New York Music Roundup: Discovering Regional Artists

The greater New York area has never been shy of sheer talent. From germinating hip-hop and salsa’s roots to the storied and sordid venues nestled across every regional city, creativity reaches a sort of terminal velocity within the boundaries of the Empire State. Its contemporary musical landscape keeps pace with its reputation as an incubator of breakthrough musical voices. Artists at the height of their careers to acts that are still burning their way through the wick of the underground, the very best are fed directly from the creative feedback loop embedded within the spirit of New York. While this list leaves room to explore innumerable other nooks and crannies of Hudson-bound artists, The Other has highlighted a few acts from across the spectrum as a potent primer for those out of the loop on NY’s finest:

Blockhead: A Trip-Hop Mainstay

Manhattan-born and raised, Tony Simon’s Blockhead project has been a mainstay in trip-hop and hip-hop music for over 20 years. Finding his musical genesis in the waning days of New York’s backpack scene, Blockhead is synonymous with the sample-collage sound, bringing larger-than-life bedroom beats to stages big and small throughout his career. His debut LP, Music by Cavelight, and his productions with acts like Aesop Rock and Billy Woods. His latest collaborations with Elliot Lipp in their eponymous LippHead project. Each has an undeniable timbre behind the Blockhead style that has kept his music front and center in the New York zeitgeist to this very day.

John Scofield: Jazz Guitar Legend

A legendary fixture and Grammy-awarded Artist in the worlds of jazz, blues, and beyond. His career as a guitarist lays out a path alongside the likes of Billy Cobham and Charles Mingus, through Miles Davis, Medeski, Martin, and Wood, Phil Lesh, and scores of artists in between. His work lives in the foreground of some of the most exceptional music from the New York metropolitan area across the last 40 years. John Scoffield is considered a torch-bearer for both classic and avant-garde guitar instrumentation and composition, weaving through distinctly American styles to form an outrageous bedrock of expansive musicality. Coming up on his mid-70s, his testament to both the road and the record are undeniable and at the very core of his reputation. 

Free Whenever: Brooklyn’s Psych-Rock Innovators

Channeling psychedelia and world music influences through their compositions, Free Whenever has been gaining ground across the last five years as a potent frontrunner in New York’s alternative and psych-rock scenes. Based in Brooklyn and following a working mantra that places their music “somewhere between Form (Saguna) and Formlessness (Nirguna)”, it moves effortlessly through adjacent rhythms and motifs within their latest work, the self-titled EP, Free Whenever. Elements of dub, jazz, eastern modes, trip-hop, and melodic guitar work blend together with the kind of fluidity that makes this three-piece act a clear standout amongst their contemporaries. With their follow-up LP, Ascension, slated for release this October, they’re in the prime pocket of expression and poised to deliver a killer collection of freshly minted tunes.

Honey Dijon: Global House & Techno Icon

Chicago-born Honey Redmond has been a mainstay in the global house and techno movements for 20 years, bringing a frenetic energy to the dancefloor and the charts since her foray to New York in the late 90s. Splitting her time between NYC and Berlin, her Honey Dijon moniker has been a hip-bouncing force across the entirety of her career. Blending and producing all manner of 4×4 uptempo rhythms in DJ sets that are purpose-built for the runway, from her first exposure to Maxi Records to her sonic collaborations with Dior and Louis Vuitton, she’s consistently kept on the upswing. As a black trans woman carving out due territory in the club scene and beyond, she’s also been a vocal advocate for trans rights, visibility, and equity throughout her career. She serves as an active paragon for trans and queer representation behind the decks as much as on the dancefloor. The effusive combination of her skill sets, experiences, positioning, and living legacy have consistently kept her not just ahead of the pack, but squarely on the right side of the dance.

Malakai: Eclectic Electronic Soundscapes

Colorado-raised and New York-made, Malakai Linden’s eponymous Malakai project has charted an altogether separate course from his contemporaries in eclectic electronic music. With a catalog-wide timbre that prefers dynamics over sheer kinetics, his compositions range from downtempo mosaics to instrumental trip-hop overtures and breakbeat jaunts. He eschews the aggressive, hyper-compressed profile that is so pervasive in American electronic music, striking a balance between the listening and live experiences to provide the New York sonic tapestry with melody and harmonic interplay. His last minted EP, Breathing Room, showcases that equilibrium with the same grace that propagates the rest of his established discography, and underscores the appeal that has him slotted for performances on either side of the Atlantic.