The story of how we came to know and subsequently love New York City’s odd-pop duo MS MR is a bit strange and a script-ready coincidence.
Last spring, I was living in New York City as a regional representative during the height of the KONY 2012 madness (y’all remember that?). When I wasn’t answering thousands of e-mails or hanging out with our incredible supporters in the city, my co-worker and I would hit up every interesting concert we could find. At almost every gig, I would see this bubbly girl dancing away. The color of her hair always varied, but her infectious energy was always present. She was the type of woman you wanted to go to a concert with because you knew you’d have the best night of your life.
Exactly during this time that I kept seeing mystery-energy-girl in New York City, I was getting hit up by multiple friends that I needed to start listening to this new band MS MR and their debut song “Hurricane.” It only had a really vague video out, and no press photos of the band existed. I immediately became infatuated with the track – it’s so dark yet so vibey – and it became one of my favorite songs of the spring and eventually 2012.
Like a new-wave film, these two stories played out simultaneously for a while – the frequent presence of dyed-hair-gig-girl and the growing obsession with this mystery band MS MR. The culminating scene of this chapter of the story came when a photo of the musicians behind MS MR emerged. This photo.
I saw it and it all immediately clicked – the voice behind MS MR is the same girl I was seeing at every show exemplifying “good times.” It made total sense to me then why there was this allure around the MS MR sound.
MS MR is the combined effort of Max Hershenow and Lizzy Plapinger, two NYC cool-kids who have been in the music game in different aspects for years. They released an EP in 2011, but it wasn’t until “Hurricane” and its accompanying video hit the Internet that the band truly kicked off.
They’ve since released another EP Candy Bar Creep Show, several singles, multiple remixes, and a few (magical) videos. World tours, festivals, radio promo, and print features later, they are sharing their first full-length record – Secondhand Rapture.
In under-sell, it’s good. In fact, it’s one of the most confident and realized pop albums we’ve heard in a while. Lizzy shows off a vocal variance that is especially noteworthy – teaching you she’s not to be messed with on “Think Of You” while displaying a more vulnerable edge on “Dark Doo Wop.” Her “MR” counterpart Max’s production is next-level because it’s actually unlike anything else happening currently.
An amazing album is enough, but MS MR have so much more happening for them. Their concerts are overwhelmingly joyous – even during the darkest of songs. The woman I saw shuffling along to Mystery Jets in Brooklyn brings the same attitude to her band’s live show. We’ve been lucky enough to see them play several times at CMJ and SXSW, and their sets were highlights both times.
Lucky for Earth, the band have a large number of concerts coming up – which you can find listed [HERE]. Keep an eye on drummer Zach Nicita as he is certainly a rising talent, providing a complete remix of the single “Fantasy” into a pulsating, crunchy anthem.
We have as high of hopes for the success of MS MR as they have ambition.
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Start with MS MR’s newest video for “Hurricane:”
Purchase Secondhand Rapture on iTunes [HERE].
Launch an album visual story on the band’s website [HERE].
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