Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Rock music is thriving in at least one part of New York: Broadway. Stereophonic has just won this year’s Tony award for best play with its tale of a Fleetwood Mac-style band recording an album in the 1970s. The Who’s rock opera Tommy is also being staged. Elsewhere, however, the city of The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, Patti Smith and The Strokes has grown less amenable to rock. There are stubborn signs of life — Parquet Courts kept the flame going in the 2010s, while Geese and Nation of Language are a more recent pair of notables — but the climate has grown harsher. London has a similar problem. Bands are being priced out by soaring rents, venues are under threat, rehearsal spaces and studios are hard to obtain.The title of Been Stellar’s debut album, Scream from New York, NY, conveys desperation, like an Edvard Munch painting of rock musicians on Brooklyn Bridge clutching their open-mouthed faces as they shriek despairingly. But that does not come across in the five-piece’s music, which mostly thrums and pulses with an appealing vitality. The opening song, “Start Again”, sets out their stall with a nod to downtown luminaries Sonic Youth. Drummer Laila Wayans and bassist Nico Brunstein set off at a gallop amid trails of distortion from guitarists Skyler Knapp and Nando Dale. “New York is wasted, start again,” singer Sam Slocum cries. In the title track, he has an apocalyptic vision of a moment of destruction in the city. “And I don’t know what this started,” he drawls.Self-consciousness is a danger here, inflamed by pressure to conform to stereotypical expectations of a New York band. Produced by Dan Carey, a powerbroker in London’s current rock scene, and released by London label Dirty Hit, the album has been shaped by outside forces. But Been Stellar do not sound in thrall to exportable notions of NYC rock heritage. Although their debut runs out of steam with the slumberous shoegaze of “Takedown”, its best tracks have the roar and momentum of a young band achieving ignition.★★★☆☆‘Scream from New York, NY’ is released by Dirty Hit
