NYC Scene Report – mmeadows, SKORTS, & Dirt Buyer

This week’s NYC Scene Report features mmeadows “Weaving” their return, SKORTS feeling Incompletement (their own word!), and Dirt Buyer placing a bet.

* I’ve been ecstatic over the return of the mmeadows. The duo’s Light Moves Around You was one of my favorite albums of 2023, and we did a fantastic Stacking The Deck interview that year, as well.

Their latest single is the dreamy “Weaving,” and once again the team of Kristin Slipp and Cole Kamen-Green have created an ethereal gem.

According to an Instagram post, filming the video for “Weaving” required some weaving of their own, to avoid the authorities. The band wrote, “We pulled an overnight shift in this basement practice room – had to dodge security a couple times.”

What I need to know is where they found the badass old school TV/VCR combos. I’ve been looking for one of those!

* NYC-based rockers SKORTS are feeling incompletement. What on earth does that mean? Glad you asked.

Incompletement is the title of the band’s debut album, which is due out this Friday, and the word is one the band created.

“To us, it means allowing oneself to live and create in an ever-changing state of impermanence,” they relayed in a statement.

One of the recently released singles from the album is “Burden,” which the band’s Char Smith says had been a long time coming. “A song from the VERY early days that fell out of our live rotation for a while and almost got completely swept under the rug but our producer, Teddy O’Mara, wanted to bring it back, it was one of the two original demos we released to SoundCloud (‘Cyclops Girlfriend’ being the other). There is a video of us playing it in its original form somewhere, but the groove and structure really got refined in the studio. Alli (Walls) recorded the main guitar riff on my ‘69 Gibson SG Special.”

Check out the black and white video for “Burden,” and feel the raw power of SKORTS.

* Dirt Buyer is placing a bet, and he “Betchu Won’t.”

“Betchu Won’t” is the title of his latest single, and he says it comes from a difficult place. “I wrote the lyrics after the music when I was initially demoing the song, and they obviously come from a place of hurt. I feel like the words are very specific to my situation, but can be interpreted in a number of ways, and are applicable to all kinds of people.”

Clocking in at just over two minutes, the heartfelt confessional is a beautiful, somber tune, and is proof that something deeply personal, can also be completely relatable.

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