From Jake's report of day 3 of the CMJ Music Marathon 2014: "Virginia's Malatese (from Harrisonburg, which JUST makes it into the area of our coverage) plays something that may be referred to as post-no-wave-pre-post-pre-punk music.  Their melodies/jams/grooves/whatever you wanna call 'em are dissonant and aggressive, drowned under a wave of distortion and Travis' noisy vocals.  Their music is already a little strange and head-tilt inducing, but Travis adds this extra little element of weird that brings it to a level of ingenuity.  First of all, he runs his vocals through a 404 sampler, using all the weird delay or pitch bending effects to add this monstrous ambience.  He's also got a generally hilarious stage presence, what with this funny shake dance that he does, all the weird noises he randomly spews out and the funny faces. He's not afraid to look like a little stupid up there because he's having good ol' tortured fun, which in turn means I'm having fun; if he brought it to an even further level of crazy he could be a regular Iggy Pop. "

Day 3 ended up being my Brooklyn band day. Somehow I ended up seeing all the bands I see play all the time, which might not be in the spirit of CMJ but, whatever (fuck you by the way for criticizing me).  I did get to see a bunch of bands I had been meaning to see for a long time; I'll stop talking now lets just get on with it already. - Read Jake Saunders' report of Day 3 of the CMJ Music Marathon 2014.

Are you ready for more 90’s panache? Good because that’s exactly how Slackgaze, the "lifestyle/archival/everything-coolthat’s-worth-knowing-about-unless-you’re-a-square-or-something" zine from Brooklyn, describes themselves. Slackfest is being held the weekend of June 20th equipped with headliners including Brooklyn psych royalty, Turnip King (streaming), the one-FB-fan-at-a-time guy ONWE, and the extremely enjoyable experimental folk crew, The Adventures of Silver Spaceman.

The bill is chalk full of local gems from god knows where, but that matters little because all we want to do this summer is space out to some jams that these artists have been pumping out day and night just for our very own ears to explore! Oooh, can you feel it!? There’s summer in the air and the sounds that have been leaking out of this great city are thriving and alive with colors and re-imaginations from every corner of the musical realm into which we delve.

Particular favorites on this bill include Tribal Days (streaming above), whose easygoing jams reminisce bands from our slacker-rock phase of the 90’s (I hear Bedhead, Sonic Youth, etc.); Malatese, a promising noise-punk outfit from Virginia; and Palm (streaming below), whose sound ranges from hardcore to noise rock to prog rock... they’re so all over the place it’s too hard for us to pin them down, but damn does it feel good listening to them. Regardless, we urge you all to check out the bands on the line-up because it’s going to be a good one. - Jake Saunders