ณิชา & Friends

Driven by percussive grooves and flirtatious vocals, Brooklyn's Friends find a modern middle ground between post-disco and '60s girl group sounds. Fronted by Samantha Urbani and Lesley Hann, the band began as an extension of Urbani's home recordings, made with drum loops and effects-laden vocal tracks, something she'd done for years but kept to herself due to stage fright. Wanting to get the songs out of her system, in 2010 she began sharing them with friends -- among them, future groupmates Matthew Molnar and Nikki Shapiro -- while she traveled to Berlin for the summer. A twi...