THE RECOMMENDER – NUMBER 100 – FELIX AND VOLCANO!

FELIX AND VOLCANO!

We think we can confidently state that most of the emails music bloggers receive are utter rubbish.  We’ve often considered the easy way out – to cull them all in big batches.  On many occasions our fingers have hovered over the delete button, but what stops us is that one faith-restoring email out of a hundred, with a bounty contained within it, that reminds you precisely why you got into blogging in the first place.  In truth, emails aren’t actually a music bloggers best source for discovering music, it’s actually by busily interacting online, or by reading other blogs/sites, and obviously by being active in the real world.  Like any other business, referrals are much more successful.  However, there we were, panning for email gold, and up came Felix And Volcano.  To our pleasure they didn’t roll into the usual PR fluff about how amazing they are – they did what we always prefer bands to do – namely to just give us one line and a link to listen to an mp3.  Upon clicking through to their Bandcamp and listening to their track, Shaadows, our faith in the process was immediately reinforced.  This track’s rather simplified breakbeat start is swiftly overlaid with a keyboard refrain not out of place in an ice hockey match, but the playfulness is quickly matured, as Sam Ueda’s vocals begin.  His spoken words, reminiscent of James Murphy or Lou Reed, engage you before they raise the pitch to a sublime treble.  The song then wanders down a path previously trodden by the likes of TV On The Radio, or Beck at his most sexually experimental.  It’s a minimalist piece of tidy electronic pop, before it bravely shifts gear and climaxes at an entirely different pace.  Sam from the band informed us that Aian Constantineau, who plays the keys and beats, used vintage equipment for this recording, choosing the Casio DG-20 Digital Guitar.  He also pointed out that this is a tool of choice for the Flight Of The Conchords team, with whom they share a sense of youthful abandonment.  That’s no surprise, considering this two piece met at the University Of New Hampshire and are still only 19 years old.  Having started in 2008 and previously released only a first draft EP, they’ve now put out a more polished EP, Grow Rich, this May.  Fans of Naive New Beaters, Yes Giantess, or My Awesome Mixtape will smile along to this.  Emails aside, perhaps you too will find them just as re-assuring as we did.     (MB)

Find them here:        Myspace

Hear them here:        FELIX AND VOLCANO! – SHAADOWS

Hear them here:        FELIX AND VOLCANO! – FRDM