New Era Releases Full-Length Album

A musical trio composed of and two recent high school graduates is entering something of a new era after releasing its first full-length album earlier this month.

The New Era released Staircase Wit for free download on Dec. 17, a little more than a year after the group formed, and will support it with a concert on Dec. 30 at the Altar Bar. The trio has gained the attention of its peers, both and , and it hopes the record will help broaden its audience.

A blend of hip-hop, electronica and rock, Staircase Wit is a largely self-produced endeavor whose 15 songs move through a wide range of styles and lyrical themes. Partying and drugs, heartbreak and diary entries all find voice in the album.

“I just wanted to create a new sound,” said front man Ghaith Mansour, describing the group as "hip-pop rock."

In the New Era, Mansour, who attends community college and works at a car dealership, joins Connor Lindsay, a CV junior, and Harrison Wayne, who studies musical theater at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, OH.

While Lindsay recorded and produced much of the album out of his parents' attic (The Church Recording Studio in Carrick is responsible for the mastering and some mixing), the songs don’t have the low-fidelity sound typically associated with self-recorded artists.

Nick Ceraso, who promotes the group through his company Scared Bunny Entertainment, said more than 200 people downloaded Staircase Wit on the first day it was available. A video for the single “Partysocks” has been viewed more than 4,000 times on YouTube.

“In the short period of time it’s been out, the response has been great,” Ceraso said. “I think it’s a testament to the quality of music that the guys put together.”

The electronic tones that pulse through much of the album are a relatively new addition to the group’s writing, Lindsay said. The New Era’s previous six-song release, Sleepyhead, was more influenced by classical music and indie rock.

“We were still sort of figuring out our sound,” he said.

After learning his way around a MacBook he received for Christmas one year, Lindsay became something of a musical architect, sampling from more up-beat pop music in his compositions. Mansour added his raps, and Wayne employed the sprawling vocal style he gained from theater training.

“We all just kind of agreed on a basic thing and went with it,” Wayne said of the writing process.

When they began working on Staircase Wit, it was in a spirit of fun, Mansour said. But as the songs became more polished, the group thought they were on to something.

“The songs we started making were just top notch,” Mansour said. “We looked at this as the next step.”

Mansour’s raps account for much of the album’s lyrical content, and he said most of the songs grew out of personal experiences. But hyperbole and storytelling find their way in, too.

The track title “Wellness Check,” for instance, refers to a mandatory health checkup given at school to students who appear to be intoxicated. Lindsay said the song sprung out of a week in which he was given two such checkups.

In other tracks, Mansour raps about flighty girls, heartbreak and revenge. But the most salient topic is rising above criticism and continuing to chase the dream. The song “F.A.M.E.” even alludes to previous Patch articles about the group, with Mansour saying, “We all over the Patch—not for smokers.”

The album’s title is a literal translation of the French l’esprit de l’escalier, an idiom used to evoke the feeling of thinking of a comeback too late.

Asked about the groups’ upbringings, Lindsay said they aren’t trying to put on airs.

“I’m obviously not growing up on the streets of Brooklyn,” Lindsay said. “We know we’re white suburban kids.”

But the tension between personal dreams and societal expectations is there, Lindsay said.

“We don’t want to be working some cubicle job for the rest of our lives,” he said. “We just want to be together on some bus touring the country.”

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