Artist: connect_icut

[Photos by acidjack] The very first band I saw in 2012 was a bit of a shot in the dark - I wasn't really aware of THE FIELD RECORDINGS (capitalization theirs), but scanning the first-week schedules of my regular haunts, I came across their gig with Clear Plastic Masks at Mercury Lounge , checked out their music on bandcamp , and liked what I heard.  The New Haven, CT threesome didn't disappoint, delivering a set of ambitious, well-crafted guitar-driven noise pop.  Their upbeat guitar sound and penchant for unusual time changes recalls some bands [...]

Empty Phrases ' new single Groundhog Day is jam-packed with enough rockin' riffs to get any indie-rocker up and dancing. The two songs included on the single, Groundhog Day and Captain , are part of a new record the band plans to be releasing this spring. After listening to both songs, it is quite clear where the band gets many of its influences. Groundhog Day is reminiscent of Minus the Bear with its spacey effects and intricate guitar lines. One can hear a bit of Radiohead thrown into the mix as [...]

Surrounded By Holidays ' latest release, Sun Thief EP , takes traditional ideas about pop-punk and garage rock and transforms them into its own unique sound. The opening track, Cerulean Skies , reminds me of Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion , with its heavily effected instruments and reverb-soaked vocal melody. However, that sound is not kept for long, as the second track, Backflips , bursts to life with a surge of energy. The driving force behind the track is an unlikely source for a traditional pop-punk style song: the synth. Catchy synth lines are peppered [...]

Strange Day , the EP by Jared Mann's project The Great Western States , contains five songs of emotionally-charged, angst-ridden lo-fi. The collection of demos (all songs that Mann had created within the last year) was released by Providence label Blanketfort Records on December 7, 2011. Mann's vocals on Strange Day demonstrate bipolarity throughout, as he jumps back and forth between tense, whispery singing and outright screaming. But these extremes come together to form a sound that is vulnerable and honest. Mann ropes the listener in [...]

Dear Readers, As you may know, every year between December and January here at The Deli we run a rather thorough year end poll for each scene we cover (currently 11). Its goal is to highlight the best emerging artist in scene. Past edition successfully highlighted indie bands that ended up becoming very successful, like Local Natives, Girls, Twin Shadow, Baths, Yeasayer and Chairlift just to name a few. More info about how the poll works can be found here . Here we simply want to summarize the progress of each poll, to allow you [...]

Dear Readers, Here's summary of the progress of each one of our 11 regional Year End Polls for Emerging Artists. Due to high number of NYC submissions we organized that scene's results by genre. A big thank you our sponsors for supporting our poll and providing prizes to the winners! [...]

If you're searching for some new songs to add to that ipod you got for Christmas, look no further than Kid Chocolate's latest release, Greatest Hits . The ten-track album is a brilliant mix of both laid back and upbeat tunes. The opening track, Hardly Ever , reaches out and pulls the listener into a sea of churning guitars and hypnotizing melodies. The entire song sounds like it could be a B-side from some early Black Keys recording, if Dan Auerbach had five too many beers and decided to lay down some vocal tracks. Upon moving [...]

Llama Tsunami want to dance with you. If their music doesn't make you want to stand up and jam with all nine members of this Connecticut ska band, it may be that either A. you take yourself too seriously, or B. you're intimidated by vocalist Nick Perry's dance skills, a staple to any show they play. If the answer happens to be A., Llama Tsunami's album Get Serious is aimed specifically at you. Get Serious isn't about pretense or obscurity, it's about keeping it upbeat and fun and Llama Tsunami's twelve-song album reaches a level of fun [...]

Deli readers, indie bands and artists, This year, our Year End 2011 Polls for emerging artists are proving to be more challenging than ever, with 11 US scenes involved and 1,500+ submissions between our own system and the Sonic Bids applications. We are spending a significant portion of the our Holidays listening to your music (thanks for that by the way!), and we haven't even had the chance to check out the bands selected by our jury of local promoters, bloggers and scene makers yet... ANYWAYYYY... the results of [...]

Within the first moments of Fortune Metal 's opening song, it's obvious that Pavement is possibly the biggest influence on Ratigan 's music. The Providence, RI indie group, led by 20-year-old Patrick Higgins, share a nostalgia similar to that of most kids who grew up in the 1990s, and it is made evident in their lo-fi and low-key alternative rock. Higgins talk-sings his way through Cherry Blossom and the rest of the songs in a way that blends Gordon Gano, Stephen Malkmus, and John McCrea at its best, but sounds as if it was recorded in [...]

A long time ago, the only wise thing a very unwise person said was "Revolutionize your field and, short of that, convince others that is what you're doing", This is a rough paraphrase, of course; however, the point is Night Fruit don't need to convince too hard. On Dark Horse , their follow up to their debut Triangles EP , they blend a shoegaze dreaminess with sinister post-apocalyptic undertones, due to the otherworldy-ness of lead singer Amanda Dellevigne's voice. It is a voice that rises and falls dreamy and distant and rides Jonathan Gill's [...]

Hailing from Rhode Island, indie-pop artist Miss Geo is ready to make a big impact on the New England music scene, and with an album like The Story , it's hard not to be impressed. The album contains some of the best vocal tracks I've heard from a local artist in a long time. The project serves as a solo outlet for leading lady Abby Gutierrez. Her voice is a wonderful combination of Tegan and Sara with a splash of Metric thrown in for good measure. Gutierrez seems to have cracked the code for [...]

NYC Bands, If you missed the window to subscribe for free to our Best of NYC Year End Poll for emerging artists, we'd like to remind you that you can still submit through SonicBids for a $5 fee (FYI this is the only instance in which we charge bands for something, due to the massive amount of times it takes us to listen to thousands of submissions). - NYC based Artists please submit HERE . - Los Angeles based [...]

Connecticut's The Willow & The Builder is technically Richard Miron and Adrian Simon, but they're joined by a whole slew of musicians on their debut s/t record. The ever-changing dynamic of the debut is impressive, as Miron and Simon's exuberant youthfulness is on full display. But there's also a keen sense of sorrow, and the combination of the two makes for a fascinating listen. Finely and delicately crafted, the album takes us on Miron and Simon's journey through the Connecticut wilderness, and, in turn, a realization that the death of their youth is approaching much quicker than anticipated. [...]

• The Willow & The Builder - Cut It Down
• The Willow & The Builder - Heartache

Tucked in-between the ads on Craigslist for "busty" photo models and pleas from recent Berklee grads looking to teach people the skills they spent all of their busking money on, I was surprised to find the gem that is The Cold Beat . After listening to this album, I'm pretty sure the 90s was the best (and most influential) decade ever. I mean, most good bands that I hear nowadays have a clear 90s-rock influence, and The Cold Beat is no exception. Get Safe is a brilliant mix of punk and 90s pop/rock that can get anyone [...]

Up All Night , the four-song EP from Blossoming Mums , weaves in ethereal melodies with plucky strings to create a pretty and wandering ambience. Blossoming Mums play a mix of lo-fi dream pop and shoegaze, but there is little information on them to be found; the only detail given on their last.fm page states that they are from a small town in Western Mass. The lyrics of Autumn Birthday help to substantiate this: "It's Autumn in Massachusetts / I'm at the bottom of Massachusetts / the leaves are changing in Massachusetts." However, most other clues regarding [...]

While the Boston area is a well-known hub of all things sonic, the surrounding sections of Massachusetts are more prone to slow times and allowing all that is weird to gestate and thrive. Up route 9 from the capital can be found a town called Amherst, home to one half rural escapism and one half college party capital of the Commonwealth. This small town has produced its share of recognizable bands, including scremo pioneers Orchid , hardcore heroes Deep Wound , and of course alternative royalty The Pixies . Now, coming from the weird and wild west [...]

Prior to their November 2011 EP release, Adventure Set haven't felt a pulse since the mid 1980s. In their heyday as contenders in Boston's altrock scene, the band reached second place in the WBCN Rock and Roll Rumble, an annual battle of the bands hosted by the renowned and now-defunct radio station. Soon followed a hiatus in which the members pursued careers and other musical endeavors. The 5-song EP Centuries to Go draws heavily from the New Wave vein-- it's in Ken Scales' beguiling, looming vocals and Mark Pothier's arty lyrics-- as if Scales [...]

Lowell trio Big Mess put out two new songs in October to follow up their self-titled release this past January. MOLD is twelve minutes of ominous, instrumental doom metal marching through a downpour of sludge. As opposed to their first album, which mixed in bluesy rock parts, MOLD adheres to a slow and straightforward brand of hardcore. Heaviness builds up in the desolate Side A and then trudges off to the dirge's conclusion, and crunchy guitar distortion bookend Drone Bee . Side A by Big Mess [...]

While the Boston area is a well-known hub of all things sonic, the surrounding sections of Massachusetts are more prone to slow times and allowing all that is weird to gestate and thrive. Up route 9 from the capital can be found a town called Amherst, home to one part rural escapism and one part party college town of the Commonwealth. This small town that has produced its share of recognizable bands, including scremo pioneers Orchid , hardcore heroes Deep Wound , and of course alternative royalty, The Pixies . Now, coming from the weird and wild [...]