After seeing Dan Croll, you can feel the tingle of his upbeat rock and roll with pop tinges on your skin and the nostalgia for the concert hits days after. Dan Croll’s Knitting Factory show in Brooklyn inspires that constant reverberation to the past that is nostalgia, that wistful hoping that you can be instantly transformed back.

Nearly two years after ” Sweet Disarray” was released, the track still sounds fresh. Dan Croll is able to blend a laid back melancholia with lackluster emotion in his delivery. The songs are emotional and the background beats are often heavy with pop instruments. The introduction of the driving guitar feels like a kind of visceral knife, but the lyrics are delivered in a cold, detached way. Dan’s charm is the ability to turn what would be a depressing circumstance into a positive outlook. A twist to your depression.

Lead single “One of Us” is a mish mash of different energies. It begins with the almost throbbing guitar, the heartbeat of the song, and then jumps into a fast paced ride through the lyrics. Live, it’s just as energetic minus Dan playing all the instruments like in the accompanying video above. The crowd at the venue was packed and singing along, enjoying the rarity that it is Dan Croll in NYC. If anything “One of Us” is a jam-packed ode and persuasion to just leaning into the energy of the crowd and becoming one of us. The theme of the song is what the night felt like, a welcome introduction into a space where people are already enjoying themselves and where enjoyment is going to be guaranteed.

Each track was performed with the same passion, the same manic energy despite of how old or new. The entire night was a perfect night to listen to danceable, swayeable pop rock that pleads for forgotten loves, forgotten postures and positions that only people who have experienced love and longing can recall.

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Here are the three biggest takeaways still with us weeks after 4knots is over:

1. Having a Festival along the river in the middle of summer is a smart idea. 

Opening band, Heaven had the crowd sweating as much for the heat as for the dancing that their soul-filled psychedelic shoegaze was producing. Low-key dancing maybe, the kind where you sway and bob your head, but dancing on a hot day nonetheless. Their songs are gloomy and foreboding, big numbers that hide both the worst of the melancholy and the worst of the optimism. They’re the Smiths with a little John Hughes high school melodrama. At the hottest part of the day, Heaven played through the sweat and maybe tears.

2. You don’t always need an audience to rock out. 

It’s nice to have a musical theme. If it’s the surf rock, the psychedelic rock, the garage rock, or just the rock that’s tying together all of your openers. Openers sell seats. Except when they don’t; really does it make them any less rocking. The theme here was bands that start with the letter H. Band Heaters, brought the throbbing guitar rocking onto stage. Though their vocals sound distant, they fill the void of blues-tinged rock that the White Stripes left behind, with a little bit of that NYC punk thrown in for good measure. They’re throwback, and they rock without needing an audience.

3. There was a yacht overlooking the Hudson.

Never underestimate listening to bands rock out on a pier when you’re on a boat.

4. Free stuff and vendors.

New York City doesn’t often just the street food and music festival combination. Afropunk is one of the only festivals to include that consistently. 4knots brought the goods. Special nod to Califia Farms for giving out cold brew coffee for the extra pep.

5. Revivals bring the noise. 

Super Furry Animals performed together for 4knots for the first time since 2010 in anticipation of a new album release. With the sun setting over the Hudson and New Jersey, the air finally cooled down, the band brought the packed pier to a frenzy mixing in their old standbys and their future classics.

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Hey Anna the Knitting Factory

The all sister fronted New Jersey band is set to release their debut LP this summer. Their set for Effective Immediately PR was both parts fun rock on the stage, and working out the new material in front of a live audience. The band channels the heavier side of indie rock, but balances it with danceable melodies. They’re just as likely to blow you away with their guitar slinging and bass riffing as they are to get your feet moving and your hips swaying.

Fantastic Plastics at the Knitting Factory

Another band that shared the stage during the Effective Immediately PR showcase. The Fantastic Plastics came out emblazoned with matching uniforms and crazy Back to the Future wigs and played electronic New Wave as their light up glasses danced frantically. Plus they had an electronic theremin that occasionally stole the show by being used in a non-gimmicky way! The band will be performing in a Devo inspired showcase on June 24th, and though it’s almost easy to see them as direct homage, their live performances do so much more than mimic Devo. The band is catchy earworm music with the added attraction of an insane and fascinating stage presence.

Young Ejecta at the Cameo Gallery

Young Ejecta brought sensual pop anthems to the Cameo Gallery space. There’s something evocative about the electronic space given between sometimes breathless vocal proclamations. The dance time was there, not gather in crowds, but find your inner happiness and dance. Young Ejecta’s songs are pop ballads mixed in with the electronic blips and bloops that allow the song to achieve depth.

Heems at the McArren Park

Heems just released a solo album that is equal parts angry and angsty and socially active. Whether the odes to living in New York City, and living in parts of Brooklyn before anyone else started to live there, or the way families members had to pass for American to get a little peace in a post 9/11 world, the new work is old school and rocking. Heems is a powerful performer, bringing his laid back spitting to the powerful subject matter. As good as the new album is, the live show was better and it shows that a clean break from Das Racist got the creative juices flowing.

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Sunday night at Northside Festival was a rainy night in Brooklyn, so of course Run the Jewels brought out special guest, Nas, to perform alongside them at 50 Kent. Killer Mike and El-P are the most charismatic frontmen. During the performance with Nas both men were hyped, jumping along with the beat and hitting the end of each line with an emphatic addition. Killer Mike was strutting behind Nas as he spit alone, a large grin spread across his face.

And across Brooklyn, Le1f brought his infectious, soda pop, hip hop to Brooklyn Bowl. Le1f is underground innovative for mixing his pop producing sensibilities with mile a minute rhyme spitting. He is also an adept performer, bringing fluid energy and a unique sense of fashion to the stage. His shows are beautiful pieces of art, where Le1f intertwines hip hop with body movement, bringing dance as an integral part of the performance. There’s a full length album coming on the horizon.

Though probably most famous (but hopefully not) for the debacle that was a certain sax riff re-appropriated for Top 40 success, Run the Jewels suggests that there’s definite space and need in hip hop for Le1f. Whether it’ll come in future head nods from more pop rappers or the continued influence of other artists, Le1f represents the up and coming that Killer Mike and El-P are heralding, after years toiling in the underground as critical darlings.

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Through 2 hours, FKA Twigs performed her discography, ranging from the most recent to the song she made in collaboration with Google Glass. It’s hard to distinguish between what the focus of the show was because her dance choreography was impressively matched to her vocal performance. As the lights dimmed at the beginning of her set, a lone violin serenaded the enthusiastic crowd, before FKA strolled in. And then things went from slinky and seductive to sultry and sensual. With no ventilation in The Brooklyn Hangar things got hot quickly.

FKA Twigs takes a comprehensive direction in her music. Instead of relying on her voice, or the backing music, FKA Twigs incorporates her body into every movement, as if the closeups of her lips, or the ways in which the viewer is only offered a quick glimpse at a time of her exposed flesh are fundamental to the message of the song. For Congregata this was taken to the extreme, her backup dancers moved flawlessly from pop vogue to klowning and krumping, while FKA twirled in her jewel-lined bodice. For various songs her backup dancers were props for the message, FKA sensually draped herself over well toned dancers, pushing them around, directing their movement.

Everything about FKA Twigs is composed and calculated so it’s refreshing that Congregata offered a complication. Yes, the 2-hour performance was flawless in execution but live FKA Twigs is more than just an emotionless singer, she vibrates herself into each song, into each movement. Congregata seemed aware of it’s surroundings in Sunset Park, sandwiched between the bustling, exhaust-spewing Gowanus Expressway and the unhygienic Gowanus Canal, the movement was very much a part of New York City.

FKA Twigs, sweaty and probably exhausted, paused during the show and gave a shout out to the city, and everyone who helped make her performance happen. Her words, genuine and free, brought everyone together.

Images by Drew Gurian courtesy of Red Bull

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RBMA continued the mixing of loud and raucous with high brow by placing 100 Disciplines in the Brooklyn Museum. The interlude performer, Niños du Brasil, brought their glitchy bachata to a fairly empty crowd. Their music is constantly in motion, an undercurrent of shaking timber or metronome beat that fills your thoughts. They completed the more complex style of Kid Millions’ enveloping performance.

100 Disclipines used 20 drummers, a timpani, an electric keyboard, a violin and several other instruments to capture the narrative of Kid Millions’ time in New York City. He’s been pretty hush about the meaning behind the title, suggestive of the intricate way that musical pieces come together, and the discipline required to develop something so enveloping. The group of performers at the Brooklyn Museum were surrounded by audience members. They set up in the middle of the foyer in a neat little circle, their backs to some of the audience at all times, instruments and equipment creating a protective circle.

The event was unexpectedly nuanced. More than simply percussion developing a heart beat, Kid Millions allowed a story to unfold.

Images by Maria Jose Govea courtesy of Red Bull

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For that one night on May 2nd, RBMA partnered with Venus X to recreate GHE20GOTH1K at Brooklyn Night Bazaar. The one-night appeal is strong, it allowed Venus X to put on a phenomenal showcase while also demanding that there would be no re-creations. The night was ephemeral, and was held at a wonderful DIY venue in Brooklyn, now bought out of their lease because of rising rent – there will never be another event quite like it.

The night was about reliving subculture, the safe space that allows anyone to express themselves. At one point the words of Baltimore DA, Marilyn Mosby, echoed through the club, before being drowned out by electronic gyrations.

Legendary New Orleans Bounce artist, Sissy Nobby, was the host. While the night was filled with intense vibrations and energetic performances, GHE20GOTH1K sometimes falls to the same problem that New Orleans Bounce faces. Can ephemeral things exist in a culture that places emphasis on long term greatness? Is a one night affair doing anything other than making something that is unobtainable forever? Hey, remember that really fun party that Venus X threw for RBMA in 2015? Sissy Nobby was able to lead the crowd into a frenzy, with booty shaking everywhere? Oh, you weren’t there? Too bad.

Images by Maria Jose Govea courtesy of Red Bull

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Events like Electronic Africa gather DJs from the continent to show off what genre-blending work they’re doing, and provide an extravagant party to sweat and dance. Nozinja and DJ Spoko from South Africa, Titica, Chief Boima, and Dubbel Dutch brought it to North Brooklyn on May 1st at Villain.

There’s a bit of catch-up being played here. DJ Spoko plays his version of the popular Kwaito, a house-inspired blend of African sounds with electronic beats. It’s an incident of “does this sound like early 90s hip hop or is the mind just caught up in the fresh interpretation?” What it does well is capture the chanting style of traditional African music, which, in person, leaves little to be desired. The dancing is there, the beats are constantly pushing toward some throbbing build, the body must always be moving, but it misses the complement of having the entire crowd sing along.

What should be the focus too, of an event capturing Electronic Africa, is how this music isn’t merely world music, both complicated and complicating because Africa is the only continent that often gets treated as if it were a singular country, but carrying the adjective of electronic, elevating it to a progressive “other”. Google event participant, Chief Boima, and you’ll find, on the first page a website with his profile, a statement that Africa is a country which the artist founded. World music is often dismissive and generalising, suggesting that Western consumers only listen to it on occasion or when sampled by their favorite hip hop artist.

But Chief Boima does a little more complicating, adding what has been considered Latin roots to his traditional music. From the inspiration of Rio, to the Latin American Palenque dripping over each track, Boima delicately plays with what Afro-Latino means.

The event, subconsciously political, consciously drawing attention to underexposed artists and continents, was ravenous. There was much dancing, much excitement over each of the attendees, and a promise that RBMA NYC offers more old school learning.

All images are courtesy of Red Bull Music Academy

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“Depreston” shows the singer/songwriter in a conversational love song to finding future habitation. Barnett lifts the Dylan-esque folk tendency of sing-talking, providing enough effort to carry the tune with a melodic lilt, but resting on apathetic melancholia. The metaphor of growth and building a foundation continues as the story-told couple is seeking out a home but making excuses for why each place is unsuitable. “If you got a spare half a million/you could knock it down and start rebuilding,” Barnett concludes with the blues-folk wail of her guitar lamenting that money erases all limits and creates boundless possibilities.

Barnett’s LP is fabricated mussed hair. The carefree almost spontaneous way in which she delivers her lyrics is refreshing and relaxing. Songs like “Dead Fox” relieve the tension of quotidian life by giving just a glimpse into unfettered travel. The lyrics spring from Barnett in an impromptu but spontaneous laid back drawl. “If you can’t see me/I can’t see you,” would be a line otherwise heartbreaking in some other context, but here it’s resigned and ready to move forward. This is just the way that things are.

Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit is a careful but laid back rumination on what makes life so banal. Barnett is refreshed Liz Phair without the explicit sexuality, or subdued Kate Nash without ever resorting to screaming and shouting. Available March 24^th, the album provides escapism from droll life without losing its recognition.

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The band can feel like an epiphany. Their sound is more and more a seamless blending of dance punk. With the addition of the keytar, a gift from a supportive father, things simply fell into place. “It was kind of like a duelling guitar thing. When we added that keytar, it was suddenly, ‘Oh that’s what we’re supposed to do. That’s our sound!’,” lead singer and guitarist Matt Berger told me.

They’re a good representation of what’s happening any given night in the local New York City music scene. Gearing up for the release of what will be a polished new album this spring – their new songs are in the vein of the Wombats with the courage to add a Karen O growl – they’ve been passing out their debut album Modern Dances for free at their live shows. It’s clearly important that they achieve an intimate connection; after the show, Berger handed me a bubble mailer for the album that I had ordered just the day before. Inside, in addition to the album I had bought, the same album they were giving away for free, was their second album and a sampling of band stickers. That second album, We Run with Gangs, was a Kickstarter project recorded in bedrooms and living rooms.

It’s hard to suggest that bands belong in small venues, as if rooting for them to be only so successful, but the Talking Heads made CBGB into a neighbourhood staple without compromising their own sound and still were able to find success. And then some bands hit the stage with an eclectic, choreographed show and are able to capture a moment, to get someone almost skanking in a city that’s notorious for being unfriendly to punk dancing.

Though Berger disagrees: “I don’t buy that people are too cool to dance in NYC. I think that it’s hard if people around you aren’t letting go. To skank you have to go all the way or it isn’t really skanking. You have to be willing to be vulnerable with those around you.”

Teen Girl Scientist Monthly wants you to experience their music with vulnerability.

Samuel Hernandez: Because you’re playing in Cameo, a Williamsburg DIY venue, and because Glasslands just closed, how are these small DIY venues important to independent Brooklyn bands success? 

Matt Berger: We have a list of venues we’ve played on our website, and Cameo is definitely one of the ones we’ve played the most. We understand the cultural relevance of losing venues like Glasslands. You have two options when you’re in an area like that, you change to a cleaner, quieter more commercial thing.  Or you can go out and stick to your roles, inspiring other people to do the same thing.

Morgan Lynch: It was strange also that it all happened at the same time, it felt like an epidemic of small venue closures.

MB: The good side of it is that everyone is being more careful and paying attention to it now. People are seriously asking themselves, “Why did I move to this city, what do I want to get out of it, why am I paying so much for a shitty ass apartment?”

ML: The answer is we should all just move to Detroit.

SH: Is the creative community in NYC keeping you here because you have that system of support? You have like-minded creatives running around trying to work just as hard as you.

MB: That’s what you want to get out of a place though. It’s like watching the Grammy’s and thinking, “That’s why I want to make music, that’s the type of thing that I want to be doing.” In the same thing, listening to [the opening band] Jumpers tonight: “Oh this is all I really want to do.”

ML:  You find your community and then it becomes kind of incestuous because one band becomes part of the other band.

SH: Listening to Modern Dances, and then We Run with Gangs, I noticed, or imagined, a back and forth of female lead vocalist song followed by male lead vocalist song. The band has a lot of distinct elements, how do you incorporate them all into a unique sound?

MB: It’s changed a lot actually. That first record [Modern Dances] was comprised of what we had been working on for that first three years. [The band has been working together since 2009, officially debuting at the National Underground in 2010.]

ML: We think about it a little bit more now. When we were putting together this set we stopped and said “oh we need to put a Morgan song in here, there’s been three Berger songs in a row.” Within the songs there is more of a presence of each other versus that separateness that occurred in those earlier records.

MB: When we started singing together there was a settling into place, a “this is what we’re supposed to be doing.” This is what we’re settling into after a couple of years, and what we’re comfortable doing.

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Friday afternoon Willow Wood Music and Atypical Beasts Agency brought together British invasion-style punk with indie progressive rock. Rounding out the showcase, Taymir brought their Netherlands-originated pop punk call it what you will four guys in a band with long hair and slight accents making danceable but often times head-banging chunky indie rock. “What Would You Say” is an instant classic for ready-for-the-streets punk rockers, an anthem without being overblown or trite. At CMJ they filled their spot, overran, and unfortunately didn’t have enough time to really get the crowd roaring along with their antic-inspired songs.

And then there is the Brooklyn-based Gold Lake, whose debut album is preparing to drop on November 4^th. Their music is sensual with enough space given for keyboards, guitar, drums, bass, and vocals to coexist to create something that is tinged with electropop but isn’t quite, has prog rock guitar riffs but never approaches the absurdity, and leaves with just a little bit of a melancholy mellow vibe. Their keyboard was draped in gold, their singer was draped in gold, and the songs that came from her and her band mates were near effortless.

CMJ may as well have ended with Matthew Dear’s “NY awakens sleeping beasts” performance at the packed club/bar Verboten. His performance was a menagerie of whatever confusing genre descriptions you want to include from micro-house (as if his seamless blend of electronica makes his music bombastic club sweating without the club sweating) or electronic rock. The disco ball toured across expectant faces as he worked through familiar and unfamiliar versions of his songs, always hinting at the progression that his music takes, the next step in waiting that could be around the corner.

Late into the night on a Saturday, ending a week already filled with small bars, packed clubs, big bands, and friendlier sounds, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Image courtesy of the Willow Wood Music

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