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Ambulance Ltd. Tour East Coast

Ambulance Ltd.'s Marcus Congleton / Photo by Ruvan Wijesooriya

Who: This New York City-born outfit culled critical acclaim with the glossy, shoegazey pop of their 2004 self-titled debut. After years of lineup troubles, frontman Marcus Congleton is the sole original member, returning to the stage with a new backing band that includes three members of NYC art folkies Inouk, and a batch of new tunes, many of which were recorded over the past few years with Velvet Underground instrumentalist John Cale for a forthcoming LP.

What: A six-date tour through East Coast cities like Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Cambridge will include tunes from Congleton’s yet-to-be titled new album, which is currently in limbo due to recent financial troubles at Ambulance’s label, TVT.

Should I go: Absolutely. In addition to the groovy Americana-tinged gems of the band’s debut, Congleton’s new material melds both the familiar and foreign, as SPIN.com recently discovered at a discretely advertised Ambulance Ltd. set at Brooklyn’s intimate Union Hall. The rollicking R&B riffage of new tune “Upsetter” (watch a bootleg video below) felt like a logical extension of the band’s debut, but we were cleverly taken off-guard by the glitchy, semi-electro atmospherics of “Ivy,” which benefits from supple backing vocals from Xander McMahon, Inouk’s ably-voiced frontman who’s now playing keys in Ambulance.

Ambulance Ltd. tour dates:

4/2, Cambridge, MA (Middle East Downstairs)4/4, Hoboken, NJ (Maxwell’s)4/5, Philadelphia, PA (North Star Bar)4/6, Pittsburgh, PA (Club Café)4/7, Washington, D.C.?(Rock and Roll Hotel)4/11, New York, NY (Mercury Lounge)

Now Watch This: Ambulance Ltd., “Upsetter” https://www.youtube.com/embed/tsIqtP4mm3A

On the Web: ambulancenyc.com