It's not often that the words "fantasy" and "electro-pop" come together. The lesser-spotted combination of twinkly keys, boy-girl harmonies and mad scientists/Transylvania/the words "clockwork creeting" is not one seen too in the wild. And the best place for spotting this particularly rare specimen? "In The Wooded Forest" (you see what I did there?), which is set for its European release on 16th August, or Paris' 11th arrondissement, supporting chillwave collective Toro Y Moi, the night before Bastille Day and France's traditional military-and-fireworks knees-up.
The Brooklyn-based duo normally hit the stage as a member-swollen (ahem) five-set: here, however, due to the financial implications of touring outside of the States, they launch into their set accompanied by just a drummer, a laptop, and an octapad, which in keeping with the band's character, looks fun, makes lots of occasionally odd noises, and has a name that could quite easily have been given to the dastardly villain in a sci-fi film from the eighties.
The aforementioned octapad is in use straight away, as Paul Hammer sets off a sequence of almost trance-like synth lines that wouldn't feel out of place backing Grandstand's football highlight package. Placed curiously on the album for what amounts to basically a short instrumental with a bit of shouting, in its live form "The Wooded Forest" energetically launches the band into their fizzy, at times fuzzy, electro-pop. That a band that are becoming reasonably well-known for their eccentric lyrical content - their debut album, in effect a suite of twelve curiously titled and quaintly bizarre pop vignettes, was called "The Adventures Of Mr. Pumpernickel And The Girl With Animals In Her Throat" and featured songs such as "Les Grenouilles" and "A Midnight Meeting, A Clockwork Creeting: The Turtle at the Door" - should kick things off with a glorified instrumental is pretty ballsy. It works though, and the bi-gendered cries, eager but tinted with a certain wistfulness, puncture the determinedly swirling, bubbling synths and Hammer's thickly textured guitar. The band regularly walks a tightrope between light electronic playfulness and heavier, even surprising, bursts of guitar-based rock, and this track is a good example of that.
It also acts as a shot of adrenalin, delivered straight to the cerebral cortex, not only for the audience but for the band, who, it must be said, appear a wee bit nervous. Whether it's the diminished numbers on stage or the new surroundings (a first date away from home is never easy) or indeed a combination of the two, one cannot say. But it's apparent. To their credit though, they work their way into the set, seemingly growing in confidence as the tracks flock by. "Honestly", the sole track on the album that even sounds like it's crossed paths with an acoustic guitar receives an electric makeover more in keeping with the evening's surroundings, whilst "Loveliest Creature", a new track yet to feature on any Savoir Adore release thus far is introduced as a "dance number". What this equates to, in actual fact, is a twee-brushed casiotone tune, with a nevertheless crunchy guitar exterior and solo voice break, a mixture that my companion described as "more catchy" than their actual single, "We Talk Like Machines". The dance numbers have clearly been left to close off the set, as, after a quick string change, the band launch into "Merp", all kitchen sink percussion, jittery guitars and gentle harmonies, which at the death unleashes a disco-infused funk clapdown before segueing straight into "Bodies". Movement of the ill-coordinated kind (other than that gravitating towards the bar located in one corner) is finally seen amongst the crowd, and the band deserves it.
As noted before, to write the band off as purveyors of lightweight electro-pop is to ignore the darker, more aggressive side to their songs. Case in point: the stand-out track from the album, "Transylvanian Candy Patrol", their retelling of the classic Hansel and Gretel tale, which comes at the mid-point in the set. The gentle build up is deceiving, as a languid drumbeat and sweetly enticing vocals from Muro lull the listeners into a state of sugar-induced unconsciousness before Hammer unleashes a wall of soaring guitar noise amid cathartic Arcade Fire-esque cries of "How did we get here?/you cannot have us". The song's Jekyll-Hyde nature makes for an energising experience, made all the more impressive by their reduced strength on stage. It's sparkly day-glo pop, Jim, but not entirely as we know it, and it's certainly not without a hint of the darker end of the light spectrum. They missed a trick not playing "Les Grenouilles" though...
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The last few weeks in Paris have been pretty hot and hazy, like a thick layer of extra-strength heat has been draped generously over the city. And with the emergence of Toro Y Moi (principle man Chazwick Bundick flanked by two friends), dry ice billowing all about, the scene is set for waves upon waves of summer-beat, dare I say it, chillwave. Pitchfork claims that the "summer of chillwave"TM hit in 2009, with Toro Y Moi's debut long-player released in February this year, so I'm perhaps a little behind the times. In any case, chillwave always seems a little bit of a misnomer for music that is essentially warm, smooth and woozy, three adjectives which work pretty well where Toro Y Moi are concerned. The band launches pretty much immediately into a slice of seriously hazy funk, the early tracks merging into an balmy sea of woozy ambience, all shuddering bass with the odd burst of euphoric synth rising out of the fog like a morning sun blazing through the brume. "Low Shoulder", a popular choice, ramps up the energy a bit, throwing a squelchy beat, reverb-drenched vocals and some sinuous organ; is lazily dynamic too much of an oxymoron? I don't know, but feet are definitely twitching by this point, whilst "Minors" finds Bunwick unleash a cloudburst of organ that sees billowing ripples of tropical sound disperse into the room, like an eternally chilled-out nuclear bomb.
The set ebbs and flows languorously, the lyrics buried deep down in the mix - as I understood was pretty much par for the course with the chillwave movement -, so much so that some audience members are moved to call for some technical readjustments to the sound. It's hard to tell whether the call is heard: the sloping disco-dance funk of "Talamak" comes and goes, as does "You Hid", the skittery beat and soulful lyrics eventually emerging from the heavy swirl of ambient noise, twinkling keys occasionally piercing the murk like watching a New York cityscape on a warm summer's night. With just a one-song encore, the gig comes to a rather abrupt end. Sweet and short (in that order), Savoir Adore and Toro Y Moi are interesting bedfellows, but nevertheless succeed in turning the heat up on a Parisian audience already dripping in sweat.
Toro Y Moi on MySpace
Savoir Adore on MySpace
Pietro Pravettoni online
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