AM Aesthetic, In-Flight Safety, Worried Well, Skies

Recently named “Discovery of the Week” by Last.fm (March, 2014), alternative rock power trio, AMA, is made up of childhood friends Rob Suchecki and Patrick Raimondi, and RJ Dowhan. Rob and Pat started playing in bands together in rural Connecticut. Rob’s uncle had been giving him guitar lessons on a miniature acoustic since he was 8 and Patrick had discovered his dad’s 50’s Epiphone guitar. Patrick gravitated towards the bass and, with a mutual love of punk, blues and alternative rock borne from the likes Oasis, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and Nirvana, he and Rob spent the next ten years performing countless shows in grimy bars they were far too young to be in.

After writing and recording their first EP as AM Aesthetic in 2009, “(AM)bivalence”, they began to scour the internet looking for a drummer. Fellow Connecticut native RJ Dowhan perfectly filled the bill. RJ caught the music bug from his two older brothers, one of whom played the drums. Being that the drum kit was set up lefty, RJ learned to play it as such, despite being right-handed. AM Aesthetic came to NYC, and 2012 saw them recording their second EP “Waiting in the Wings.” Their top-flight musicianship (Rob’s credits include guitars on Beyonce’s latest “Best Thing I Never Had”) and their energetic and fun live shows drew the attention of BHiMG.

Two singles and video pre-releases were announced to local press (“We Caught Fire” November 2013 and “The End” March 2014) and garnered fan and industry attention. Under BHiMG and distributed through Caroline, the singles will be re-released, along with focus single, “I Can Tell”. Rob (a pro, independent engineer hired by Sony, Universal, Interscope, RCA, et.al. for their premiere artists), tracked the record, drums were recorded at Mission Sounds (Oliver Strauss), and mixed/mastered by fellow engineer Jeremy Cimino (Pharrell Williams, Mariah Carey, et.al.). The album was co-produced by the band under the guidance of their label, BHi Music Group. Also, AM Aesthetic has two tracks featured as focus singles on a singles compilation of emerging bands from New York called “From The Rabbit Hole” which is available digitally and on vinyl (October, 2014).

AMA recently performed in three CMJ 2014 Week showcases, “The Red Door” and “The Climax Showcase,” (The Cutting Room, with Fenech Soler, Fifth of Bourbon, Stone Foxes, Jon and the Jones)., and AMA’s “We Caught Fire” has secured a sync placement and the closing title of an upcoming full-length feature film, “Love Addict,” a romantic comedy.


Halifax, Nova Scotia is a coastal city – a Canadian indie music hub since the 1990's, nestled among ragged shorelines of the Atlantic Ocean. From this home base, In-Flight Safety has been crafting thoughtful, melodic indie rock that's made its way across North America and Europe.

There's been a lot of praise and accolades over the years, from television placements to awards, but the band still had growing to do. From The Coast is Clear (2006) to We Are an Empire, My Dear (2009), In-Flight Safety was building a solid fan-base in North America, the UK and Germany. Whether it was a performance on BBC Radio in London or a SXSW showcase, the band was outwardly focused during those years, playing copious shows and making new music for their fans.

Pre-2011 In-Flight Safety was by all accounts an extrovert. In 2011, the gears shifted. John Mullane (Vocals/guitars) spent time scoring films and Glen Nicholson (Drums) went to school to study architecture. At a glance the band had a record's worth of new material ready to go. "At the end of 2011, I listened all our demos but all I saw was trees. No forest. I called Glen and was totally honest. To me, that's when we started working on the album – during that conversation," says Mullane.

From this introspection, confidence and maturity, Mullane and Nicholson came together to construct Conversationalist. It was built, literally and figuratively, on the backs of thousands of conversations between Mullane and Nicholson. Inspired by contemporary bands like Wild Nothing, The Walkmen and DIIV, In-Flight Safety created an album that is true to their history, but their most adventurous and honest. "There's a celebratory feeling in the new songs. If we have a playful side, it's on this album," says Mullane.

The ten tracks on Conversationalist balance the light and the dark that is In-Flight Safety. You've got guitar hooks that will get stuck in your head and make you want to dance all night, but the imagery is more mysterious. It can be raw and haunting, but always uplifting with rich, thoughtful production that's anything but indie. Mixed by Gus van Go (The Stills, Hollerado) in Brooklyn NY, Conversationalist is crafted with meticulous attention to detail. There's beauty in opposites and this record is both pragmatic and ethereal, it builds and burns, leaving you wanting more. It's a love letter and a breakup in one album.

But even introverts need to get out. Conversationalist will be released late summer 2014 (tour dates to follow) and In-Flight Safety will head out on the road, crossing oceans and continents. It feels good to talk.


You get to a point when it's not about anything at all other than expressing yourself in the most honest and natural way possible. This is what seasoned songwriter Daniel James has accomplished with Worried Well. By scaling back the traditional rock instrumentation, James has made the focus of Worried Well rely solely upon the message and the tense feel of his desperate and poetic songwriting. In just two short years, James and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Cam Jones have turned their two-man band into a New England indie staple by developing a following, headlining club shows, and performing with such acts as Murder By Death, The Gay Blades, and the Gin Blossoms. A well received self-titled record was released in late 2011. James recorded the record himself to set the raw, organic tone that the band has become known for. 2012 saw the band working with producer TJ Swan (Starfight studio) and veteran recording engineer Dean Baltulonis (The Hold Steady, Ra Ra Riot, Piebald) at The Wild Arctic studio to produce a full length record with more instrumentation to produce a fuller, more developed sound. The product of months of pre-production and weeks of studio time, "Luck" was released May 7th, 2013.

Worried Well continues to perform in New England and beyond, all the while gaining new fans with their desperate and poetic approach to a sound that is scathingly articulate and delivered with sincere honesty.


Band names are tough to come by, so we decided on Skies. They’re up there after all… Skies is comprised of Tyler Fortney on bass, Josh Renkow on drums and some singing, and Ryan Weitzel on vocals and guitar. While the members of Skies live in various parts of New York City the band lives at a small rehearsal space in Gowanus, Brooklyn. It’s like having a basement or garage but on the second floor and close to various undesirable municipal storage spaces and transfer stations - so perfect for being loud. Oh by the way… Skies is a rock band that’s sometimes loud, sometimes quiet, sometimes clean, often times fuzzy. Skies is three people coming together and tossing individual influences into the sonic sphere.