Hemlock Ernst, Icky Reels, Wave Generators, and PremRock at Baby’s All Right
On Thursday, November 21st, Hemlock Ernst and Icky Reels and Wave Generators (Nosaj from New Kingdom and Height Keech) began their tour together at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn, NY. Opening the show was PremRock.
After doors opened at 9:30PM, Icky Reels did a DJ set while people filled the back room of Baby’s All Right. Kicking off the show promptly at 10PM was NYC rapper PremRock who performed material from his solo albums and his group Ockham’s Blazer. I’ve been capturing Prem live for a decade and his sets are always a fun experience plus his banter with the audience was equally great. He’ll perform again in a few weeks with Curly Castro in ShrapKnel at Warsaw, opening for billy woods & Kenny Segal. Following PremRock was Wave Generators: the duo of Height Keech and Nosaj of New Kingdom. Their debut album, After the End, was released in June, and are touring with Hemlock Ernst in support of the record. For “It’s Hot As Hell In the Bible Belt,” Height Keech and Nosaj were joined by P.T. Burnem who is featured on the track. Both members of Wave Generators would return to the stage after their set during the headliner’s performance.
The final set of the night came from Hemlock Ernst, the hip hop side project of Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands). He released a collaborative album with Icky Reels called Studying Absence, and for the live set Herring was joined by Icky Reels plus Height Keech and another rapper, Nervous Dupre, who is Samuel’s older brother, Joel. He shared that Joel got him into hip hop and this was the first time that he was performing as Hemlock Ernst and with his brother in approximately twelve years. Ernst closed his set with “Hard Truth” from The Fall Collection and thanked the audience for coming and estimated that he’ll see us again in about 15 years.