Hot on the heels of our first Popshop BK throwdown of the new year with Alex Metric earlier this month, we’re back with another heater for February starring Philly’s finestMarian Hill. After winning over our hearts and minds with their debut Play EP and the subsequent one-two punch of follow up singles “Got It” and “Lips”, they make their long-awaited Neon Gold Live debut February 21st at Brooklyn Bowl. With special guest support to be announced soon, $10 advance tickets are available now HERE.
MARIAN HILL
Philadelphian electronic pop duo Marian Hill return with a pair of new tracks — “Got It” and “Lips” — that demonstrate two very different sides of their ever-maturing craft.
Comprised of Jeremy Lloyd (production/songwriting) and Samantha Gongol (vocals/songwriting), the pair’s roots can be traced back as far as a middle school talent show that saw Lloyd — the son of a conductor and an opera singer — hear Gongol sing for the first time. Many a moon down the line, following a stint studying music composition at college for Lloyd while Gongol was cutting her teeth in New York as a songwriter, the pair reunited in the former’s bedroom studio.
“Got It” and “Lips,” the latest offerings from the duo, might be the finest syntheses of their output to date. Working under a modus operandi to fuse the simplicity of timeless songwriting with the dexterous craft of modern pop production, “Got It” finds itself in the middle of a head-on collision between sultry soul and whirring synth brass. “Lips,” meanwhile, goes straight for the romantic jugular — flitting between emotive electronica and jittery, after-hours RnB.
Citing influences ranging from Cole Porter to Kanye, from Ella Fitzgerald to Drake, while many artists define themselves by the mixture of inspirations they’ve concocted, Marian Hill go one step further: fusing disparate sources into a compound sound that’s hard to imagine ever having been apart.
NANCY WHANG (DFA/LCD SOUNDSYSTEM/THE JUAN MACLEAN)
Nancy Whang is among the few who can lay claim to being a key figure in the heady early days of the rise of DFA Records, and her DJ sets remain faithful to the post-punk party aesthetic upon which DFA was founded. Nancy’s contributions on early 12″‘s by LCD Soundsystem and The Juan MacLean quickly lead to her full-time involvement as a permanent member in each of those bands. Shortly after, guest appearances on Soulwax’s seminal track ‘E Talking’ and Munk’s ‘Kick Out The Chairs’ solidified her place as a highly sought after vocalist in the burgeoning alternative dance music scene.
It was this auspicious debut upon which Nancy has since built an electrifying career as a touring and recording member of LCD Soundsystem. Logging years of touring miles, Nancy was instrumental in establishing LCD as one of the decades most exciting live bands, headlining some of the greatest festivals worldwide in addition to endless club gigs. As if that were not enough, in LCD’s downtime Nancy also fronted DFA act The Juan MacLean, again setting off on rigorous touring schedules of both festivals and clubs across the globe. Her appearance on The Juan MacLean’s massive dance hit ‘Happy House’ once again solidified her place as a sort of hitmaking voice of underground dance music.
Of course, all of this live band action is only half of the DFA equation; DJ’ing has always been equally prominent. Like James Murphy, Juan MacLean, Holy Ghost, Shit Robot, Eric Duncan and other members of the DFA collective, Nancy found herself honing her skills as a DJ at various afterparties and special events. While many of her peers at DFA ventured out into the world of late night club-friendly dj’ing, Nancy has stayed firmly rooted in the eclecticism of what could now be considered the defining style of DFA. Her sets have an emphasis on fun, an echoing of the glory days of the NYC scene of the 80’s in which disco, proto-house, postpunk, noise, electro, and latin influences all conspire to keep things interesting. No loopy late-night darkness here. Nancy’s sets might feature dance party friendly tracks by Liquid Liquid, Deee-Lite, Nu Shooz, Annie, Sexual Harassment, Frankie Knuckles, Kraftwerk, Lipps Inc., and of course the newest and classic tracks from her own DFA label.
Nancy continues to fill her schedule with worldwide DJ bookings while working on the next full album by The Juan MacLean.