Thursday, March 02, 2006
Rad
If I was a jealous person, I'd be jealous of Smoosh. Smoosh are sisters Asya and Chloe, from Seattle. Oh, and they are 13 and 11 years old respectively. I might be jealous of how they are so prodigiously talented at such a young age. I might be jealous of the fact that Sufjan Stevens, Sleater-Kinney and Rilo Kiley are all huge fans of them. But jealousy is a waste of time when the music's this good. The set-up is pretty basic: Chloe plays drums, Asya plays keyboards and sings. The arrangements are obviously very keyboard driven, but the overall feel when listening to the album or seeing them live (as I did supporting the Go! Team at Koko last night) is much denser and more complicated than this might suggest. Their songs are very distinguishable from each other, which might not seem likely considering the set-up. They range from funky (Rad) to introspective slowies, to downright dirty electro (La Pump).
It's clear that their originality is a result of their age - had they spent their teens listening to hundreds of different bands, then they would wear their influences on their shoulders like most bands in their early twenties or late teens do. It's a progression - you like a type of music, you form a band and you play that type of music. The innocence of simply picking up instruments and not striving to emulate any particular sound and just playing what you feel...that's something you just don't hear that often.
You can see the animated video for La Pump here or a live performance here. And you can buy their sublime debut album, She Like Electric in all good recordshops.
posted by Unknown at 3/02/2006 11:41:00 am
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