From its opening moments this collabiration between Lake Ruth and Listening Center--released over the summer with proceeds benefitting the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund--immerses the listener in a gauzily seductive yet apprehensive vortex of sound: "Don't sit and wait / there's no hiding here / unsubtle acts / rule the landscape that you know." Here is a song that acknowledges Law and Order are not the synonyms they’re often assumed to be (Allison Brice’s lyrics are clever enough to apply either to relationships or to politics even if the latter is to the fore). In the familiar music-crit parlance of “If You Like X, Why Not Try Y,” fans of Weyes Blood will likely respond to the layers of chiming guitars, wavering synths, and Grimms’ Fairy Tales vocals. But Lake Ruth conjure up a dark cloud of psych-pop perfection all their own. (Jason Lee)

Bore from a hodgepodge of influences—most notably '60s psychedelia, new wave, and vintage pop—New York’s Lake Ruth lay down a timeless bop on new single “Extended Leave.” The core backbone of the track, its analog, resonant saw lead, creates an industrial sound, one that runs counter to vocalist Allison Brice’s (The Eighteenth Day of May, The Silver Abduction) esoteric, tripped-happy lyricism. The cognitive dissonance of these two moving parts contributes to what makes “Extended Leave” such an engrossing listen, something akin to reading the work of Ram Dass in an abandoned East German factory, made all the better by the instrumental contributions of Hewson Chen (The New Lines) and percussionist Matt Schultz (Holy Fuck, Enon, SAVAK). Stream it below, and catch Lake Ruth at Elsewhere on October 18th, supporting Luna. -Connor Beckett McInerney, Photo by Sasha Maese

Starting off the year with a Deli premiere are Lake Ruth, a group of multi-instrumentalists and genre explorers who are set to release their second album Birds of America on February 16th on British label Feral Child Recordings. The follow-up to their critically acclaimed debut features the track "One Of Your Own", which combines perky '60s surf-rock psychedelia with the brooding New Wave vibes of Joy Division and the electronic textures of early Simple Minds. Allison Brice's voice soars above the driving drums and entrancing guitars of bandmates Matt Schulz and Hewson Chen in a mix care of Grammy-winning producer Geoff Sanoff. Listen to the Deli premiere of "One Of Our Own" below. - Will Sisskind

We can't exactly tell what Lake Ruth's singer Allison Brice sings about in the band's new single 'The Only One Who Knows' we are premiering below - the lyrics are rather unintelligible. Nonetheless, her vocals carry a quality of wisdom and sweet confidence that makes us picture a young mother - our Platonic mother? - giving us precious advice, with her beautiful, hopeful voice, about that relentless unraveling of mysteries called life. And even though the band's music, heavily influenced by the psychedelic '60s, puts this semi-imaginary lady in a historical context our real mother missed, the track's 'vintage' sound and dreamy atmosphere contribute in setting the stage for the most reassuring of dreams: re-living the days when we had somebody on our side who could answer all our questions: 'The Only One Who Knows'.

Don't miss Lake Ruth at NYC Popfest on May 22nd at Littlefield. LP Actual Entity' out on June 24th, 2016 on The Great Pop Supplement.

We are always curious to see what local bands make it into the yearly NYC Popfest - a festival that deserves credit for scouting talented emerging pop acts and keeping things on a medium to small scale, which is what The Deli is all about. This year's edition will see three NYC based acts involved, and we are very intrigued in particular by Lake Ruth (pictured), a band that evokes aural specters of early Belle & Sebastian led by Trish Keenan of Broadcast. The trio is really, reall new, but its members have played in established acts like Enon and Holy Fuck, although they sound like a development of NYC's guitarist Hewson Chen's psych-pop project The New Lines - with a different singer. They have dropped two digital releases so far, for a total of three tracks, debuting in February 2016 with two stylish and mellow songs in 'The Inconsolable Jean​-​Claude' EP, followed just two months later by the more uptempo and summery 'Through The Lychgates,' streaming below. Singer Allison Brice's soprano is honey for the ears, and the band knows how to let it flow.

The other two local acts playing this year's popfest are garage pop trio Big Quiet, which we booked at one of our latest CMJ shows, and self-defined "freak-pop" band The Hairs, brainchild of Brooklyn songwriter Kevin Alvir, who are about to drop their first release since 2013, a n LP entitled 'While, I Hated Life, Barbarian.' Check out preview single 'Fave Shit 15.'