was dissolved. Then suddenly, while recuperating from his anguish, he dove back into music, creating a new band in the process.
Weiss’s band Le Rug has since recorded an album, Bleenex, in 2007. It’s unclear whether they’ve released anything since- there isn’t a lot of news out there about them. Still, watching them perform live should be interesting, considering that Weiss “performs like he’s undergoing an exorcism,” according to their CyberPR.biz website.
For more about Le Rug, go to Last.FM to listen to tracks from their albums and music videos. Also check them out on MySpace, Tumblr, and their blog.
No One and the Somebodys
This band colorfully describes its sound as oscillating between “dee dee dwee deedle fwee t’taaah” and “BWUUUAAAAAGGGHHHH BAKKA BAKKA KABBUDDA SKIPOOOOW,” from their website.
For further clarification, the No One & the Somebodys describe their style as fitting neatly in the “experimental indie rock noise pokémon sex tape post-punk pre-post-punk primitive-punk proto-punk pseudo-punk punk rock sibling rock weird punk” genre, also from their website. Seriously, I’m not making this up.
Composed of four brothers, the band formed in Hawthorne, NY in 2001. In a short span of time they’ve already produced three albums, the last one being Numbers in 2012, and have toured nationally. To check out humorlessly titled tracks like, “Invest in Plastic Handcuffs” and “Steve Jobs’ Khaki Pants” from Numbers, go to the band’s website.