Harkonen came from the Pacific Northwestern hardcore scene of the late 90s, but their sound moved quickly beyond that genre’s basic moves. Given to intense metal riffing, ominously slow-paced tempos, and disconcerting ambient drones, the band fit in perfectly with the progressive Hydra Head label. Though they seemed to have called it quits in 2005, the band is reuniting for a string of exclusive east coast shows, with this year’s Northside counting as their only New York appearance!

MySpace

Facebook

White Hills, a duo consisting of guitarist Dave W. and bassist Ego Sensation, make rock music of baffling scope and terrifying volume. On their latest album, Frying on This Rock, punishing epics like “Robot Stomp” take unhinged motorik well past the point of human decency, to somewhere near transcendent bliss. Fans of full-blown space-rock made by classic bands like Hawkwind or the Spaceman 3 are commanded to catch the current keepers of their psychedelic legacy.

Facebook

MySpace

Pittsburgh producer Chris Laufman is unusually gifted at taking bits of other people’s music and warping them, refitting them towards fiercely personal ends. As Wise Blood (the name referencing Flannery O’Connor’s first novel), he cuts up and recontextualizes samples to create Panda Bear-influenced pop, with mixed-up, braggadocious lyrics given urgent, hip-hop immediacy. Take a track like “B.I.G. E.G.O.” for example, how it uses a towering Led Zeppelin drum sound, but de-emphasizes it, somehow making it subtle background to sunny pop. He’s not intimidated by drafting the Beatles to be his backing band.

In actual performance he’s now usually augmented by a few other musicians, freeing him to be the electric front man to his own bedroom compositions. His wild-man stage presence neatly sidesteps the dilemma of laptop-based music becoming a staid live experience. Laufman can be unpredictable, intense, ridiculous, sometimes petulant. He’s leapt from a balcony or two.

BandCamp

MySpace

Facebook

Coming to prominence in Chicago’s club scene alongside DJ team Flosstradamus (who happened to feature her real-life big brother), Kid Sister makes hip hop that’s tailor-made to rock a party. She’s collaborated with Estelle, Gucci Mane, Cee-Lo Green, and, on her signature hit “Pro Nails,” Mr. Kanye West. Last year she released both the Kiss Kiss Kiss mix-tape and the Kiss & Tell EP, which found her experimenting with dancehall, funk, and dubstep in addition to the glittery electro-rap that’s become her signature.

Website

Facebook

Twitter

For the second year in a row, we’re thrilled to be partnering with the masterminds at the Brooklyn Flea to bring more local food to the Northside Festival.  All Northside Festival badge holders will receive an “Eat Free at the Flea!” ticket. It’s good for one free food item of the vendor’s choosing and/or availability at either of the Flea’s two weekend Williamsburg markets: Smorgasburg, the all-food market on Saturdays (11am-6pm); or the “regular” Sunday Brooklyn Flea (10am-5pm).  The nice people working at Northside HQ will give you your ticket when you pick up your badge.

Come eat and enjoy!

Asobi Seksu (which means “playful sex” in Japanese slang) have become something of a New York City institution since 2004, when Yuki Chikudate and James Hanna started making their specific brand of dreamy guitar music. The super-melodic shoegaze of 2006′s Citrus earned wide critical acclaim, and follow-ups 2009′s Hush and 2011′s Fluorescence, only deepened the breadth of the band’s  songwriting, as likely to draw on Japanese pop as they are on lush 4AD rock. They’re a band who’ve grown supremely confident in doing what they do, create a big, swirling sound for listeners to get lost in.

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Brooklyn’s Buke and Gase take their name from the home-modified instruments that define their unique sound. The “buke” is a six-string, baritone ukulele. The “gass” is a guitar and bass hybrid. (They recently changed its spelling in their name for pronunciation purposes.) As last heard on their second album, 2010′s Riposte, they stomped and rattled in a state of controlled chaos; singer Arone Dyer  projecting bluesy, art-damaged authority over warped tones that were singular by design. “Hiccup,” a just-released tease for the next album, finds them taking things even further, going out of their way to give its noisily hypnotic rhythm some haunting pop accents.

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Much-hyped band Cults took off after their saccharine single “Go Outside” hit it big. So naturally we couldn’t wait to book them for our 2010 festival. Their light, sixties doo-wop sound was perfect for our outdoor venue. Here they are performing “Oh My God” another of their patented, sunshine-y pop songs, perfect for the outdoors  on a hot summer day.

Frankie Rose was a trend-setter in Brooklyn’s lo-fi rock scene for years before she went solo. The aura of assured cool she lent Crsytal Stilts, Vivian Girls, and Dum Dum Girls in their formative stages went a long way towards putting those bands on the map. She took the stage ,mallet in hand, and a dozen stand-up tom drummers seemed to appear overnight. And 2010′s self-titled Frankie Rose and the Outs proved that she could do 60s-inspired garage rock on her own that rattled and swooned just as well.

But it’s Interstellar, this year’s Slumberland-released follow-up, that firmly establishes Rose as an artist to follow. Ditching guitar feedback for bright and shining keyboard textures, it presents a 80s-hued vision of synth-pop that’s more glam than gloomy, more widescreen than lo-fi. Listen to the record’s title track, how it starts with glacially creeping ambient music before running with rock drumming; how it floats in space in spite of its many layers. It’s obvious that Rose has moved on to an entirely different set of sounds and influences. And beyond an enviable resume in a defining corner of Brooklyn’s musical renaissance, what she does next is now the more compelling question mark.

Website

BandCamp

Twitter

Nicole Yun and Daniel Cundiff formed Eternal Summers as a duo in Roanoke, Virginia, an outgrowth of their involvement in the town’s close-knit artistic collective, Magic Twig. After the Parker Nitefly guitar that was key’s to their two-piece sound was stolen on tour, the band added bassist Jonathan Woods to compensate, making their giddy experiments in woozy indie-pop and quizzical post-punk a much sturdier force. ”Millions,” the first single from their sophomore record Correct Behavior, is probably their best recording yet. Righteous fuzz still gives the song a hanging shoe-gaze feel, but this time they leave room for clear singing and a crisply chiming guitar lead. Everything that made them so initially likable is suddenly snapping in to sharper focus.

Website

BandCamp

Facebook