Tag Archives: the verge

The Verge – Lookbook

Posted on April 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

Welcome to The Verge: a column dedicated to music on the edge of a breakthrough. Last time, I profiled two rising female-fronted indie rock bands, the Dum Dum Girls and Screaming Females. Now, it’s time to replace those guitars with synths.

A lookbook is used by fashionistas to showcase a particular designer or style. Minneapolis band Lookbook is a duo that showcase a particular style of electronic music that is equal parts dream pop and synth pop.


Grant Cutler (synths) and Maggie Morrison (vocals) fit the mold of similar outfits like La Roux, Beach House, and the Knife, combining a chanteuse with a male partner behind the boards. Like those groups, their sound owes much to 1980s electro pop of all stripes, with sweeping synth strings, metallic drum machine beats, and effect-laden vocals.

Lookbook’s first EP, I Fear You, My Darkness, was self-released in late 2008. As the title suggests, the band covers dark sonic and lyrical territory. The EPs five songs find the pair brooding over atmospheric soundscapes; it’s more new age than new wave. The highlight is definitely the seven minute “Steal the Night,” an epic that evokes the emotional tone of Patti Smith’s similarly-titled “Because of the Night.”

In 2009, Lookbook released their full-length record Wild At Heart. While I Fear You, My Darkness feels cathartic, Wild At Heart allows the band to expand and enrich their sound. The songs are more upbeat and danceable, but darkness and vulnerability remain just below the surface. Morrison’s vocals are sharper and less dreamy, somewhere between Karen O and Cyndi Lauper. The album opens with “Over and Over,” which builds for nearly the entire length of the song to a pounding, crashing climax.

Throughout Wild at Heart, Cutler’s beats command you to dance to songs full of shimmering keys and electronic chirps. Morrison is charismatic on the mic, with stylized, flowing verses and full-throated choruses. And for a style that is not necessarily novel, I think the duo captures and modernizes 80s synth pop better than some of their contemporaries; Wild at Heart compares favorably to It’s Blitz!, the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s foray into similar ground.

If 1980s revival is the fashion, Lookbook is the guide to the style.

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The Verge – Girls, Girls, Girls

Posted on April 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

Welcome to The Verge: a column dedicated to music on the edge of a breakthrough. After a look at the beginnings of another British Invasion, it’s time to return stateside for some female-fronted indie rock.

Seemingly appearing out of nowhere, the Dum Dum Girls signed to indie stalwart Sub Pop last year on the strength of a couple lo-fi EPs and literally one live performance. What started as a solo project by Kristin Gundred (aka Dee Dee) grew into an all-girl rock band that harks back to 60s girl groups, both in sound and style. Gundred had previously found success as a singer/drummer with garage rockers Grand Ole Party.

The Dum Dum Girls play jangly, fuzzed-out indie pop that makes audiences want to do The Monkey and The Swim. Their wall-of-sound is as much Phil Spector as it is Black Tambourine, the short-lived yet influential DC band that played in similar sonic territory in the early 90s. The lead single off of their debut LP I Will Be, “Jail La La,” is a sing-a-long headbopper which tells the grim tale of waking up in the county jail.

Visually, the band is all-black and throwback, swaying like dashboard hula dancers. The retro feel is completed with Danelectro and Rickenbacker gear that firmly plants the Dum Dum Girls in a distant time and place. It is a bit gimmicky, but it flows naturally from their name and completes the live experience, as it did at a recent DC9 gig, opening for Male Bonding.

(photo courtesy Matt Dunn)

Screaming Females may share a nominal theme with the Dum Dum Girls, but that’s where the similarities end. The Screaming Females play pure rock: aggressive, guitar-driven, ear-bleeding rock music. Here, the screaming female is actually singular: Marissa Paternoster, on lead vocals and guitars, screeches and shreds with reckless abandon. The band muscles their way through hard rock history, from the Sabbath-inspired sludge of “Skull” to the proto-punk of “I Believe in Evil.” “Buried in the Nude” gives you a taste of the cacophonous attack that the Females unleash, along with the band’s psychedelic sensibility.

Coming out of the New Brunswick, New Jersey basement scene, the band is a DIY tribute to rock bands past. With a full, heavy sound that overwhelmed the 9:30 Club when opening for Ted Leo last week, I can only imagine the damage the band did to young punks and metalheads in basements across the Garden State.

Next time the Dum Dum Girls and the Screaming Females come to town, they’ll be headlining. It may not be a movement a la riot grrrl, but the music they make certainly rocks. And once you get past gender issues and expectations, isn’t that what really matters?

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The Verge – British Invasion

Posted on April 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

Welcome to The Verge: a column dedicated to music on the edge of a breakthrough. Last week’s column profiled a few forward-thinking, left-field beat makers, but now it’s time for a quick look across the pond.

Are we in the midst of another British invasion? If musical trends are cyclical, then we’re due for the onslaught of UK acts that descends on our shores every twenty years or so. Last year, Little Boots and La Roux lit up dance floors and the bloghaus (if not sales charts). Last night’s Florence and the Machine show sold-out the 9:30 Club, and acts like the XX, Marina and the Diamonds, and VV Brown continued to build buzz at SXSW.

Here at TGRI, we’ve been championing these acts for a while now. So what’s next?

Ellie Goulding, the BBC Sound of 2010 winner, is at the top of the list. The 23-year old singer-songwriter released her album Lights on March 1st, and debuted at #1 on the UK Albums Chart. No word on a US release yet, but she continues to amass critical kudos while touring the crap out of Europe.

She’s also shaping up to be the next La Roux. While her poppy brand of electronic-tinged folk is strong on its own, remixes by other artists elevate the songs to the next level. London DJs Jakwob and Russ Chimes have put Goulding’s lilting vocals and melancholic melodies over beats that take the songs from the coffeehouse to the dancefloor. Jakwob reaches for the love-step wobble, while Russ Chimes brings in the backbeat/piano loop to craft a real house banger.

Everything Everything is an indie band from Manchester that also appeared on the BBC Sound of 2010 poll. Do they have what it takes to shake up a stagnant indie rock scene, and join Vampire Weekend, Passion Pit, and Phoenix as legitimate cross-over acts? Only time will tell, but on the strength of six songs, they were signed to Geffen in advance of a full length due some time this year. While indie-dance-synth-pop is not novel territory, Everything Everything does it with a dedication to robust riffs and distinct vocal harmonies. Frontman Jonathan Everything (the entire band does the Ramones thing) utilizes a few different styles, from a syncopated sing-speak to an impressive falsetto, that is stronger and less piercing than that of Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos.

The band’s breakout single, “MY KZ UR BF” (or “My Keys, Your Boyfriend”) has the potential to be the next “Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance.” With a sing-along chorus and a new wave-meets-math rock construction, the song is catchy and danceable enough to get beyond its too-cute-by-half abbreviated name. The band’s creative videos show a sense of humor lacking from some of their peers, and will only help them breakthrough, especially when a middling band like OK Go has turned the viral video into an art form.

These are just two of the sounds coming out of the UK. If you don’t want to be an Anglophile like me, just keep an eye on The Verge – I have a feeling we’re only at the beginning of this invasion.

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The Verge – Left-field Beat Makers

Posted on March 31, 2010 | Leave a comment

Welcome to The Verge: a column dedicated to music on the edge of a breakthrough. Last week’s column profiled some throwback house music stylists, while today I’ll take a look at a few forward-thinking, left-field beat makers.

For all our talk of dubstep, you might think that anyone producing electronic music that isn’t equipped with a four-on-the-floor beat must describe their music in that way. Clearly, this isn’t the case, as a whole crop of producers are making music that defies easy classification. With influences from hip hop, turntablism, jazz, and R&B, among others, these artists tend towards the atmospheric and orchestral rather than danceable hits and boom-bap bangers. This is background music for an edgy tea house, or for partaking an herbal refreshment at home.

One of the most prominent purveyors of this sound is Flying Lotus. First gaining notoriety for producing the bumper music on Adult Swim, he eventually signed to like-minded record label Warp and began releasing a steady stream of music soon after. His highly anticipated sophomore record, Cosmogramma, is set for release on May 3rd.

The jittery, laser beam electro of Cosmogramma‘s “…And the World Laughs with You” features a brief, heavily processed appearance by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. The song builds over a stop-start rhythm, adding fuzzy synths like so many blankets on a cold, rainy day before devolving into a beat somewhere between jungle and minimal.

He also produced for R&B chanteuse Muhsinah on her slept-on 2009 release The Oscillations: Triangle. The DC native and Foreign Exchange collaborator brings out the sultry side of FlyLo’s music on “Lose My Fuse,” a swirling beat and bass combo acting as the perfect soundscape for her vocal style.

Tokimonsta, a Flying Lotus protege and member of his Brainfeeder Records family, produces a more hip hop based sound. The LA-based artist played a live set at SOVA back in January, and rather than DJing, she manipulates and tweaks beats live. Her remixes give tracks a grimy, lo-fi character, that re-create the music in exciting new ways. Here’s her take on Lupe Fiasco’s “Kick Push:”

Check out Toki’s free 2008 Attention Deficit mixtape, which includes remixes of “How High” by Meth and Red and “A Mili” by Weezy. Her debut EP Cosmic Intoxication is due on Brainfeeder on April 29th.

FlyLo’s Warp labelmate Hudson Mohawke makes music that glitches and shimmers like CPUs singing love songs. At 15, he was the youngest ever UK DMC finalist. At 24, he’s an in-demand producer/DJ, quickly making a name for himself. His compositions are dense, moving, and groundbreaking. “FUSE,” off his 2009 Warp record Butter, is a massive tune full of bubbling synth lines and percussion that crashes through your speakers:

Technology not only allows electronic music to be made in new ways, but it also expands the breadth of sounds and styles that exist. Thanks to the diffusion of music made possible by file sharing and a robust Internet culture, more artists in the mold of Flying Lotus, Tokimonsta, and Hudson Mohawke are over the horizon and on the verge.

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The Verge – Disco / Funky / House

Posted on March 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

Welcome to The Verge: a column dedicated to music on the verge of a breakthrough. Following up on last week’s exploration of rising dubstep stars, this week’s topic is emerging sounds in house music.

Hercules and Love Affair released one of the most exciting albums of 2008, a journey back in time to the coke-fueled sounds that lit up Studio 54, Paradise Garage and Crisco Disco. DJ Andy Butler’s disco-house project utilized a live band that included Andrew Raposo on bass, Morgan Wiley on keyboards, and Nomi Ruiz on vocals. Post-tour, the trio has continued making music as Jessica 6, covering similar sonic territory; they classify their sound as “contortionist jazz exotica,” a tongue-in-cheek name for their sultry, soulful disco. Jessica 6 opens for electroqueer act Dangerous Muse on April 2nd at the U Street Music Hall. The video for their lead single, “Fun Girl,” gives you an idea what to expect from the group.

While the most talked about EDM sound coming from across the pond may be dubstep, a more dancefloor-friendly style deserves your attention: UK funky. This brand of house music substitutes the typical snare sounds of house for African and Latin percussion, adds in a touch of R&B vocals, and keeps the rhythm brisk enough for a cardio workout. You’ve probably heard some funky mixed into house and electro sets, from Crazy Cousinz’ “Do You Mind” to Geeneus’ remix of “Show Me Love.” UK funky lends itself to the hip roll rather than the fist pump, a welcome development in clubs everywhere. “Give It Up” by DJ MA1 (featuring Sim Simi) is a perfect example of a UK funky banger, and it first appeared on Geeneus’ Volumes One, a great introduction to the genre. Check it:

Staying in the UK, a house music producer in the dubstep stronghold of Bristol fights an uphill battle for exposure. Julio Bashmore is doing just that, DJing and producing a mix of deep house that includes elements of disco, dubstep, and funky. Called “the next Joy Orbison” – as if Joy Orbison’s time has already come and gone – Julio Bashmore combines the disparate strands of UK EDM into a signature sound that is enigmatic and experimental.

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The Verge – Dubstep

Posted on March 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

Welcome to The Verge: a column dedicated to music on the verge of a breakthrough. This inaugural column is inspired by the life-changing bass of the U Street Music Hall, and will focus on a few of the subsonic sounds coming to a system near you.

Rusko, the king of wobble, dropped the video for Woo Boost this week. The track is the lead single off his Mad Decent debut, O.M.G! As I’ve written about previously, Rusko is leading the way in the dubstep world with a singular sound that is aggressive and abrasive yet eminently listenable, like Charlie Brown’s teacher on acid. The video is the perfect visual complement to the ostentatious tunage. Obnoxious and glaring, the clip is a collage of broken video effects, swirling fluorescents, and a Union Jack-draped Rusko rocking a keytar. It is a total guilty pleasure, in all of its seizure inducing glory. The most defining visual is Rusko tearing through the green screen; it’s like watching the violent birth of something twisted and wrong. Enough words, watch the damn clip:

Jakwob first came to my attention thanks to his remixes of songs by Sound of 2010 winner Ellie Goulding, where he turned her shimmering, synth-folk-pop into danceable dubstep that preserved the charm of the originals. His remix of Kid Sister’s “Daydreaming” is more of the same: adding a dash of wobble to enhance, but not obscure, a solid dance track. His recent minimix for Annie Mac’s Radio 1 showcases both his remix and DJing talents as he skillfully mixes about 30 songs in 6 minutes. It sounds like DJ Premier and Girl Talk had a baby in London. Try to follow the bouncing ball:

Starkey, the Philadelphia purveyor of “that street bass sound,” will drop Ear Drums and Black Holes on April 19. Ear Drums is probably the first album that totally encapsulates the concept of luvstep (an interview with Starkey did launch the Luvstep podcast, after all). The first single, “Stars” (featuring Anneka), is the polar opposite of Woo Boost: a track designed for chillout not knockout. The video, while less over-the-top than that of Woo Boost, is disturbing in its own way, matching the tone of the deceptively dark track. “Stars” is only one of the Baskin Robbins-like flavors that appear on Ear Drums, so get your first taste now:

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