Don’t touch that dial. Here are some other fine folks I’ve discovered while recently watching the Late Show with David Letterman.
MGMT – “Time To Pretend”
Ben Goldwasser and Andrew Vanwyngarden formed MGMT (“Management”) while students at Wesleyan University. The cape-wearing comrades, now based in Brooklyn, pair psychedelic tendencies with playful backing beats. Fitting then, that their debut, Oracular Spectacular, was handled by Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann.
MGMT’s debut single, “Time To Pretend,” starts off a little freaky-deaky, but the opening proclamation (“I’m feeling rough, I’m feeling raw, I’m in the prime of my life“) gets things kicking in the right direction. The song freshly skewers the rock-star tropes of overnight success, drugs, models, more drugs, regret, and yes, untimely death. The wall-of-distortion background reminds me a little of the Cure and a lot of Curve (or most any noise-pop band, really):
Speaking of freaky-deaky, MGMT’s trippy technicolor Lord of the Flies-inspired “Time To Pretend” video certainly qualifies (owls, zebras, and dolphins, oh my!).
A Fine Frenzy – “Come On, Come Out”
I don’t watch any of these shows: Big Shots, Brothers and Sisters, CSI: NY, The Hills, House, Private Practice, or One Tree Hill. That might explain why, until now, the music of 22-year old Alison Sudol had thus escaped me, since her songs have been featured on all of the above.
Known professionally as A Fine Frenzy, the lovely redhead’s debut CD, One Cell in the Sea, was released last summer. Have truer words ever served as title? According to her online bio, Sudol was inspired by British bands Coldplay, Keane, and Aqualung; Icelandic exports Bjork and Sigur Ros; and composer Philip Glass. All marked as present in my music collection, so how is it that I’m fashionably late to this fine party?
Sudol does seem to be experiencing the opposite of a frenzy; a snail-like slow burn is more accurate. While One Cell has been out since July, she only made her national television debut a couple of weeks ago. Playing the Late Show stage at the Ed Sullivan Theater, A Fine Frenzy entranced both audience and host with “Come On, Come Out”:
