Late Cambrian, winners of our Best of NYC Readers/Fans' Poll in 2014, just released a new single entitled 'Yearbook Photo' (streaming), which boasts a sound a lot more electronic than what the duo got us used to. Swirling synth arpeggiators and pads leave little space to electric guitars - the band's 'first love' - underlining a transaction from their early power pop days to a dreamier, more serene and mature electronic sound. This is a band relentlessly at work: they also just released a video for more uptempo single 'Dark Heart (Where Can We Go Now?)' - check it out here.

Deli Nation,

Our most faithful readers know that January, here at The Deli, is the month of our Year End Polls for Emerging Artists, a painstaking survey we run in each of our local branches to identify all the most promising musical acts across all genres (last year's result can be found here).

To give this poll more credibility, a good portion of the nominees are picked by a jury of local scene-makers (mostly comprised of venue booking agents) who get to nominate their three favorite local artists of the past year. But to involve all possible artists - even the most unknown, in December we had an open submission form that allowed any act to submit to the poll. These entries were ranked by The Deli's own branch editors, and this is what this post is about.

Since we always get hundreds of submissions for the NYC year end poll, we organize the open submission results by genre, and this year we'll start with the ALT ROCK/POWER POP category, two genres that share a rather muscular guitar based sound.

As always, we wish we could let more artists through to the next stage, but unfortunately we have to put a limit to the bands that qualify (we already have too many!). Here we go then: 

ALT ROCK/POWER POP 
Total submissions in this category: 37

Jurors: Michelle Bacon (Deli KC), Roxy Morrison (Deli Toronto) Paolo De Gregorio (Deli NYC).

Artists Qualified to the next stage (i.e. the Readers' Poll, starting around 01.15):

1. STRNGRS - 8.33

2. Sons of an Illustrious Father - 8

3. Late Cambrian - 7.83

Honorable Mentions (scores above 6.5) in order of high score:
j and the 9s, Millsted, Courtesy Tier, Kung Fu Crimewave, Sunny Gang, Sepoy, The Freaky Baby Daddies, Kevin McWha Steele, Mind Over Time, Eli Whitney & The Sound Machine, The Como Brothers Band, Mals Totem, Saturday Drive.

Stay tuned for more results, and then for the final poll - this is just the beginning of a month long process!

The Deli's Saff

Another round of congratulations are in order for The Deli Readers' Best of NYC 2014 artist, Late Cambrian: The band just announced a (noteworthy) month long European tour with Wheatus and MC Frontalot, starting on September 30, and featuring more than 20 dates in the UK and Ireland and a few in continental Europe. The rock pop quartet, whose contagious live energy we witnessed in person at our latest B.E.A.F. fest, will be releasing their new full length 'Golden Time' in November, and unveiled a few singles from it - check out "Throwing Shades," streaming below. - Photo by Jeong Park

Late Cambrian's brand of pop rock certainly doesn't lack effervescence - so much so that we are tempted to call it Champagne Rock. The band, winner of our Best of 2013 Readers Poll for Emerging Artists, has been spending the last few months in the studio working on their sophomore full length, from which they just unveiled the title track 'Golden Time' - streaming below. They also announced a UK, Ireland, Amsterdam & Berlin tour starting Sept 29, opening for Brooklyn Power Pop maters Wheatus.