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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

BODEGA and the art punk grafted questions of "City Is Taken" (Official Video)

 

"When moving from Kingston to Kingʼs County / I fell on city block in a snow fall scene / Represent the tide how did I murder? / Murder! / Murder!"


The art punk grafts, throttling tom toms, askew guitar stabs of "City Is Taken" by NYC's cultural commentators BODEGA feel (to me) like a wonderful cascade of late 70's proto punk and post decades' iterations of indie rock that comment on societal issues and how it impinges on us humans. Not that love songs or personal human relationships cannot be the stuff of songs (and will always be) but why can't it also be about more or, at least, about both. Especially when the world is fucked up or more fucked up than it has been, I admit that relationship songs can feel exquisitely selfish and boring. I also like the retro aspects whether sonically or attitudinally and listening to BODEGA I am feeling a spikey amalgam of artists like Slow Children, XTC, Human Sexual Response, Shame. 

LINER NOTES:

[Nikki Belfiglio, joint lead vocalist of BODEGA, and the lead on "City Is Taken," had the following to say about the themes behind their new single: "'City Is Taken' is a song about my experience of moving to NYC in 2010. I came to view myself and my artistic role models as a force of gentrification caught in the invisible web on profiteering that follows artists wherever they go. My visual presence became an unwitting symbol of destruction; the antithesis of everything I sought to create."]

["City Is Taken" is accompanied by a video from director Luca Balser that features Ben Hozie and Nikki performing the track throughout a nocturnal NYC in front of defunct venues from the city’s storied musical past alongside the commercial banks and chain restaurants of today. The video works as a study of personal geography and archeology, unearthing the band's New York story up to now.]  

[“City Is Taken,” a song that further displays the true ambition and heart of their upcoming third album, 'Our Brand Could Be Yr Life', coming April 12 via Chrysalis Records.]

-Robb Donker Curtius








THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM 


https://open.spotify.com/artist/3lnWfdMG9U0oVMC15SEbB5

https://www.instagram.com/bodegabk/

https://www.tiktok.com/@bodegabk

https://www.bodega-band.com/


OUR BRAND COULD BE YR LIFE coming soon!


NYC's cultural commentators BODEGA return with their latest single, “City Is Taken,” a song that further displays the true ambition and heart of their upcoming third album, "Our Brand Could Be Yr Life", coming April 12 via Chrysalis Records.





BODEGA, post punk, alt rock, New York City, "City Is Taken", proto punk, indie rock, post punk, Nikki Belfiglio, new wave, 70's proto punk, 80's new wave, 3rd Album "Our Brand Could Be Yr Life",

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