Glasslands
New York City
Words by Cameron Cook
Photos & Video Stills by Dana Goldstein

With two sold-out EPs, a forthcoming album, and only about 10 live shows under their belts, Salem have already poised themselves to be one of the breakout bands of 2010. Around this time last year, I would bump their first release Yes, I Smoke Crack  through my headphones while walking down wintry New York City streets and watch them melt away into an eerie goo of piercing beats and buzzing, ethereal synthesizers. As much as I would like to say that the band’s set at Williamsburg art space/bar/live music venue/bunker Glasslands rivaled the experience of waltzing through the desolate streets of Brooklyn playing their record, it lacked a certain technicality, a certain urgent vibe that is completely present in Salem’s recorded work. Not to say it was all (if at all) the band’s fault—as much as I’d like to support Glasslands, guys, mics are made for projecting vocals, and while you’re at it, perhaps you’d like to jot down the capacity of your venue so you don’t oversell it all the time?

In any case, what the set lacked in sound quality it made up for in sheer ingenuity. Salem take juke (a kind of ‘90s ghetto house music originating in Chicago), goth and electro, and Vulcan mind-meld them into a pungent froth, a genre unto itself. Ghetto-goth? Synth-juke? Dark-gaze? “It is hard to remember”, croons sometimes-singer Heather Marlatt (all the band members constantly trade instruments and vocal duties) on Salem’s best track, “Redlights”, and it’s true: Salem’s songs have a tendency to fold into each other, using their sonic similarities as camouflage, and become one big, pulsating, heaving beast, giving side-eye from the shadows.

Salem’s aesthetic takes yet another turn with long-haired member Jack Donoghue, who provides a stark contrast to Heather’s more washed out, etheral vocals. Jack’s songs are much more hip hop influenced, featuring down-tempo rapping and heavier, bassier beats, as if Gucci Mane decided that his next mixtape should only feature Cocteau Twins samples.

Salem have a ways to go, but if their cards are played correctly (and they start playing proper venues), by this time next year they could be on the top of an entirely new scene. And if the scores of goth and darkwave parties currently cropping up all over our fine city are anything to go by, it’s a concrete possibility.