Pavo Pavo on Facebook | Pavo Pavo on Twitter

Pavo Pavo is an experimental pop band from Brooklyn, NY. Their debut record, Young Narrator in the Breakers, will be released on Bella Union in November 2016. The band started writing together while studying music at Yale, and since then its five members have worked closely with indie and classical heavyweights such as Here We Go Magic, Roomful of Teeth, Dave Longstreth, and San Fermin. Stereogum describes their music as “weightless pop that sounds like it was beamed down from a utopian future”

Young Narrator in the Breakers walks through its songs with symphonic elegance – guitar stabs, washed out harmonies, and rumbling synthesizers come and go like guests at a party. The record describes the magic and panic of adult life; a breaker is a wave whose potential energy is being transformed into turbulent kinetic energy. Co-produced by Danny Molad (Lucius) and Sam Cohen (Yellowbirds), it is a romantic record in the tradition of Elephant 6, and a cohesive record in the tradition of Grizzly Bear. Introducing: Pavo Pavo.

Katie Von Schleicher on Facebook | Katie Von Schleicher on Bandcamp | Katie Von Schleicher on Twitter | Katie Von Schleicher on Instagram

Star Rover on Facebook | Star Rover on Bandcamp | Star Rover official site

“Star Rover, the Brooklyn twosome of guitarist Will Graefe and drummer Jeremy Gustin, specializes in an alluring sort of pastoral punk that suggests a collaboration between Deerhoof and John Fahey.“- Time Out New York

Star Rover is finishing up a new album. Lately, they’ve been busy collaborating with Petra Haden, Sam Amidon, Lars Horntveth (Jaga Jazzist), Okkervil River, Sam Evian (Celestial Shore), Lazar Davis (Cuddle Magic). They also recently recorded with Brazilian singer Tiago Iorc, and you can hear one of those songs, “Dia Especial”, right here.

For their debut album as Star Rover, guitarist Will Graefe (Landlady, Jesse Harris, Larkin Grimm) and drummer Jeremy Gustin (Delicate Steve, Marc Ribot, Albert Hammond, Jr.) began with the music of John Fahey and ended up in their own corner of a skewed, over-driven, weird America. Western Winds, Bitter Christians is available now from FYO Records.

Star Rover’s original compositions use John Fahey’s guitar playing as a launching point for interstellar explorations. Those 6 strings, kick, snare, tom, and cymbals separate and recombine, lead and accompany, and alternately push and pull the time with incredible variety. Rhythmic drive comes as often from Will Graefe’s guitar as it does from the drum set; Jeremy Gustin’s languid drumming is full of song-like melodies; and a casually precise blend of kick drum and low guitar strings provides ample bass-register harmonic grounding.

Adam Schatz on Bandcamp

Benjamin Lazar Davis official site | Benjamin Lazar Davis on Facebook

Benjamin Lazar Davis is a gifted multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and producer based in Brooklyn.

His forthcoming full length album Nothing Matters — his very first as a solo artist — came out of an extensive period of touring followed by a difficult break up. To make the record, Davis spent all all of his money on instruments and recording gear, including drums and drum machines, both nylon and steel string acoustic guitars, an electric and an upright bass, a pump organ, a mellotron, a Moog, and an upright piano. He worked on the record every day, for 30 straight days, in his childhood bedroom at his parents’ house in Saratoga Springs, and once finished, he mixed it back in Brooklyn with his high school friend Luke Moellman (GGFO).

Although there are no other performers on the record, many collaborations went into the writing of the album, including cowrites with Kimbra (“Right Direction”), Alex Toth of Rubblebucket and Alexander F (“Love Song Seven Ways,” “Life Is Dangerous,” and “Choosing Sides”), Bridget Kearney of Lake Street Dive (“Somebody’s Speaking For Me”), singer-songwriter Taylor Ashton (“Brass Tacks”), award-winning poet Michael Gizzi (“Acquitted”), and his brother, a brilliant lyricist, Tim Davis.

Benjamin Lazar Davis writes, records, and performs with Cuddle Magic, Joan as Police Woman, and Okkervil River, and he has worked with Anais Mitchell, Kimbra, Luke Temple, Jesse Harris, Henry Jamison, Wild Belle, Delicate Steve, Star Rover, Sam Amidon, Markus Acher (the Notwist), and Margaret Glaspy as a co-writer, side-musician, arranger, producer, studio musician, touring member, and band member in the past. While Nothing Matters grew out of Davis’s desire to make music on his own in a life where he has been a chronic collaborator, the album evokes inspiration from all of these artists, and he considers it a culmination of his life’s work.

As he began work on the album, Davis found a photo of his father lounging beneath a hand- written sign that read “Nothing Matters,” which eventually became the album’s artwork; “It was taken in 1969 in Malawi Africa where he lived at the time. He taught me music growing up, and I think seeing that picture right before recording the record gave me a sense of letting go of all of the baggage that comes with making music and being in a relationship. When in the midst of the meditation of making the album, nothing matters. Just let the tape roll and the ideas flow…”

Nothing Matters will be released on April 20 via 11A Records.

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

Showtime Goma on Facebook | Showtime Goma on Tumblr | Showtime Goma on Instagram | Showtime Gomaa on Twitter

Jen Goma is a performer and creator living in New York City. She writes and produces music, comedy and videos. She is a member of the bands A Sunny Day in Glasgow and Roman à Clef and has collaborated with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Jherek Bischoff.