NYC Scene Report – Blake Morgan, Pretty Sick, Baby Got Back Talk

This week’s NYC Scene Report features Blake Morgan giving us a behind the scenes look at his “Violent Delights,” Pretty Sick taking us to “Heaven,” and Baby Got Back Talk with a “Season Premiere.”

* NYC-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Blake Morgan released an album of the year candidate back in May with Violent Delights, and now with the video for the title track he’s giving listeners what he describes as “a fly-on-the-wall inside-look at the making of the record.”

Shot entirely at The Bunker Studio in Brooklyn, the black and white video reunites Morgan with director Alice Teeple.

“This is the fourth music video I’ve made with Alice,” he says of “Violent Delights,” “and I so love working with her. We’ve watched a lot of the same old movies, she and I, and these videos reflect that – they’ve created a ‘pop-rock noir’ world for the music on this new record.”

Click play to enter that world, and experience Morgan’s “Violent Delights.”

* I’ve been writing about Pretty Sick since first discovering the Sabrina Fuentes led band back in 2020, and last week they finally released their full length debut album, Makes Me Sick Makes Me Smile, via Dirty Hit.

Fuentes was a lifelong New Yorker until recently uprooting, and moving to London. Now with two home bases, and a new album out, Pretty Sick will be touring the UK supporting beabadoobee October 4th through 19th, followed by a trip to the States for a run of dates from October 24th through November 21st, closing things out with a hometown show at Bowery Ballroom.

The band recently released a single titled “Heaven,” which is replete with ‘90s grunge, and alternative vibes. For me, that makes it a true slice of Heaven! Check it out!

* Pop punk isn’t dead. In fact, if you’re Baby Got Back Talk you just debuted the “Season Premiere.” “Season Premiere” being the latest single off the band’s recently released EP Existential Shred (Wiretap Records).

Discussing the band’s ideology in a statement, the group said, “We’re what punk looks like in the 2020s: driven by a DIY ethic, conversant with social issues – especially as they pertain to gender, and race – enabled by inter-web, bankrolled by day jobs, powered by a rad likeminded community, resonant with the most venerable iterations of rock ‘n’ roll, but firmly committed to injecting some new flavor into the mold.”

I think that description is missing one thing – their music sounds f*cking awesome! Hear for yourself by clicking play on “Season Premiere.”

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