Sound of Ceres official site | Sound of Ceres on Facebook | Sound of Ceres on Instagram | Sound of Ceres on Twitter

An audio / visual experience with sounds ranging from 1960’s exotica to majestic, synthesizer adorned, future horizons. Visual depictions of the greater cosmos utilizing lasers, fiber optics and other hand made mechanisms. Featuring members of Candy Claws, Apples in Stereo, and the Drums, Sound of Ceres is a collection of earth and other worldly thoughts colliding. The troupe is comprised of authors, composers, and illusionists.

Hnry Flwr official site | Hnry Flwr on Facebook | Hnry Flwr on Instagram

HNRY FLWR is an icon, a band, a brand– gold clad, star-eyed and philosophically sincere. But the occult chill-wave persona comes from humble and earnest beginnings. Born into a cult in Iowa, HNRY FLWR grew up meditating and moving around the world with a psychic mother who claims to remember being born. And there is something strangely meditative about the lyrical dream pop they create as a band in Brooklyn, NY.

The world is an increasingly complex place and HNRY FLWR has had a stand out year despite the project’s own complex nature. Their “brilliant” (GoldFlakePaint) debut EP, FLOWERAMA, was released in the summer of 2017 on Paper Garden Records and quickly began going viral on Spotify with over 500,000 streams. The “melodic, danceable, and devastating” (Alt Citizen) EP was produced by David Groener Jr, (who has worked with The National, Glen Hansard, and more). The HNRY FLWR band has evolved and transformed with members of Foxygen, A Place to Bury Strangers and The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger all playing with HNRY FLWR both in the studio and live.

Stranger Cat on Facebook | Stranger Cat on Twitter | Stranger Cat on Bandcamp

Raised in the urban sprawl of Brooklyn, Stranger Cat—the electro pop project from Cat Martino —was born out of a respite in the wilderness. As most stories go, she was seeking a noiseless place for musing, but found instead a sentient beast stalking through the woods, be it animal, alien, or deity; she memorized its sound.

The frequent collaborator with Sufjan Stevens, Son Lux, The Shins, Sharon Van Etten and others, released Stranger Cat’s debut album In The Wilderness on Joyful Noise Records, a soulful collection of art pop songs. Marked my Martino’s velvet croon, signature vocal looping, and driven by a production style that is both electronic and organic, Stranger Cat delivers intricate, soulful, and dark R&B pop. NPR cites it “Pairs high-energy production with soaring vocals that sound like a dare to be free“, while Noisey says it “Hangs in a starry galaxy alongside Bat For Lashes, Kate Bush, Chew Lips, and Purity Ring“.

In 2012, Cat retreated from Brooklyn to spend the winter in the Sierra Foothills, writing and recording new songs. In snowed-in seclusion, simple melodies or beats morphed into walls of sound, sequenced in patterns of many-layered complexity. Often a cat would come to the sliding glass door to listen, meowing to be let in. When it appeared daily she called it Stranger Cat, and observed its alien supernatural powers, as she’d heard tell of the Foothills’ long history of UFO sightings and ghost haunts. One day she let Stranger Cat in. The plump feline ate all the kitty food and left.

Whether playing solo, or with a rotating cast of accomplices, Martino concocts a mesmerizing set of sound embraced by a voice at once fractured and full of strength, creating an aurally and visually vivid and energetic performance, making live loops onstage using voice, synths, and drum machines. All of this is to serve the song – dark, sexy, soulful, playful and dream-like – that might just make you let yourself go and dance a little bit.

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez