NYC Scene Report – Cool Company, Aria Lisslo, & The Ritualists

This week’s NYC Scene Report features Cool Company “Feelin’ How I Should,” and that feelin’ is funky, Aria Lisslo longing for a “90’s Love,” and The Ritualists fighting “The Plastic Crusade.”

* Anytime I see a YouTube notification that there’s something new from NYC-based R&B duo Cool Company I know I’m about to hear something good.

Just recently that notification was for their new single, “Feelin’ How I Should,” and man oh man is it a funky good time.

Honestly, Cool Company might be the most appropriately named duo in music, as everything they do is just straight up cool, and this foray into the funky will have you movin’ and groovin’ before you even reach the chorus.

Click play, and get to feelin’ how you should to Cool Company’s “Feelin’ How I Should.”

* Going to as many shows as I do, sometimes I get a first listen to a song before it’s completed. That was the case back in February of 2023 when I saw indie pop artist Aria Lisslo at The Bowery Electric, and she performed a very early version of a song she said was titled “90’s Love.”

Roughly 20 months later the song is finally ready for listeners’ ears, and it now features ‘90s legend Imani Coppola!

On “90’s Love,” Lisslo yearns for a time before she was born, idealizing the pre-internet era (personally, having gone to high school and college during those years, I can say yes, they were awesome). Coppola adds a slightly different commentary, as she doesn’t share the rose colored glasses Lisslo is wearing (although her gripes aren’t nearly as bad as Lisslo’s issues with the present).

For the video, Lisslo pays homage to a different decade – the ‘60s, and Bob Dylan’s groundbreaking video for “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Shot in black and white, she stands on a New York City sidewalk, with lyrics on cue cards that she discards as the song moves forward.

I’ve been saying for the better part of two years that Aria Lisslo is a name you need to know. Click play on “90’s Love,” and you’ll understand why.

* Speaking of hearing new music by going to shows, NYC-based rockers The Ritualists have been performing new songs when they’ve been hitting the stage this year, and just recently they released one of those songs, “The Plastic Crusade,” as a single.

In the longstanding tradition of the band, “The Plastic Crusade” takes a biting look at society, while still being a good time musically thanks to their mix of goth, glam, and modern rock.

If their live shows are any indicator, this will be the first of many new songs from The Ritualists, who are primed to have a huge 2025.

So click play on “The Plastic Crusade,” and join The Ritualists in their fight against falseness, and then check out my Stacking The Deck interview with the band’s frontman, Christian Dryden (click here). It's a heck of a read!

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