This week’s Listening Party features Brooklyn two-piece Star Rover and their upcoming free show Monday at Manhattan Inn. Listening Party is a curated weekly column promoting music discovery and encouraging concert-going. Featuring someone we’ve been jamming out to and we recommend to the masses, each Listening Party artist has an upcoming show at a local NYC venue. Grab your headphones and read on.
WHO: Will Graefe (Railbird, Miss Tess) on guitar, and Jeremy Gustin (Larkin Grimm, Delicate Steve) on drums
THEY SAY: “Folk Lighting Bolt /// Melody-Daggers”
WE SAY: Scenic instrumental post-rock with blues and folk influences spilling out the edges.
FROM: Brooklyn, NY
ONLINE: https://starroverband.bandcamp.com/
RECENT WORK: Western Winds Bitter Christians via FYO Records, produced and engineered by Cedar Apffel at Alligator Lady Studio, released May 2013.
UPCOMING SHOW: At Manhattan Inn next Monday, April 28th
With every listen to Western Winds Bitter Christians, Star Rover’s beautiful and only album to date, it becomes harder and harder to describe their sound. In their record, You can hear elements of experimental, trickles of Canadian rockers Do Make Say Think‘s sound, rolling guitars reminiscent of old blues/folk, and of course as they describe on their website, aspects of steel-string acoustic guitarist John Fahey. Their music is really more of an out of body experience than just a listen. You close your eyes and feel completely calm, surrounded by surges of warmth and beauty. Of course, their drums get fast and booming at times and the guitar can layer and loop and dance quickly, but it only adds the atmosphere that they create.
Their music moves like seasons, like staring out the window as you drive hundreds of miles away from where you live and leave everything you know behind. It could even be said that it makes amazing soundtrack music, which one local film-maker Cody Swanson experimented with as he used a few of Star Rover’s songs in his Bushwick-based feature, Mostly Awake, in 2013.
It’s really no question that these artists play passionate music that is driving and full of a strangeness and experimental energy that is absolutely captivating. This past month the band has been doing a residency at Manhattan Inn where they bring in superb artists to collaborate with as well as excellent bands on the bill. This upcoming Monday is the last of their FREE residency and is not to be missed! See you there.
