Founding member of Black Dice and one of the most creative and continually developing forces in the New York music scene, Eric Copeland has spent the last three years amassing and twisting a variety of sounds on his own, resulting in his debut solo LP, Hermaphrodite (2007). The album presents a variety of voices—some emerge quickly, crowding right in front of your eyes, while others lurk behind the delay—long-fingered phantoms that guide the songs to subtle order. From crushing, shaking sandstorms of sound to tiny, rhythmic bell-chimes, Copeland’s songs swarm and transfix with a singular progress that re-teaches listeners and steadily breaks new ground.
Legends are a New York duo whose songs tell chilling, darkly vivid stories. The spidery, resonant guitar work of Raquel Vogl (formerly of The Cranium and Meltdown) carefully leads the songs through periods of beauty and dissonance, while poet/performer Elizabeth Reddin adds dynamic, deep-breath percussion. Their creeping, near-twinned voices lurk among the sounds, unfurling shockingly beautiful images—descriptions of barely-restrained violence and self-confrontation.