For the past few summers, MeanRed Productions has been presenting the best and brightest stars of dance music to Central Park Summerstage. Previous MeanRed shows have included Santigold, Diplo, A-Trak, Kid Cudi, Boys Noize, Drop The Lime, Canyons, and other young musical influencers.
On Sunday, August 8th, we are returning to celebrate the new indie music dons – the next generation of musicians whose sounds are taking over airwaves, festivals, and clubs worldwide.
The xx are a London quartet, featuring the dual lead vocals of Romy Madley-Croft and Oliver Sim (who also play lead and bass guitar respectively), Baria Quereshi (keyboards and guitar) and Jamie Smith (beats, MPC sampler). Childhood friends who formed while attending the Elliot School – the south west London comp whose alumni also includes such acclaimed boundary-pushers as Burial, Four Tet and Hot Chip. Bonding over a shared love of stripped back anti-folk and mid-90s R&B, The xx’s unique sound befits a wide range of influences that include everything from Aaliyaah to Cocorosie, Rhianna to The Cure, Missy Elliot to the Chromatics, The Kills to Ginuwine, The Pixies to Mariah Carey and Justin Timberlake to Tracey & The Plastics. These influences combine via beautiful, hushed vocal duets and a brilliantly inventive use of samplers and low-end frequencies to produce the stark, sweet melancholic pop.
Chairlift formed in Boulder, Colorado in early 2006 to make live music for haunted houses. Frequenting the Broker Inn on the edge of town for empty late-night jazz shows, Caroline Polachek, Aaron Pfenning and Patrick Wimberly were mystified by the 1980’s faux-gothic architecture, oak-cabinet aquariums, vacant dancefloors, fake trees, crystal chandeliers and dark velveteen booths. The inn provided them with the ideal setting for a new breed of pop: a place where subtle clashes blossomed into uncanny pleasures. Relocating to Brooklyn in the summer of 2006, the trio continued on to develop a hypnotic yet tongue-in-cheek style, playing shows around Brooklyn and the Lower East Side with a thriving society of experimental pop magicians including MGMT, Yeasayer, Suckers, and Mixel Pixel.
When he was last here Jack Peñate was, by his own admission, a kid. A south London bedroom-boy-with-acoustic-guitar. He ducked, he dived, he played many shows in the UK and a rare few in the US, rockin’ the scenesters. And rockin’ the charts: his debut album, 2007’s Matinée, went gold in the UK; the single, “Torn On The Platform”, entered the UK charts at Number 7 and he was even on the cover of the NME. Good stuff, but not great stuff. Not stirring, take-your-head-off stuff. Jack knew this. But the truth didn’t hurt; it liberated him. So for his second album Jack decided to rip it up and start again. Totally start again. Total honesty, absolute vision, complete control. The result is Everything Is New, a soul record. Recorded over twelve intense months in producer Paul Epworth’s (Bloc Party, Friendly Fires) own west London home studio, Everything Is New is a giant musical leap forward from this 24 year old Londoner’s acclaimed debut album. Everything Is New is a technicolour record full of experimentation and possibility. Featuring the blissed-out house grooves of first single “Tonight’s Today” and swaggering soul of anthemic new single “Be The One”, the album fuses Peñate’s wide-eyed pop songwriting with the music he’s always loved and lived, successfully bringing Brazilian Tropicala, Krautrock, New Orleans marching bands, Bashment, Afrobeat, lo-fi Hop Hop, Gospel, Reggaeton and Phily Soul into the mix over a nine track record that delights and surprises at every turn. An ambitious, timeless, lo-fi soul record. Everything Is New.
:: BUILT BY MEANRED
:: SUPPORTED BY THE FADER & BKLYN YARD
