Little Daylight
CMJ 2013, CMJ 2013: Day Two, Little Daylight, Rebeka, StaG, The History of Apple Pie
CMJ Day Two: The History of Apple Pie, StaG, Little Daylight and Rebeka, October 16th, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 Little Daylight Photography by Laura Studarus
Day two of CMJ was crammed with notable bands. The problem with the festival is that it’s spread around the lower east side and Brooklyn, and you can’t be everywhere at the same time (yet, anyway). With that in mind, I ended up catching sets from The History of Apple Pie, StaG, Little Daylight, and Rebeka.
The History of Apple Pie kicked off the day with an early set at Pianos. While often likened to Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the London-based five-piece still feel tethered to the garage. Their set, consisting of songs from their debut Out of View, was fun (and they were certainly having fun) but it’ll be more interesting to see where the band is in a few years with another release and more touring under their collective belts.
StaG have a terrible name to go along with their great tunes. The Los Angeles/Boulder Colorado three-piece (five when performing live) is all about guitars and sun. Their use of samplers helped push could have easily become Beach Boys wanna-be pop into an all-together weirder place. Easily one of the most fun, ambitious without trying too hard sets of the day.
Local New York darlings Little Daylight (Nikki Taylor, Matt Lewkowicz, and Eric Zeiler) performed a masterful set at Brooklyn Bowl. While the trio all incredibly competent musicians, like so many bands that performed over the course of the weekend, they seemed to fall awkwardly between the indie/mainstream gap. Is their glittery pop a big for the Katy Perry big leagues? Or just a notice to Charli XCX fans? Is writing a song called “Name in Lights” when your name has yet to actually appear in lights a case study in irony? Or a declaration of ambition? With any luck the band will solve their identity crisis before the release of their debut full-length in early 2014. (For more thoughts on the indie/mainstream argument, check out Matt Fink’s excellent article here.)
We all want to think of CMJ as a fairytale. A crew up upstart newbies comes to the big city, and, like Cinderella herself, gets invited to the ball. (In this case, the indie big leagues.) This probably won’t happen for Polish band Rebeka. At least on this trip. The elecro pop duo played a late set in the Fat Baby basement to roughly ten people. Which, as a fan/spectator, was depressing to say the least.
However, the pair performed as though trying to entertain a full stadium of fans, pulling off a polished live version of their debut full-length, Melancholia. (There was a massive amount of layering, which judging by how fast they moved was a difficult trick to pull off with only four hands.)
Rebeka seems like a no brainer for fans of Niki and the Dove’s sound (and—judging by frontwoman Iwona Skwarek’s painted facemask—fashion). So, dear electro-pop loving reader, we end this recap with a simple imperative: you must check out Rebeka. Oh hey, look, here’s a Soundcloud link to help get you started
Check out a gallery of day two photos here.
(www.facebook.com/thehistoryofapplepie)
(www.facebook.com/stagtheband)
(www.facebook.com/littledaylightsounds)
(www.facebook.com/pages/Rebeka/155331524520003)
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