GIFT, Archer Oh, Toadmortons

GIFTSpotify | Instagram | YoutubeSHARE THE PRESENT Every moment is a gift. Each moment has richness, complexity, and singularity. Once it’s gone, it can’t be recaptured. Can you be present? Can you open yourself up and appreciate it in its fullness — the ugliness and confusion as well as the beauty and joy? The members of the Brooklyn, NY psychedelic rock quintet GIFT believe you can. Momentary Presence, their debut set, is a chronicle of that chase, and a celebration of the eternal now. Those teachings, drawn from Be Here Now, the 1971 spiritual guide and counterculture landmark by guru Ram Dass, feel particularly relevant in 2022. GIFT bandleader TJ Freda, applied those lessons to his own search for peace. He’s discovered transcendence through music: he and his bandmates Jessica Gurewitz, Kallan Campbell, Justin Hrabovsky, and Cooper Naess have a knack for conjuring soundscapes that are simultaneously turbulent and gorgeous. Right in the middle of those mixes you’ll find Freda himself, commanding the storm, lighting lamps in the midst of turmoil, singing about psychic destabilization and the quest for balance, in a voice that feels like a caress. GIFT’s debut LP Momentary Presence is a natural match for the new label co-founded by Oliver Ackermann of New York City noise-rock and psychedelic legends A Place to Bury Strangers and Death by Audio. Archer OhInstagram | SpotifyArcher Oh is an Indie Garage Rock band from Moreno Valley, CA comprised of vocalist/guitarist Arturo “Archer” Medrano, drummer Pedro Hernandez, lead guitarist Diego Jacuinde, and bassist Juan Cabrera. Humbly beginning in 2015, the band played shows in friends yards, pools, and backyards gradually amassing a cult following that has stuck by through the years and watched climb to their current peak.