New Brunswick band halcionne breaks the basement show barriers

The girl-powered pop band halcionne didn’t set out to challenge the well-established New Brunswick basement show scene. But being a primarily female group in a male-dominated, underground music world, studying classical music and playing pop music definitely puts pressure on the existing paradigm.

“Bring feminism to the New Brunswick basement scene,” celloist Bri Tagliaferro almost sang.

It wasn’t a conscious goal of the band, but it’s apparent in our composition and presentation, Tagliaferro, a Mason Gross School of the Arts senior, said of the electric atmosphere when they play basements in New Brunswick.

Tagliaferro, lead singer Vicki Romano, drummer Lex Douras, guitarist Marc Stasio and bassist Tracey Miller found each other at Rutgers after playing and studying music separately for years.

The five-piece pop group prides itself on having a more diverse composition of members compared to other local bands, and it is something they’ve been complimented on before, School of Arts and Sciences senior Douras said.

Now just four-shows old with its current lineup, halcionne is easily one of the newest editions to the New Brunswick music network and is climbing the mountain of challenges that come with being a new band.

When asked to name a few of these challenges, front woman Romano said “everything,” which triggered a roar of laughter from the other members and undoubtedly many memories of how that is true.

The band used to have eight members, which was difficult to coordinate and had to balance a lot of contradicting artistic visions, Romano, a Mason Gross School of the Arts junior, said.

“We had to re-form with people who had the same agenda,” she said.

Bassist Tracey Miller, a Mason Gross School of the Arts sophomore, was the last edition to the band.

With a finalized membership, Halcionne has been making progress towards garnering a larger fan base, booking more shows since and promoting its first full-length album that should be released later this year.

Most of the music on its upcoming record was written by Romano, and it was all recorded by Stasio. The band is honing in on its sound— what Romano calls “Dream pop” or “dream folk,” which is influenced by Celtic music, Russian pop and dream pop.

“All of these things agglomerate into this sonic world that is very dreamlike,” Romano said. “We’ve been calling it ‘dream folk.’”

But don’t be fooled by the simple connotation of mainstream pop music. Halcionne’s performance is deliberate and precise, not dissimilar to the classical music three of the members study.

“(We) use a classical education to influence our music,” Tagliaferro said.

The band's sound carries the simplicity of pop music but works in synthesis with their classical studies and the result is an upbeat, folk-pop blend that is enjoyable and sophisticated.

For Romano this album has been years in the making — since she was a first year at Rutgers. Her pop-y tracks will be coupled with a several songs by Stasio’s indie-rock writing.

The next step for halcionne is getting into more basement shows in New Brunswick, where local music legends like Screaming Females, Hodera and dollys got their respective starts.

All of the members enjoy going to shows themselves but also feel there is another set of obstacles when it comes to actually playing those venues, Tagliaferro said.

“(There’s) the Mason Gross stigma— the formal versus informal music scene at Rutgers,” Romano said. “And it’s really hard to break through that barrier because people thing like we’re better than them, and we won’t preform in the same venues (because we study at Mason Gross).”

Halcionne has played live shows at several Mason Gross-sponsored events and the Zimmerli Art Museum.

“I hope that we can break the stigma and join these two worlds together in a way that is approachable,” Romano said.