NYC Scene Report – Dirt Buyer, Vitesse X, & Grace Annabella Anderson

This week’s NYC Scene Report features Dirt Buyer getting to choose, Vitesse X being inspired by David Lynch, and Grace Annabella Anderson turning herself into “Art, Baby.”

* Dirt Buyer, which is the project of Brooklyn-based artist Joe Sutkowski, is readying their upcoming album, Dirt Buyer III, due out February 6th via Bayonet Records, and the latest single is an excellent choice.

Titled, “Get To Choose,” Sutkowski explained the inspiration for the indie rock song in a statement, saying, “This song is about feeling very alone in a situation I didn’t want to be in, but not knowing how to communicate that. It’s like being really, really tiny and screaming, but you’re too small, and nobody can hear you.”

I’ve felt like that a lot this year – because even when you have support, you can still feel alone when the situation is simply too big – so this one really resonates with me.

The video for “Get To Choose” was shot at Dirt Buyer’s show at Substance Skate Park in Brooklyn, and you can check it out right here.

* New York electronic music artist Vitesse X recently felt a connection to the afterlife, and it inspired her latest single, “Memori.”

Discussing how “Memori” came together, she said, “I spent the past year listening to near-death experience stories, which renewed my belief in an afterlife. When David Lynch passed, I joined a group meditation in his honor, and felt the veil between worlds thinning. What once terrified me shifted into awe. These lyrics grew from that moment, and from Lynch’s ideas about transcendence, and the ocean of consciousness.”

With ethereal vocals over a very alive beat, “Memori” manages to have one foot in the hereafter, and one foot in the present, and by being otherworldly, and firmly of this world, Vitesse X shows how close those dimensions really are.

* After making her column debut last month, Grace Annabella Anderson is back, and she’s “Art, Baby.”

“Art, Baby” is the title track of her upcoming debut album, which will be released on February 6th.

Explaining the inspiration for the song in a statement, Grace said, “In the aftermath of a falling out, it began to make sense to me why I so often felt like a mannequin, a sounding board for the words and ideas of another to echo off, all the while he fell in love not with me, but with himself. Breaking off gave me the freedom and the fuel to return to my own creative expression and use my songwriting as a means of liberation, and that’s exactly what ‘Art, Baby’ is.”

Personally, I love the lines, “You call me predictable / I don’t call you at all for weeks / but I keep taking aim at you with my lyrics / do they still stink?” I feel like it’s a wonderful, artistic clap back, and it makes me want to hear more from Grace Annabella Anderson.

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