Apartment Story: We Are Augustines

The debut album from buzzworthy trio We Are Augustines, Rise Ye Sunken Ships, comes out today, and the band invited soldout to their Brooklyn studio on a recent hot summer afternoon for a performance of the first single, "Chapel Song." Weaving a common thread throughout the album as a whole are themes of insecurity, vulnerability and loss, and this leadoff track is no exception.

"This song is about lost love and witnessing an old love and bride-to-be walk down the aisle to be married," according to singer Billy McCarthy. "So often in life it is difficult for us to keep a good face on the outside while our insides are burning. Hollow handshakes and blank stares at a wedding sum up the sentiment here."

We Are Augustines will be on tour throughout September to promote the record; for dates and more information, visit www.weareaugustines.com.

Apartment Story: The Jezabels

We recently spent a Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn with Australian quartet The Jezabels, who treated us to a minimalist rendition of their gorgeous song "Sahara Mahala." This guitar-and-shaker take is a nice counterpart to the recorded version on the band's third and most recent EP, Dark Storm, which is buoyed by lush instrumentation and heavy percussion. The Jezabels plan to release their first full-length record later this year, and we're already saving a spot on our Best Of lists.

Apartment Story: David Berkeley

Singer/songwriter David Berkeley recently treated us to an afternoon performance in a Brooklyn apartment, in the midst of a series of shows along the East Coast. On January 25, Berkeley will release his fourth album, "Some Kind of Cure," along with a collection of 13 stories, "140 Goats and a Guitar," each of which explains the inspiration for one of the album's tracks. Most of the songs on the record were written while Berkeley and his family were living in a tiny village in the mountains of Corsica.

Here, Berkeley debuts the track "Homesick," and offers insight into the "140 Goats" reference in the book's title. It's clear that Berkeley has a knack for storytelling, whether or not his tales are accompanied by music.

David Berkeley Apartment Story from Soldout Music Dot Com on Vimeo.

Apartment Story: Tracy Bonham

 

photo courtesy of Sarah Be Photography

For our latest installment of Apartment Stories, the amiable and charming Tracy Bonham modeled through a smashed thumb to treat us to renditions of songs new and old during a morning of near-hilarity in her Brooklyn apartment — a session that yielded the first Apartment Story with a blooper reel at the end.

Bonham, who hit it big in the 1990s and early aughts with songs including radio smash "Mother, Mother," is enjoying a career resurgence on the heels of her latest effort, "Masts of Manhatta," which was recorded in Woodstock and Brooklyn and released earlier this summer. Longtime fans will recognize the songwriter's knack for witty, tongue-in-cheek lyrics over hook-y piano- and guitar-driven melodies.

This stripped-down rendition of "Reciprocal Feelings" from the new record shows that it will take a lot more than a bruised thumb to keep Tracy Bonham down.

On the floor, you and i

The Bloodsugars turned in an epic, sweaty performance to make even Prince jealous last night at the soldout launch party at Santos in NYC. Revisit them taking over our own Liz Raftery's living room as they perform "Pedestrian Boogie" (the song you white girls know as the "clap song") for our Apartment Stories.