As you may have already surmised, this is another one of those “weird music” posts I put up every once in a while. Now I know some of the smarter of the smartasses among my readers are probably thinking, “but Keter, aren’t all of your posts about weird music?” And while I might appreciate their attempts at witty sarcasm on an intellectual level, or maybe even chuckle, I’m afraid the answer to such a hypothetical query is in fact something along the lines of “shut up, jerkface!”
Though it has little, if anything, to do with music, one weird fact (among many) about me worth noting is that I like Pandas. This is relevant because I may never have listened to loopy Freak-Folkers Animal Collective if that weren’t the case. But one day many years ago I discovered that one of the band-members is named (not legally) Panda Bear and I immediately checked out their music. Admittedly I wasn’t hugely impressed, and I didn’t exactly develop an immediate love for the group. It’s for this reason that I wasn’t particularly anticipating the release of their newest album Strawberry Jam. That was before I heard the first single “Peacebone” though. I’ve since developed an intense obsession with the song that has resulted both in my making it my MySpace profile song, and in me finding myself singing it at inopportune moments throughout the day. As gushy a commentary as it is, I think “Peacebone” is may be one of the best, if most unorthodox, Pop songs of the year. And the video is nothing short of spectacular. The rest of Strawberry Jam is pretty solid, and a couple tracks (particularly “Fireworks” and “#1″) really stand out, but nothing approaches the sublimity of the single.
Listen to “Peacebone”
On the other hand, I’ve been anticipating Coronation Thieves, the debut full-length from Dragons of Zynth, a Brooklyn-based band with ties to TV on the Radio (group-member Dave Sitek lends his production acumen) for what feels like forever. That anticipation was partially fueled by my love for TVOTR, and a hope that another similar band from the same stable might emerge to kick a whole lot of ass. And though there are some valid similarities between the two, I think it’d be pretty cheap to compare DOZ to TVOTR. Sure, they’re both progressive Rock bands made up of people of African descent, and they share a producer in kind. But the Dragons have their own, very original, identity, and are perhaps even braver in their experimentation. The music on Coronation Thieves (out October 2nd on Gigantic Records) is some heavy-heavy shit. Sorta like a Free-Jazz band comprised of Hip-Hop heads who bought electric instruments at the local pawn shop so they could form a Black Sabbath tribute band holding their first practice jam while simultaneously tripping on psychedelics and rolling on ecstasy.
Listen to “Get Off”
And hey, if you’re really not feeling all the so-called “weird music,” well you might wanna take ol’ “Weird” Al’s advice and just “eat it…”
Zing!
-El Keter