Friday, September 7, 2012

Starring, ABCDEFG-HIJKLMNOP-QRSTUV-WXYZ

Hey, WTF! That's my motto for the day. It fits perfectly with the band Starring and their Northern Spy release ABCDEFG-HIJKLMNOP-QRSTUV-WXYZ. The record label wisely put a sticker over the cover design because it has psychedelic graphics that are 100% unreadable. Now that's cool I guess. Cutting-edge graphic design has gradually eschewed the word content over the years so that in many cases it is no longer to be read, nor can it be. It's a kind of punk thing I suppose. And what counts for me of course is the music.

So let's turn to that. This is a very cool psychedelic-punk-prog hybrid band that rehearsed like the devil no doubt to get this album to sound the way it does. It has some pyrotechnical brilliance in it from keys and rhythm. The vocals tend to be attractive slacker girl punk in various guises, and there's something of Reich's "Four Organs" somehow in there, if you have any idea what I am talking about.

The band is Brooklyn-based, and that fits too. Brooklyn block-for-block right now is probably the creative capital of the United States and there's a WTF do what we want ethos that fits the kind of innovation being spawned over there (as opposed to the Jersey side, where "get the f outta here!" tends to be what comes to the forefront most frequently).

Anyway this is very cool music. Starring is doing something new with some earlier things without sounding retro in any way. That's not easy. It's good, though, seriously. Now who the f designed the cover??

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