Wouldn't you know it Too Pure has been at it again... you might think the singles club is over, but like Sub Pop, it just keeps going. I really don't know how you set this up with a plant...you must have to preorder the whole run?...and then get all the artists on board with mastered files....I have to hand it to them, and anyone else attempting a singles club, it's enough work doing it one at a time, I try to support these efforts as much as possible because it's also an opportunity to possibly not make even MORE money than usual...
Slam Donohue is surprisingly out of Brooklyn. I guess I assumed that most of these offerings would be the sort of indie pop hits that England had to offer, but here they are mining the basements and living rooms of Brooklyn! Well it's a good thing because I would have never come across these guys, and it goes to show Too Pure isn't a geo-centric organization...if there are catchy tunes, in that pop spectrum, Too Pure is out there with an ear to the ground.
The A-Side "It's Scary" is scary how Slam Donahue takes production to a new level, the crystal clear strum of an acoustic, the layered anti-progression electronic bleeps, the whole composition panned way hard to either side, just attention to every detail, it's such a shock to hear sound reproduction pushing the limits the opposite way of lo-fi. This stereo must be pretty good. I actually love this crazy nasal vocal, like the Drums or The Shout Out Louds, it's a specific instrument that doesn't want to be lost in the background. I sort of thought there was some kind of effect going on here but it's just a crazy layered, almost falsetto, soul voice. Sort of Prince with an electronic dance beat that's really just indie rock wired for choreography. It's a hell of an effort for three members recreating this live.
Then during a breakdown part it gets to just handclaps against just an acoustic with the chorus vocal. They don't even have to rely on the machines, they're always writing with an underlying dance rhythm, while avoiding the obvious glitch, hyper dance.
It's honestly hard to resist..I've been trying...you can't be taken seriously giving in to this.
Oh well.
No one takes you seriously anyway.
"Where Were We", the other A-Side, is kind of party call, with an infectious Matt and Kim kind of anthemic forget-everything-lets-rock track, Slam Donahue has that same attitude: they are determined to make you have the best time...and it's not even hard for them. There's plenty more of that strum happy guitar, asking "...trying to remember / where were we on the weekends?" Well,...we obviously were partying pretty hard, to the point of memory loss even, which sounds like a successful time. He doesn't sound like it's that important even...he doesn't really want to know what happened. Isn't it just funny that it was that insane?
Maybe it's the live percussion along with that acoustic that keeps this from almost spiraling out of control, drunk on the midi sequence rhythm. It mostly defies you to be anything but goofily happy. They have a way of making joyful enthusiasm sound palatable, hell, fun even. A few drinks in with this single on the turntable and where the hell was I Tuesday night?
You can get a feel for these tracks on their bandcamp page, then go get this from Too Pure Records, who have an exclusive pulse of worldwide party indie. They also hit the Knitting Factory on the 16th.
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