Eagle and Talon - Thracian Eric Nielsen 1.22.9

The first sentence of their one sheet got me in. The LA Times had called their music wonderfully underproduced. It is and that's the first thing you notice about this cd. Crikey, the sounds are often of the generic circuit city casio variety. And, when you can get that to work it sounds really great: broken, honest, hand done and critically of value. I learned that they'll be touring the EU and Japan on the backs of these casios. I ended up reading the litereature too deep and discovered that their parents wrote all their songs?

It's got so many references to what I like to think of as the mid 90's superchunk, blake babies, hatfield. It's also got some really bad guitar sounds, tones and playing (purposefully done) layered under some sweet singing. Some of the singing is very Japanese, tenniscoats sounding. Thoughtfully deconstructed pieces combined with youthful hearts and intentions. The hidden track is a bit of stereolab. My favorite track is the last one Palm Springs.

I could see these ladies living large with their offbeat constructions and instrument selection. The music is usually on the crunchy edge enough not to get strained by the vocal sounds. It often sounds a lot like the range Sioban Dixon used to travel in chinchilla. Often the lyrics hurt and other times you forget about them and just swirl in the ultralight curls of sounds hanging down like crystals.

Cool for them they got to tour North America with Sia (one of my guilty pleasures). I could see that bill working out. They've got that optimistic innocent star splash clouded all over it.