Apollo Heights

Much like their previous band, the Veldt, in Apollo Heights Daniel and Danny Chavis fuse soul, dream pop, and psychedelic rock into Afrogaze, an intense, hypnotic sound that owes as much to Curtis Mayfield and Jimi Hendrix as it does to A.R. Kane and Spiritualized. After the Veldt disbanded, the Chavis brothers moved from Raleigh, NC, to New York City's Lower East Side, forming Apollo Heights in 2002. The earliest version of the band featured just the duo and a drum machine, but after many additions and subtractions to its lineup, the group eventually included guitarists Honeychild Coleman and Monk Washington, bassist/programmer Hayato Nakao, drummer Martin Levi, and percussionist Shawn Banks. The band worked with Cocteau Twins producer Robin Guthrie on its Amoeba EP, and with David Andrew Sitek and the rest of TV on the Radio, Lady Miss Kier, and Mos Def on its debut album, White Music for Black People, which Manimal Vinyl released in 2007. The Disco Lights and Babytalkk EPs followed, as did an appearance on the Madonna tribute Through the Wilderness, which featured Apollo Heights' version of "Dress You Up."