Animals are everywhere in music these days. Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear, Department of Eagles, Animal Collective, Frightened Rabbit, Startled Ocelot and Disgruntled Goat1 have all made their mark in recent years. If you are from Brooklyn (or Stirling) and need to give a funky, trendy name to your band, you’d better make sure you name it after wildlife.
Which is the route taken by Queens (eg nearly Brooklyn) band Freelance Whales. When my old chum Andrew contacted me to tell me about this great new band he’d come across, I thought he was taking the piss, as is his wont. But no. Freelance Whales are indeed a real band, and a quite startlingly good one they are too.
Now, I’m one of those people who constantly compares new things to bands/films/books/dogs I already know about. Yes, I know that in Music Journalism 101 they teach you to not do this kind of thing, but what the hell, this is my blog and I’ll do what I like. Here’s my take on Freelance Whales. They are Fleet Foxes meets Justin Timberlake.
“You what?” I hear you exclaim. Hear me out. The reason why I say this is that they like:
a. Banjos
b. Autotune
See? It’s easy, this music journalism lark. But, facetiousness aside, they combine some of the folky pastoral vibe of recidivists like Fleet Foxes and Devendra Banhart with the rather more modern autotuned sounds of Timberlake and Kanye West. Sure, that sounds very odd indeed, but it does work superbly, making a mixture that seems incongruous on paper quite delightful in reality. There’s all sorts of other influences in there, from Mew to Super Furry Animals to Neil Young.
Their album “Weathervanes” is out in March, with previews of much of the album available here. Better still, you can pre-order the album on their website here and get a free MP3 download immediately, well before the March 16th release date. I suggest you do as it’s excellent.
And enjoy the MP3 below, the song “Generator ^ 1st Floor”, which elegantly builds up the Deliverance-style banjo to Arcade Fire style heights:
MP3: Generator 1st floor by Freelance Whales
Ah, new music. Can’t beat it, can you?
1 Not all of these are real.
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Wow. This is really good. Underline really.
Very nice pop vibe on top of a Califone-reminiscent bed.
Hurry there, K, better tout the crap out of these guys before Pitchfork takes credit.
By: SH on January 13, 2010
at 15:13
It’s great. I’d suggest anyone reading this to go and pre-order it now and get the MP3 download. Listened to it twice today and if I weren’t listening to “Contra” too, there’d have been an extra couple of plays.
By: loftandlost on January 13, 2010
at 22:19
freelance whales are amazing. i saw them open for fanfarlo at webster hall in NYC and enjoyed their performance more than fanfarlos to be honest…the entire album is amazing. ghosting, starring, 1st floor generator and hannah are top picks…
By: SL on January 14, 2010
at 19:09
[...] not as good as the Freelance Whales album [...]
By: Vampire Weekend – Contra « Loft And Lost on January 15, 2010
at 11:20
[...] the new year and I’ve already heard two utterly fantastic records (the other one being by Freelance Whales, of course). What a year this could turn out to be. I shall be reviewing both in the coming [...]
By: New Year New Music Part Six – Bullets In Madison « Loft And Lost on January 22, 2010
at 13:18