Welcome to the latest in a series of spotlights on the bands and artists performing at our 2015 CMJ party with Berklee College of Music this Friday, October 16 at Carroll Place, 157 Bleecker St., in New York City. Seven Berklee affiliated acts will participate in Boston & Beyond, an official CMJ Music Marathon showcase that is free to badge holders and open to the general public (RSVP here). Doors are at 8 p.m. and the show is presented by Berklee College of Music, Heavy Rotation Records (HRR), the Red Room at Cafe 939, and Vanyaland. To listen to all the participating bands, fire up our Soundcloud playlist at the bottom of this post, and if you’re not headed to NYC for CMJ, listen to the Boston & Beyond party Friday night on VanyaRadio.
“Boston and Beyond” CMJ Music Marathon Showcase
8:00 p.m.: Lili N
8:45 p.m.: Toy Cities
9:30 p.m.: mar | co
10:15 p.m.: Honeysuckle (HRR)
11:00 p.m.: Oh Malô (HRR)
11:45 pm.: You Bred Raptors?
12:30 a.m.: Eternals
Lili N: electronic pop, 8 p.m. set time
From our Single Premiere of “4U”, which ran earlier this month:
The best part about discovering new artists is the backstory. Or in many cases, the lack thereof. Italian electronic pop singer and current Berklee College of Music student LILI N certainly has an intriguing storyline, and an impressive one for her 20 years of age, but much of it has yet to cross over the Atlantic. That’s not a bad thing, because it allows ourselves to focus solely on the most important aspect of her budding career — her music.
We can go on to relay word of her 15-year career as a voice-over artist in Italy, supplying the Italian voice of Cindy Lou, Lilo, and Lucy in movies like The Grinch, Lilo & Stitch, and Narnia, respectively; or of her mother’s background as a successful opera singer; or of her youth spent watching movie musicals like Singing In the Rain, studying the likes of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and listening to Pedro Almodovar soundtracks.
Instead, we’ll focus on the now, and a pretty cool one at that: LILI N today has dropped her debut single, the seductive, magnetic “4U”, which we are excited to premiere on Vanyaland.
The backstory here helps paint the picture of the blossoming performer; “4U” is a deliberate, entrancing electro-pop track, both cinematic and stark with rhythmic patterns that tumble and turn, but it also allows LILI N to grow beyond her European origins and assuredly stake a voice in the world of alternative pop.
The appeal of “4U” was only part of the reason we extended LILI N a slot to perform at our CMJ Music Marathon showcase with Berklee on October 16 at Carroll Place in New York City. Any great film has a quality ending; but this story is fascinating right from the start.
Listen to each band and artist below, via this sharable playlist…