Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
There were times in this performance where keyboard and second guitar were both abandoned for the sake of emphasis on vocals, and this was accomplished with both melodic dignity and passionate deliverance... - Lab Productions
Equally confusing and delighting audiences, the band’s grand arrangements, varying dynamics, and experimental mentality set them apart from much of contemporary indie rock. The accomplished technique and musical complexity allow ample opportunity for those interested in dissecting and deconstructing the sounds, but it seems most appropriate to allow Purchase New York to simply encompass them and take them away. - Feedback Magazine
Purchase New York, though, seem to have pulled off the seemingly impossible and incorporated both the post-rock guitar dirges and wispy in-betweens with the emotional melodramatics of bands like Doves and Muse. It seems like an odd combination, but in this Austin, Texas-based band’s capable hands, some spellbinding moments occur. The first indication is “Nine Mile Drag,” with the clear, earnest vocals over a reverb drenched haze, but also incorporating that Mogwai lucidity to the wavering guitar lines. The best - and longest - track is “...Amelia Earhart” where the band goes for broke and throws everything into the pot. Sure, the song might work better broken into different parts, but it would lose its manic energy with those glorious cacophonies, falsetto yelps, and intricate stop-starts that easily convince that this band just slays live. - Exclaim!
Local quartet’s densely layered reveries, reminiscent of Radiohead, Sigur Rós, and Spaceman 3,make In Vitro’s titular womb reference hardly a coincidence. Total-immersion rock. - Austin Chronicle
Purchase New York begins a slow swirl of scintilating but gentle guitar melodies to presage its own thunder of guitar crunch like a rising eddy of air indicated by lifted leaves announces a summer storm. - Skratch Magazine
Building from the opening built on lonely rumbles and a gloomy organ drone to peaks of emotive vocal melodies, Austin-based Purchase New York has crafted an impressive blend of instrumental rock experimentation and intermittent pop melodic immediacy on their debut full-lenth in vitro veritas. The record is a progression of sonic moments collected in a series of songs with interludes of ambient experimentation. The lead single “Don’t Let Us Die in Texas” is likely the best encapsulation of the album’s sound as a whole. Frontman Stephen Khoury’s vocal range is on display on this track as he moves from the opening low drones to a wailing chorus through a series of growls. Instrumentally, the transition from the haunting, ambient opening to the more traditional rock climax is also representative. This recording successfully captures the sound of a band that has been one of the more interesting live acts on the Austin scene for the last year. - Study Breaks Magazine
[T]heir controlled energy was palpable. The band sports three guitarists, including singer Stephen Khoury; theirs is a lush and nuanced sound. Khoury’s strong voice is reminiscent of Coldplay’s Chris Martin or Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. - Austin American-Statesman
Discography
in vitro veritas - LP April 2005
KVRX Local Live - EP 2004 - Installment of popular Austin performance series
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Waves of melody approach, swelling with drone, as harmonies fight to stay afloat in the tension of shifting, crashing compositions. Songwriters Loren Dent and Stephen Khoury construct their sonic images in web upon web of textural effects and abandoned lyrical melodies. Matt Okatys precisely bouncing basslines, Tommy Lucass full, crushing drumbeats, and Brandon Turners fiery guitar leads complete the package, resulting in grand, engulfing textural soundscapes punctuated by Khourys plaintive vocals. These five Austinites have devoted 2004 to developing a reputation for their overwhelming live performances and to refining their epic debut LP, in vitro veritas, released in late April 2005.
THE SOUND
The music of Purchase New York spans the typical gulf between instrumental bands and traditional rock bands with vocals. Although Stephen Khourys vocals provide important melodic elements, they rarely supercede the rest of the instruments, but rather serve as just another instrument. Our songs are series of ideas and sonic moments, each able to stand on its own, but forming a cohesive whole when presented as a progression of movements, primary songwriter and frontman Stephen Khoury says. As a result, Purchase New York are often compared to instrumental bands such as Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed! You Black Emperor. However, their genuine rock intensity has also earned them comparisons to bands such as Led Zeppelin and to other bands that have often embraced similar contradictions such as Pink Floyd and Radiohead. Purchase New Yorks songs are composed of intertwining threads of subtlely crafted instants. The traditional rock song structure doesnt interest us. Were pushing the compositional and tonal boundaries of those traditions, allowing our inspirations to come from other musical areas, multi-instrumentalist Dent says.
THE SHOWS
A live Purchase New York show is no shoe-gazing experience. The live shows give us an opportunity to try new things. My primary concern is not to stand still musically, and the live performance can be an incubator and testing ground for new ideas, says bassist Matt Okaty. With their live experience, Purchase New York wants to show people that this is more than elaborate headphone music, but rather a monumental rockshow experience. Its loud and involved, and the live shows should be heard and watched. You can dance; you can sit down; you can stare; you can do whatever youd like so long as you are ready to be transfixed by the music. Be careful, you might lose your mind.
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