King Falcon

On Sunday, February 23rd, Mama Mañana Presents brings you a massive night of indie and power pop with King Falcon (NYC) and Strange Magic (ABQ) at Tumbleroot!

Outfitted with lived-in and loud vintage gear, shaped equally by 21st-century alternative and classic rock, and proudly born in New York City, King Falcon rev up raw and raucous anthems with attitude and a whole lot of emotion. The quartet—Michael Rubin [vocals, lead guitar], Joe Conserva [bass], Justin Kosisky [guitar], and Dipayan “Dip” Chakraborty [drums]—boldly break boundaries both in the studio and on stage. In between spending hours with a guitar in hand, Michael obsessed over classic records by Steely Dan and Led Zeppelin in addition to Tame Impala’s ‘Currents’. The Queens native attended School of Rock for years and eventually founded his first project Inoculated Canaries, stirring up local buzz, touring, and landing on radio airwaves. Progressing as a singer and guitarist, he officially launched King Falcon in 2020.

Blown away by demos, Mascot Label Group signed the King Falcon in the middle of the pandemic without even meeting them in person or seeing them live. The group’s self-titled debut, King Falcon, arrived in 2023. It racked up north of 2 million streams on Spotify fueled by “Ready Set Go,” “Cadillac,” and “Everybody’s Down.” Including unanimous critical applause, mxdwn hailed them as “Best New Artist 2023,” and Guitar World christened them “one of NYC’s most exciting indie-rock bands.”

Meanwhile, they packed houses at headline gigs in addition to performing alongside everyone from Des Roc to Sublime With Rome. Now, the musicians sharpen a scorching signature style on a series of 2024 singles and their forthcoming second full-length album for ‘Mascot’.

“(Strange Magic) is a near-perfect encapsulation of power pop’s roots and current evolution—from The Beatles and Big Star to Teenage Fanclub, Guided by Voices, Tony Molina, Hurry and 2nd Grade.”

– SW Lauden (Remember the Lightning)

In 2022, Strange Magic (Javier Romero) set a lofty goal: to write, record, and mix one song weekly for the upcoming year. Not every week was fruitful, and days would pass with sketches of “mumble jams” on the voice memo app. More frequently, though, Romero performed curious wizardry, pulling laidback emo anthems and new introspective lofi slacker ditties out of thin air—sometimes completely taking two or three songs from creation to completion in a week.

With a pat on the back and fifty-two new songs in the cache, Romero gave Guided By Voices a run for their money with a prolific streak of four albums last year. Toro At the Gong Show, AM/FM/AC & Heat, Zugzwang Alakazam, and Mirrors & Smoke each have their own flavor, and one thing is for sure: these are some of the most extraordinary indie power-pop songs that you’ve been missing out on until this point.

We love Strange Magic and these albums so much that we knew the cream of the crop needed to reach the masses. Romero and Mama Mañana Records have lovingly curated twenty-two songs, making up the Slightest of Hands tracklist. Available now on limited edition gold cassette, digital, and streaming everywhere, think of Slightest of Hands as a “best-of” compilation tape that used to inhabit the dusty truckstops of the eighties and nineties.

Big rig optional, but highly recommended.