NYC Scene Report – Asha Maclean, Back From Zero, & Oceanator

This week’s NYC Scene Report features Asha Maclean celebrating Valentine’s Day in the middle of the summer, Back From Zero staying on their “Grind,” and Oceanator with a song to help us “Drift Away.”

* When can you celebrate Valentine’s Day in the middle of the summer? If you’re Asha Maclean, it’s when you find your “Forever Valentine.”

A triumphant return for one of NYC’s burgeoning pop queens, “Forever Valentine” is modern pop tinged with ‘90s R&B, and with Maclean’s vocals being one part Ariana Grande, one part JoJo, the song is an absolute winner.

Personally, I’d been waiting for something new from Maclean, and wondering what she’d been up to since I first wrote about her here in back 2022. With “Forever Valentine” being a song I’ve been hitting replay on, I can’t wait to hear what else she’s been working on.

Check out the video for “Forever Valentine,” which has choreography that’s a nice throwback to the Britney and Christina era of pop, and welcome Asha Maclean back into your playlists.

* Moving from a pop fave, to a hard rock fave, Back From Zero have released a video for their latest single, “Grind.”

Off their new EP, Five, from the insane vocals of Dean Bonsignore, to the powerful guitar work of Austin Collins, “Grind” is a song you need to crank up to eleven.

Earlier this year I spoke with Back From Zero about the five years it took them to get to Five, and during that conversation Collins’ described the music of Five as “driving rock n roll … like a Guns N’ Roses type of vibe. Dirty rock n roll. Like, yeah, we’re a rock band.”

That description certainly applies to “Grind.” Check out the John LaMacchia directed video for the song, and play it loud enough for all your neighbors to hear.

* Staying in rock, but making things significantly sludgier, closing things out this week is Oceanator’s “Drift Away.”

“Drift Away” is off Oceanator’s third full-length album, Everything is Love and Death, which is due out this Friday via Polyvinyl Records.

Discussing the song in a statement, Oceanator said, “I kind of see this song as like the anchor song of the record, not necessarily in terms of tone, but in terms of vibe. The video was all shot when we went to do the album cover photo shoot, and I wanted it to just be a kind of drifting, unsure, nebulous sort of thing. The ‘leapt from a sinking ship to a crumbling pier’ line was in there early on, and kind of sums up the feeling of leaving one unsure and tenuous situation for another.”

She continued, adding, “Since I wanted to do kind of just like a talking drone-y thing for myself the whole time, I thought it would be cool to have a guest vocalist on there. NNAMDÏ absolutely killed it. I am so pleased with what he did on the track and I think it really brings it into an even spookier world.”

Spooky, and really f*cking cool.

Check out they heavy, sludgy, spooky “Drift Away.”

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