NYC Scene Report – DeMille, Holy Golden, & more

This week’s NYC Scene Report features a soulful entry from DeMille, dream-pop duo Holy Golden reinventing the “Wheel,” Paul & The Tall Trees making like Clarissa and explaining it all, and Brooklyn-based rockers Dirty Fences placing a few calls to “911.”

* DeMille is the NYC-based brainchild of Rachel Altounian, who describes herself as a back-of-the-lounge soul singer/songwriter. After one listen to DeMille’s latest single, “You’ve Been Found,” I describe her as the kind of singer who can set the mood for the night, play with your emotions, and leave you wanting more.

“You’ve Been Found” is off DeMille’s upcoming album, titled Go!, which is due out October 26th. The song reportedly took shape over the course of several years, and was originally inspired by a high school journal entry of Altounian’s. The album, on the other hand, had to be recorded within a much shorter timeframe – five days, to be exact. That’s all the time the band had for studio access, and they made it happen.

Check out “You’ve Been Found,” and take some joy in finding DeMille. I know I’m happy I found them!


* It’s time for some “Wheel of Fortune.” No, Pat Sajak and Vanna White aren’t making an appearance in this column, but Holy Golden have made a few appearances here, and they’re back once again with the video for their latest single, “Wheel of Fortune.”

The song is off the dream-pop duo’s upcoming album, Sleepwalkers In The Milky Way
, which will be released on October 26th via Wallflower Records.

The Brooklyn-based twosome will be touring throughout the fall in support of the album, and are also hoping to find time to start filming a feature-length movie. If the film is anything like the video for “Wheel of Fortune” it’s going to be a strange, wondrous, colorful gem.


* When I checked out Paul & The Tall Trees’ latest single, “I Explained It All,” I have to admit I was really confused. The song is excellent, but I remembered Paul & The Tall Trees as a male solo act. Apparently I was wrong. So very very wrong, as “I Explained It All” features a female lead who has beautiful, soft vocals.

The song is apparently an early track from the band, and Paul explained the circumstances surrounding its creation, saying, “The new year approaching. Saturday we’d have a Paul & The Tall Trees family get together. Write music. It was dark and damp down there. Smokey. Windows the size of shoe boxes. The old 64 Rocket was hot. Pop bought a Rickenbacker.”

OK, so maybe that doesn’t explain it all – or much of anything, for that matter – but check out “I Explained It All.” The song may have caught me by surprise, but it’s a welcome one.


* NYC rockers Dirty Fences have been placing calls to “911.” No, it isn’t because shorty fire burnin’ on the dance floor. “911” is the latest single from the band, and the video for it is a crazy clip that features humor, gore, and a disturbed 911 dispatcher.

The song is off Dirty Fences’ third LP, Goodbye Love, which was released in 2017, and the band has been touring in support of for the past year. If you missed them when they were in your town, don’t worry, they’ll be hitting the road again, this time with Shannon and The Clams, from October 30th through November 8th. Well … as long as they don’t have to call “911.”


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