Exclusive Album Premiere: Gramercy Arms' Deleted Scenes - Stereo Embers Magazine Stereo Embers Magazine

Stereo Embers favorite Gramercy Arms are set to release a new album this week (March 3) on the Magic Door Record Label.

Titled Deleted Scenes, the album is the indie rock collective’s third album overall and it’s nothing short of a dazzling collaborative effort. Powered by the band’s braintrust Dave Derby (The Dambuilders, Lloyd Cole) it features Lloyd Cole, Kevin March (Guided by Voices, The Dambuilders, Shudder to Think), Doug Gillard (Guided by Voices, Nada Surf), Sean Eden (Luna), Rainy Orteca (Joan As Police Woman), Mark Lizotte (Diesel), Rafa Maciejak (Lloyd Cole and the Negatives), Phoebe Summersquash (Small Factory), Lysa Opfer (Aeon Station), Kendall Meade (Mascott), Verena Wiesendanger (Semi Gloss), John Leon (Royal Arctic Institute), Hilken Mancini (Fuzzy), Richard Alwyn-Fisher (King Canutes), Mike Errico, Steve Hurley (Gigolo Aunts) and Carl Baggaley (Elk City, Royal Arctic Institute).

From the crooning and buoyant indie pop of “Tricky Love Stuff” to the percussive and achingly windswept “Yesterday’s Girl,” Deleted Scenes is a love letter to the sounds of New York over the last several decades. Filled with streetwise poetry, romantic ballads, and stone-cold pop classics, Deleted Scenes is one of the most satisfying listens of 2023 and an early entry for one of the year’s very best.

“Every step of this record has been about collaboration,” Derby says. “Before we started, Ray Ketchem and I documented our vision for how the record should be. We wanted it to be simple, melodic, powerful and beautifully recorded. We were almost finished with the record and then COVID happened and we had to cancel what were initially intended to be the final sessions of making the album. During the pandemic, when the entire world seemed to go on break, we reached out to friends like Mike Errico, John Leon (Royal Arctic Institute, Roky Erickson), Stephen Hurley (Gigolo Aunts) and Mark Lizotte (Diesel), who were able to contribute remotely. Their contributions really transformed the record.”