Northampton’s Prewn trips the lights and dangles at Pianos on Saturday, 9 March 2024.

Them Airs, Langkamer, Last Waltzon, Lucy Kruger and the Lost Boys, and Carinae anchor the all out sonic assault at the venue that some people, mistakenly, spell with a possessive apostrophe.

The New Colossus Festival played out from March 6-10, highlighting new sounds in underground music from here, there, and all points foreign and abroad.

New York City is a destination that international acts are going to set their sights on regardless. But the stakes were raised as the fest has fit itself snugly into the week before SXSW, attracting bands from all over who wanted to hopscotch through town on their way to more storied Texas festival.

The New Colossus wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and you wouldn’t either, trading between showcases at dives and clubs dotting an electric neighborhood in one of the most exciting cities in the world. Sights, sounds, food, drink, and lodging if you can afford it.

Let’s go see some music!

Behind the bar at Pianos is one or two driftwood-type tree trunks. Looks like a laid back, beachy version of the tree that you imagine might have cut through the bedroom of Odysseus, the endless voyager.

The music club itself features an upstairs stage and ground floor showroom that have been a stop along the odyssey for many a touring act. Saturday played host to another long laundry list of bands, with day parties and nighttime showcases that kept the train rolling from open to close.

No food before 2PM, bruncher beware.

Hadley’s Carinae rolls 6-deep, a psych prog crew that includes multiple keyboards, multiple guitars including an electric 12-string, drums, and a sampler. The last item is notable because it signals a kind of statement of intent to distinguish the western Massachusetts band from the usual run of crunchy Pioneer Valley jam bands. These are some real musical heads that craft complex rock n roll symphonies for tripping in the new millennium. Not your average bowl of granola.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys, out of Germany, performed as an electropop duo. Tech issues straight out of the gate that delayed the start of the set. With different bands criss-crossing stages all day and all night long, it’s amazing that sound issues aren’t more prevalent. It’s a testament to the general level of expertise on hand. The German duo soldiered through to present a stark melange of dark poetry and Blair Witch-style tattoos. Extra points for their synth percussion, a rubberized drum pad that they smacked with a single stroke of the mallet at the start of each song, letting the digital thump slowly and steadily on repeat until the last measure.

A hard rocking four-piece out of Montreal. It’s Last Waltzon! You could barely hear the vocals through the mix, but it hardly mattered. This band was here to grind away on heavy instrumentals that bridged the distance between half a dozen genres, from pop, punk, rock, psych, jam, and back. A superb drummer and propulsive bass-playing allowed the other guitarist freedom to run wild atop the rock solid rhythm section. They released a pair of singles at the start of 2024, “Down Under” and “I Can’t Cook” – worth a listen.

Give credit where credit is due. The fronter for the UK indie rock four-piece Langkamer dropped some dry British wit during soundcheck, comparing the infernal buzz coming out of the monitors to the droning soundtrack of a Christopher Nolan. The stage banter did double duty, gently calling attention to their trans-Atlantic credentials while also begging a quick fix for the monitor situation. Upstairs at Pianos was a dicey sound proposition on Saturday afternoon. A band like Last Waltzon is noisy enough at a baseline level that you may not notice issues, if present. With a band like Langkamer, which is going for a kindler, gentler indie rock experience, you might notice it.

Connecticut’s Them Airs is rock n roll that’s big on energy. So much energy, in fact, the fronter busted his high E string on the first song. No worries, he was mostly mashing chords while the lead guitarist at his right handled the precision stuff. Shout out to the keyboardist with no keyboard stand, popping a squat in the corner while she romanced the synth. Shades of Supermarket Parking Lot’s synth squatter.

Did Prewn roll out the same drummer as Carinae? Two Massachusetts bands. The former band is from Northampton, the latter from Hadley, so it’s all good in the Pioneer Valley hood. The fronter for Prewn, Izzy Hagerup, is capable of A+ indie rock warbling. There are shades of Elizabeth Cotten in the tremor and persistence of her vocals, and a lot of water under the bridge in her lyrics. The band’s latest album Through the Window is a psych-inflected indie rock hill worth climbing. Bring a water bottle and dress in layers.

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