Blips | Under The Radar Acts – Deap Vally and Sprocket

In our never-ending quest to dig up great bands whose tickets cost less than a corned beef sandwich at your local deli, we bring you our latest round of Blips here on JamBase. The idea behind Blips is to form a lasting relationship with acts we believe to have bright futures and stick with them as they develop and grow. We view Blips as a progression that begins with a mention in a Blips segment, then leads to a Blips update and ultimately culminates in a feature-length interview. In this edition, we have some really cool new music, so take a sec, poke around the bands’ various websites and see what you think of these two under-the-radar acts…

Deap Vally

[Photo By: Bryan Sheffield]

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By the sound of it, nobody would ever in a million years guess that Deap Vally was just a two person guitar-drums duo, and especially not a pair of women who met during a crochet class. The sultry Los Angeles tandem of Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards reconstruct their small two person stature into a sheer cliff of drums and crunchy amplification. The overall sound has a familiarity to other duos like the White Stripes and Black Keys in both sound and attack, but while the pair easily fits the formula of those bands, the material is high quality and their stage presence is totally unique. The energy of the music is so palpable that drawing comparisons is unjustified other than to help paint a sonic picture. Deap Vally is a viscerally charged musical duo of which to take note and take cover.

The duo’s debut album, Sistrionix, came out in June 2013 on Island Records.

R.I.Y.L. – The White Stripes, Alabama Shakes

Sprocket

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It feels like a rare feat these days that a jamband turns up on our new music radar, but it’s always exciting when one does. Sprocket is a New York City-based jamband just ascending out of their Arlene’s Grocery era with a lineup comprised of crack shots on guitar, bass, keys and drums. The band does what few jambands in recent years have been able to do successfully, which is to seamlessly weave in between a lot of different styles. Most jambands these days do one thing well -typically playing funk or live electronica -but Sprocket does many. The band clearly has Phish roots and it’s evident in that their music includes funky grooves, anthemic major key hang gliders, non-boring progressive acrobatics, memorable lead melodies and thoughtful / quirky covers.

R.I.Y.L. – Phish

Written By: Ryan Dembinsky