While all of my friends and usual NYC blog buddies are busy getting sun poisoning, heat stroke and hanging about in Austin, Texas, my pasty ass is still sitting right here in New York, jealous and ginger-y. I’m moping. Then, just a moment ago when I started to feel sorry for myself and began complaining aloud (ask my wife, I am the KING of Complaining), I noticed a hidden gem in my mailbox. So, I actually get to bring you news today: HOORAY!!!!

Uncles [MySpace] are from my neck of the woods (read: they didn’t move to Williamsburg, Bushwick or any hip area in Brooklyn for the sake of saying they live there. They live in Woodside, Queens!) and once I saw that, I knew that this was a match made in Heaven. While I might not be “a nice young lady with journalistic aspirations and big blue eyes” like they requested on their MySpace page, I do know when I like someone’s sound and as a result, I really like Uncles.

Their debut album, due April 22, is called Replacing Words with Other Words and we’ve got two gnarly tracks for you to dig into: “Settler’s Song” and “Where Does It Sleep”, both of which sound equally like Country Western forefathers (Hank Williams, Merle Haggard) hopped into bed with some of my favorite ’90s indie rock bands (The Pixies, Pavements, etc).

Check out more Uncles “after the jump”

[mp3] Uncles – “Where Does It Sleep”
[mp3] Uncles – “Settler’s Song”

Biography

Uncles is a collaboration between Dan Bateman and Will Schwartz, two Queens-based songwriters who grew up together in Yonkers, NY. They utilize a rotating ensemble to back their songs which includes a double bassist, violin, pianists, and drummers.

They both had unique introductions into music. As a child, Danny would go down to his family’s acreage outside of Birmingham, where his Alabaman grandfather sang to him as a child (which is why he has a southern accent that is only present when he sings). He would come back to Yonkers to teach the songs to Schwartz, and by middle-school and early high-school, they started finding band members among regulars at the open-mic clubs in Manhattan.

They played their first shows as a band when they were 16 at the staff room of the bar the Yonkers Raceway, where they both worked as bar-backs. After positive reviews from coworkers, they soon took their act to New York City, where they both eventually attended college.

As time went on they drew from more sources for inspiration, like classic 90′s indie rock by Pavement, Guided By Voices, and The Pixies, and C&W singers like Hank Williams, George Jones, and Townes Van Zandt.

By adulthood, they each evolved into ecclectic and unique musical and compositional voices, gaining popularity in New York indie-rock and folk shows, and at Wesleyan, Bard, and Vassar colleges.

About their Album

Their album, Replacing Words with Other Words, is the last stage of a 2 year process of writing, recording, and subsequently scrapping original material. The ten songs on the record that remain take you from story to story; each is a lyrical microcosm with its own unique characters. There’s a lot of sex on the record, some urban grit, a fair share of plaintive mid-western balladeering, tales of nursing-home dimentia, and plenty of violence, too.

It’s a musically diverse album, with different members of the Ensemble of Uncles bringing their training from free jazz, classical, and folk idioms to support the songs. This is their first release.

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