NYC Scene Report – Celeste Krishna, Johnny Burgos, & Don’t Believe In Ghosts

This week’s NYC Scene Report features Celeste Krishna feeling like a “Living Rockstar,” Johnny Burgos being “Tired of Missing You,” and Don’t Believe In Ghosts trying to get you “Outta Your Head.”

* Celeste Krishna released her sixth studio album, The New Room last month, and it includes the standout single “Living Rockstar.”

The song, as well as the absolutely wild accompanying video, and album as a whole, represent a major life change for the Brooklyn, by way of Alabama, singer-songwriter. Namely, she became a mother.

The New Room, as a title, serves as a metaphor for new life, and represents the addition built onto her grandmother’s house in Tuscaloosa in 1967 that is still referred to as “the new room.”

Celeste explained how that room influenced the album, saying, “The new room was basically the party room for my mom and aunts coming of age in the late ‘60s, and early ‘70s. I decided to restrict production to the technology and workflows of that era, and basically make a rock ’n’ soul album my family would dig.”

Based on the phenomenal “Living Rockstar,” her family won’t be the only ones digging the project. Celeste is going to have add a much bigger addition to that house to hold the audience for The New Room.

* Johnny Burgos is readying the release of his upcoming album, A Long Short Story, and with each new single the anticipation for what may very well be a soul classic grows.

The latest offering from the album is “Tired of Missing You,” a retro soul song of longing.

The ballad was produced by Jeremy Page, and with lyrics like “The smell you left on my pillow / keeps me in a spell,” in a previous era it would’ve been on countless mixtapes sent to girlfriends.

Johnny Burgos is an old soul, and even if you aren’t missing someone at the moment, “Tired of Missing You” could easily have you dreaming of the past … a past that involved mixtapes.

* Longtime column favorites, and one of NYC’s preeminent pop-rock bands, Don’t Believe In Ghosts, will be releasing their next full-length album, titled But On The Bright Side, this Friday, and it includes the motivational single “Outta Your Head.”

In an email to fans, the band said of the song, “‘Outta Your Head’ is out now — a song about breaking the mental patterns that hold us back, and finding the courage to move forward.”

Positivity in the face of life’s many hurdles is an overarching theme for much of Don’t Believe In Ghosts’ work, and the soundtrack they back it with provides the good vibes necessary to get in that mental state.

So click play, and get outta your head, and into a better mental space.

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