TODAYS THE DAY FOR #24! Which happens to be:
Electric Guest with Their Album: MONDO. Released on Downtown/Across The Universe
The album can be well described as a marketable melange of soulful falsetto indie pop rock. The tunes all croon easy listening lyrics. They are often bouncy and seem to be almost a parody of gleeful, clap along songs of the 50’s.
Danger Mouse has placed his guiding hands on these youngsters and it shows. The track “Holes” (which I can’t help but giggle at) takes a Timberlake-ian tumble towards simple, womanly and sensitive vocals with the warble and beat of the electronic genre that is almost synonymous with Danger Mouse’s production.
While lots of this debut album does strike the listener as a debut- with underwhelming lyrics- “oh no try to fix it before you break it then it’s gone oh no i go on i go on
she’s got it bad for me she’s got it bad for me the only game she played now turn the other way”. These, to me, do not necessarily inspire any kind of new lyrics experimentation, but it can be said that these young hipsters are fitting right into a very profitable genre of easy listening, like Foster The People or Breakbot.
That being said the instrumental work by brothers Todd and Tory Dahlhoff, that travel with the band when on tour, does transpire some of the brilliance of the band’s self proclaimed inspiration, such as Serge Gainsbourg and euro-pop legends like Caetano Veloso.
An interesting fact about this band, Electric Guest, as they shine brightly as #24 on our weekly charts is that the lead singer and main homie of Danger Mouse, Asa Taccone, is the brother of Jorma Taccone, one of the masterminds behind The Lonely Island. These brothers are boys of my own land (Berkeley, CA) and attended my high school in years past. Now based in LA Electric Guest is growing strong, with strong roots and eyes towards the future of indie pop. We wish them luck from our basement dungeon.
Here they are live at ou loca Echo Theater:
Electric Guest “Awake” Live @ The Echo
by Vivian Ponte-Fritz