NYC Scene Report – Danny Delavie, Yoke Lore, & more

This week’s NYC Scene Report features a dope hip-hop song from Danny Delavie, an indie pop jam from Yoke Lore, a delightfully strange video from dream pop / garage rock duo Holy Golden, and an indie folk-pop song from Olden Yolk.

* As someone who was listening to hip-hop in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and covered the underground scene through the first decade of the ‘00s, it takes a lot for a hip-hop song to grab me, but that’s exactly what Brooklyn-based hip-hop artist Danny Delavie has done with his latest single, “Break Interlude.”

The introspective song mixes hip-hop, R&B, rock, and pop, and the video for it is wild. Delavie explains the inspiration for the video, which features, animation by abstract stop motion artist Piripinghi, saying, “The idea for the video came from me once experiencing a pretty intense sleep paralysis. At the time, I was pretty stressed out in life, and I felt stuck. I definitely felt like I was holding myself back mentally. I knew it was a battle against me and my own mind, and that I had to overcome myself, and work hard to be where I want to be."

“Break Interlude” is off of Delavie’s High Tide EP, which was released last year, and you can check out the video right here.


* Yoke Lore is the nom de plume of NYC-based multi-instrumentalist, dancer, and visual artist Adrian Galvin, who is readying his third EP, Absolutes, for this summer.

Galvin, who some folks may remember from his time as a member of Walk the Moon, and Yellerkin, describes the inspiration for the upcoming EP, saying the songs all revolve around the struggle between two sides of something. “They are all the conflicts of absolutes,” he explains, “There must be a balance, some movement and some pull. A life of absolutes is no life at all.”

The first single off of Absolutes is “Fake You,” which is about breaking down walls. While the song is about breaking down emotional walls, the video takes a more literal route, breaking down the walls of the room in which he’s performing.

Check it out, and break down some walls with Yoke Lore.


* Over the past few weeks I’ve been pretty good about injecting a little bit of strangeness into the NYC Scene Report, and this week that strangeness is provided by Holy Golden.

Holy Golden is the NYC-based indie dream pop / garage rock duo of Leslie Schott and Andrew Valenti, who, according to their bio, began “crafting mythological mini-worlds into home-recorded albums, music videos, short films, and photo stories” after meeting during a lunar eclipse on Martha’s Vineyard.

One of those mythological mini-worlds is on display in Holy Golden’s video for their latest single, “Born Lonely.” The song is off of their recently released album, Otherworld, and the video is sort of like Alice in Wonderland meets indie pop, meets interpretive dance. If that description doesn’t make you want to click play, I don’t know what will.


* NYC-based indie folk-pop act Olden Yolk are currently on a North American tour that will continue through June 20th, and one of the songs you’ll likely hear if you catch them live is their latest single, “Gamblers On A Dime.”

Olden Yolk’s Shane Butler describes “Gamblers On A Dime,” saying, “The song is written from the perspective of one friend speaking to another who is at a point of desperation. Their conversation touches on the fragility of circumstance, and how one small move can either lead one to reclaim, or lose, themselves completely.”

“Gamblers On A Dime” is off of Olden Yolk’s self-titled debut album, which was released earlier this year, and you can check out the video for the song right here.


For more of the best of NYC’s indie music scene, come back next Wednesday, and check out the archives for previous columns.