James Blake

When it comes to James Blake’s music, it has been an extremely slow journey towards appreciation for me, which might just be an appropriate pace given his style of music. Arguably one of the most hyped artists of the last year, his ACL performance would be my third time seeing him live and with each successive performance, I am drawn in ever closer. While the time of day and venue were least appropriate to showcase his music, the performance still managed to captivate. With Blake behind the keyboards, he was backed by a live drummer, playing on electronic drums with real cymbals, and a guitarist. The set consisting of nearly all the tracks from this year’s self-titled, major label, debut.

This year’s CMJ Music Marathon presented over 50 panels, connecting people in the industry with festival participants through conversations about making a career out of music.  Held at the New York University’s Kimmel Center in Greenwich Village, attendees had to wade through students going to classes by squeezing into elevators going from floor to floor.  Although the whole notion of a band or artist as a brand is not new anymore, there’s a vast array of new tools to get noticed by fans as well as the general public: software for tracking tour details, Google analytics for website activity and other ways to manage social media campaigns (HootSuite, Chartbeat etc.)  After attending a sampling of the sessions, the directive is clear.  Find something that works and generate valuable content constantly across all platforms, tailoring a concise message for each particular medium. 

L.A. based Pepper Rabbit writes carefully-crafted indie pop songs with avant-garde folk influences, however the stripped down approach to their performance never matched the intensity of their studio releases. Although frontman Xander Singh started the set with a shout out, “Hello everybody”, he was more interested in taking swigs of beer between songs then communicating with his fans. Together with drummer Luc Laurent, the band has two albums under their belt, Beauregard (2010) and Red Velvet Snow Ball (2011). The group looked like they were enjoying recreating the music live, with Singh’s vocals in soaring crescendos across the venue. Yet even when the tempo picked up, tour member Jonathan Allen, on bass, danced around with his back to the crowd. It just seemed as though the audience was witnessing a basement rehearsal, without anyone else in the room.

The Brooklyn-based band Alberta Cross began the party at Terminal 5 with their alt rock take on country and blues. Put together about five years ago by Peter Ericson Stakee (vocals, guitar) and Terry Wolfers (bass), they are seasoned performers that bring this quintet to a respected level on the scene. Stakee’s voice has an international hint, referencing his childhood in Sweden and England traveling around with his singer/songwriter father, but the themes of the music are universal. Stakee peppered the set with “thank yous” while singing about getting money for the weekend and even offering up a gospel song. Soaring choruses dropped out for guitar solos or percussive breaks, with deep grooves of emotion. While nothing seemed particularly new, their viewpoint is certainly strong and they have musical chops to pull it off.

Cuckoo Chaos may not be quite the household name yet, but the band is already evolving before our eyes; during its set at Mercury Lounge on Friday night, the music introduced as newer by the group sounded leaps away from the earlier material with which Cuckoo Chaos opened its show. Those first songs bore a heavy—too heavy—resemblance to a former CMJ buzz band gone big: Vampire Weekend. Shimmying Afropop guitars, serious hi-hat workouts, tuneful bass—it’s not necessarily a formula, but it’s not fresh, either. However, as Cuckoo Chaos’s set progressed, the band opened up those elements toward a more rhythm-centric, funkier sound. Its new material seems less about hooks and choruses than sustained energy and cyclical structures. Cuckoo Chaos could be onto something.