Passion Pit will never play a venue this small ever again
Aaaaand, I'm back on the Passion Pit wagon. If you follow Look at me, I made a blog or I force you to listen to me talk about music, you may have noticed that I don't mention Passion Pit anymore. I started listening to them last July and audaciously declared them as "the next big thing" after seeing them at the first show of their Pianos residency. I went on to see them two more times last fall, including at the BrooklynVegan CMJ showcase and a packed, sold-out show at Glasslands Gallery. And, sometime after that, I started to lose interest. Their names and faces seemed to be everywhere, destined to meet a Vampire Weekend-like fate of irritating stardom, all without having released a proper debut album.
When this much hype surrounds a band that I like, I try to be cautiously optimistic about their forthcoming album. After hearing "The Reeling," the first single off Manners, I honestly wasn't that impressed. Sure, it's catchy and children's choirs seem to be the fad of the year (i.e. Grizzly Bear, Peter Bjorn & John), but it seemed almost overproduced and dragging in length towards the end. I still listened to it a lot, but it didn't have the viral charm of the Chunk of Change EP. Hearing "Little Secrets" over the weekend chased away my reservations about the new album, and now I can't wait to hear more of Manners. I can't really explain it, but the intro to "Little Secrets" is the most addicting 24 seconds I have heard in a very long time. Who knew that some simple synth lines with cowbell could be so dangerous? Just a rough estimate, but I believe I've listened to this one song for about four hours since Saturday. Before I'm even over "Little Secrets," Passion Pit released a new song yesterday that will also see heavy rotation on my playlists. Opening with strums that are reminiscent of the Beatles' "Across the Universe," "Moth's Wings" sounds unlike any other Passion Pit song thus far, especially with Angelakos refraining from reaching his upper vocal register. "Moth's Wings" is still very much a pop song, but it hints at songwriting skills beyond fun dance hits like "Sleepyhead."
So much for managing expectations. I'm counting down to the release of Manners on May 19. Does anyone have extra tickets to any of the Bowery shows? Shouldn't have snoozed.
Little Secrets - Passion Pit
Moth's Wings - Passion Pit
April 28, 2009
"Moth's Wings" & "Little Secrets" - Passion Pit
October 25, 2008
Miracles of Modern Science - Glasslands Gallery 10.24.08
via K. of Escape Sounds
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Miracles of Modern Science, a band that I barely caught at a show, but they've become one of my current obsessions. Last night, I made my way to Glasslands Gallery, a space with a bizarre paper-mache backdrop, to check them out properly.
Right before the MOMS set, a huge crowd of people came into the venue and crowded around the front of the stage. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of Princeton alums/students who were eager to support one of their own. I asked someone standing by me to confirm that there were indeed a lot of Princeton people in the vicinity. To that, he made a comment about how it's hard to be cool when you have high SAT scores. My friends and I were from a certain school uptown and one in Providence, and we find that it's not that difficult to be normal, but we don't generally discuss SAT scores.
MOMS put on a great, energetic show in their silver (and one blue) spacesuits. They were walking around the venue earlier, but I almost didn't recognize them without their show gear on. I could have used a little more sound from the violin, but man did those strings sound fantastic live. But, you can read here about why MOMS musically intrigues me. They closed with one of K.'s favorites, a track that is unfortunately not on the EP. I guess they're making us wait for this one.
I also saw some CMJ badges in the crowd, which I hope will help to get this awesome band more exposure. It doesn't hurt that Brooklyn Based listed MOMS as one of their CMJ must-sees.
MOMS released their first EP yesterday, and you can grab it here. It's a short one with only four songs, albeit most of the songs exceed the 5-minute mark. All the songs have been remastered from their previous demo versions, so you should definitely check it out. I especially like the reworked version of "MR2." Now I can finally share "Luminol" with you!
Luminol - Miracles of Modern Science
Eating Me Alive - Miracles of Modern Science
October 22, 2008
BrooklynVegan CMJ Showcase - MHOW 10.21.08
Note: Blogger took down the original post due to DMCA issues
Passion Pit
Singing DJ Jens Lekman
via Escape Sounds
Passion Pit = HOT
As you can see to the right, Passion Pit has been one of my current obsessions since their pre-Forkcast days. To put it lightly, they killed last night. Without much surprise, these guys have definitely grown since their first show at Pianos. I'm sure that it helps that everyone is talking about this band. Talk about a great confidence booster. I'd wondered how Passion Pit would fare on the larger stage of MHOW, but it turned out that a bigger setting was more appropriate for PP’s sound and energy. Compared to the Pianos set, everyone looked visibly more comfortable and as if they were actually (gasp) having fun. What really caught my attention about this performance was that Michael Angelakos varied up the vocals a bit so that he wasn’t singing in his upper range the entire time. There were some concerned comments about that from the first Pianos show, and it seemed like Angelakos had taken them to heart. Passion Pit played a great version of “Better Things,” which was one of the first tracks that hooked me into this band. I like when bands sound slightly different live and still manage to deliver. Isn’t this the point of seeing any show? Anyway, there was a song (or two?) that I didn’t recognize, since they’re not on Chunk of Change. Setlist, anyone?
A Singing DJ is exactly what you’d expect
I should have gone into this with no expectations. Instead, I dreamt of Jens’ emotionally manipulative voice, serenading the crowd with lyrics about how his heart has been set on fire. So, maybe I set myself up for this letdown, because a singing DJ is exactly that – a DJ who occasionally sings. Singing DJ Jens Lekman's set was interesting, to say the least. He spun “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey,which is arguably one of the best pop songs of the ‘90s (Confession: Fantasy may have been one of the first CDs that I'd owned). Regardless of good DJing choices, Jens’ performance of “Sipping on the Sweet Nectar” was not enough to satisfy. I wish there would have been less spinning and more singing. I guess I was hoping for a DJing singer.
I kinda liked Ponytail (K., don’t kill me)
Ponytail confused me at first, and now I’m intrigued. Is Ponytail my new Animal Collective? Will be listening to them when I get home today.
Also...who is Thor of Shearwater?
Wikipedia tells me that he is a musician, painter, and carpenter. His instruments include “found instruments and homemade instruments.” All I know is that he wears a braid, played a hammer dulcimer, and people kept on yelling out his name. A great name, too.
Official BV announcement here.
More Passion Pit here. More Jens here.
