Katy Pinke’s songs are self-examinations—cerebral and unsparing, but reaching toward a more promising future. The Manhattan-based singer-songwriter’s nimble soprano evokes the precision, humor, and melancholy of forbearers like The Roches and Connie Converse. Sentences pour across verses, disrupting the symmetry of the expected verse-chorus song form, like her espoused hero Bill Callahan. The songs on her stark and accomplished debut album, Katy Pinke, have a direct and inviting quality, but within each, a quiet battle is being waged in an ongoing struggle to, as Pinke puts it, “unconditionally love a fragmented self” in the face of heartbreak, loss, and unexpected forks in the road.

The album is the first of a series of releases the singer-songwriter, painter, and actor has been readying for the past couple of years, and strips her art down to its absolute essence. One afternoon at the home studio of Phil Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Cass McCombs, Hand Habits), Pinke recorded her vocals and minimal guitar accompaniments live with drummer Jeremy Gustin (Rubblebucket, Star Rover) in front of an audience of a few friends. The idea was to capture the feeling of Pinke’s live shows, which are storied events in the NYC indie rock scene. (The legendary artists she has shared the stage with include Laura Veirs, Jolie Holland, TV On the Radio’s Kyp Malone, Indigo Sparke, and Jesse Harris.)

In the songs, the narrator is often taking stock of the damage after an emotional hurricane, while rushing to put up the storm shutters for the next one. The record’s most devastating moments are sometimes its most fun musically (“Tomato,” “One Coin”). Elsewhere, there are bittersweet moments of effortless beauty, shaded and given depth by expressions of empathy (“Grapefruit,” “Strawman”). In Pinke’s music, life sometimes feels like a series of pushes into a vast, hopeful unknown, and the time we spend conserving our energy between them. All we can do, Pinke hypothesizes, is try to stay aware and in tune with ourselves while waiting for the opportunity to try again.
https://katypinke.bandcamp.com/album/katy-pinke-2
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The Shivers is the moniker for singer-songwriter Keith Zarriello. In 2004, Zarriello released the album Charades featuring the song Beauty, bringing the band to the attention of the music media. Over the last decade the band has amassed a growing cult following including the likes of Aaron Paul, Daniel Radcliffe, Rose McIver, Tessa Thompson and bands like Deer Tick and Foster the People.
https://theshivers.bandcamp.com/
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The Fascinating Chimera Project is a band based in New York's Hudson Valley, made of up Alex Daud, Andrew Emge, and Dylan Nowik.
https://thefascinatingchimeraproject.bandcamp.com/
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Sarah La Puerta is an artist, musician and calligrapher who works in different dimensions. She was born in New Orleans, raised in Texas, and now lives in upstate New York.

Her favorite tree is the weeping willow and her favorite flowers are water lilies.

Her solo album, Strange Paradise, is available via Perpetual Doom.
https://perpetualdoom.bandcamp.com/album/strange-paradise

Katy Pinke / The Shivers / The Fascinating Chimera Project / Sarah La Puerta

Katy Pinke / The Shivers / The Fascinating Chimera Project / Sarah La Puerta