Social Registry band
Artanker Convoy joins the roster at On the Moon Music!
They will be playing a show at Bowery Ballroom in New York on June 21 with Polvo. Come out and hang...
Look out for a 7" soon and some more great music to come... Pick up their latest album,
Cozy Endings, which has received lots of nice press:
Time Out London: simmering, downtempo funk and avant-jazz while maintaining a delicate balance between soul and sleaze.
The Wire: ...an eclectic groove stew, equal parts funk and freakout. There are definite tinges of Miles Davis' early 70s groups. "Ejector" could be straight off Big Fun with its mid-tempo laidback shimmer and shimmy. "Black Dauphin" soups itself up into a ghetto Prince strut, jutting its chin into the sun baked fuel thick city air. Likewise, "Geyser" is a slippery piece of funk with some warm smokey guitar playing. The standout is "Open Up," a slow burn number with a percussion rustling intro, the guitar player rolling on the faders before the beat kicks in, his instrument now digging deep into the reverb on the bottom strings and surfing the echo on the high notes.
XLR8R: (Office Top Ten Album Pick) ...New York supergroup Artanker Convoy makes pretty drone jazz on the brilliant Cozy Endings
Seattle Weekly: The references to '70s Miles Davis will abound; Artanker Convoy's Cozy Endings is a slab of jazzy grooving that simmers like Brooklyn pavement in mid-August. While Davis is an apt comparison for this mix of jazz, psychedelia, bossa nova, and soul , it's more a descendant of trumpeter Don Cherry's Brown Rice in its attempt to make jazz into something more accessible, trippy, and danceable. Every number on here is a laid-back (note: laid-back, not slow) burner that swings, shakes, and sometimes struts. Though the percussion work is light overall, the leader of the band is drummer Artanker (hence the band moniker). He and bassist Joe Florentino lay down extremely minimal beats of shimmering cymbal and subtle bass lines, which the band proceeds to build around with liquid keyboard drips and saxophone purrs that float just above the song's foundation. In this way, they are like Can; each song grows organically into something awkwardly suited for a dance party of sorts. Given that they are on the Social Registry label, it's only natural that they also have a significant trance element to their music. Like the best of its ilk, Cozy Endings is a major chill-out record. Now that I think of it, Beastie Boys songs like "Namaste" and Lighten Up" are also major reference points for this record. BRIAN J. BARR
Time Out New York: "raw, ferociously funky stuff that nods toward 70s Miles, with Artanker driving the whole train from behind his kit."
The Journal Review: "an updated, dancier version of Pink Floyd."
Spin.com: Artanker Convoy played a heavily psychedelic, dub-inflected set. The Brooklyn six-piece channeled Can and Spacemen 3 with their dense sound, and differentiated themselves from like-minded contemporaries with the prominent use of hand drums and a saxophone. The set was accompanied by visuals of the band members refracted through effects that accompanied the music, making the performance all the trippier.
Norman Records: "sounds like David Holmes funking up Tortoise which is no bad thang, dude. In fact the whole 4 tracker is on a funky, jazzy post rock trip down NY Blvd. Niiiice!."
Philadelphia City Paper: "...sounds great ... lulls the listener into a stupor with slight shades of soul, Krautrock, bossa nova, hip-hop, psych, punk funk and New York noise. Prepare to be bowled over."
Vice (UK): "(9 out of 10) lushly jazzy in a cool, electronic, tastefully abstract way"
CMJ: psychsperimental outfit that culls elements from dub, funk, jazz and earthly excess
