NYC Scene Report – Alethea, Leah Voysey, & more

This week’s NYC Scene Report features Alethea being a “Free Falling Girl,” Leah Voysey covering Miley Cyrus’ latest, a touching tribute from Natalie Gelman, and Teen Body transporting us to a wild fantasy world with their video for “Act Yr Age.”

* Making her column debut this week is singer-songwriter Alethea, with her new single, “Free Falling Girl.”

Alethea is an NYC by way of everywhere artist, and when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere, as she grew up in Oregon before bouncing around to China, Germany, and Idaho (one of these things is not like the other, one of these things … you know the rest), before deciding to call Brooklyn home.

The video for “Free Falling Girl” has NYC’s Washington Square Park as the backdrop with Alethea making her way through the walkways, encountering teams of dancers, and sometimes becoming a part of their fantastic choreographed routines.

Alethea says the song is “about finding yourself in the world, and breaking free.” She’s certainly found her way into this column, and you can be sure you’ll see her here again soon.


* Frequent readers of this site are already familiar with up and coming singer-songwriter Leah Voysey. The Brooklyn by way Jersey artist has been featured in this column before, and also took part in a fun Stacking The Deck interview earlier this year. This week she’s back with an incredible cover of Miley Cyrus’ latest single, “Mother’s Daughter.”

An acoustic take on the girl power anthem, the vocal mix is gorgeous, and Voysey knows exactly how to use her voice to not only convey her own emotions, but to play with a listener’s emotions, as well.

Don’t worry Leah, we aren’t gonna f*ck with your freedom, we’re just gonna feature the heck out of your music. Cool?


* Very rarely does a song come along that can make you simultaneously smile and cry, but that’s exactly what Natalie Gelman has accomplished with her beautiful new single, “The Lights Upstairs.”

The NYC-based singer-songwriter explained the inspiration for the four minute tug on the heart, saying, “‘The Lights Upstairs’ is song I wrote for my mom as I started to see her going down the road with Alzheimers. I wanted to share something uplifting with the sentiment that the memories she was loosing wouldn't be lost forever because I would hold them in my heart. Hope this helps anyone else going through something similar.”

You may have to break out the Kleenex for this one, but it’s absolutely worth it, as “The Lights Upstairs” is a truly lovely song.


* Earlier this year Brooklyn-based indie dream-pop act Teen Body released their appropriately titled sophomore album, Dreamo, and the video for the latest single, “Act Yr Age,” is a colorful, magical, feast for the eyes.

An impressive, mind-bending, dark fantasy saga, I don’t know how many drugs I’d have to take to come up with some of the stuff they have in this video, but I’m thankful someone was up to the task!

Side note – I don’t know if anyone actually took any drugs when creating this video, but click play and I think you’ll understand where I get that idea from.


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