But, over time, I warmed to the various genres of music that rooted their instrumentation less in strumming, plucking, hitting; more in 1’s and 0’s. I think I have Björk and the early Morr Music roster to thank for that largely. Which may explain my fascination and wholehearted love of the more glitchy, start-stop, swell-fade, emotive electronic music. So I was 100% BLOWN-AWAY when one of the various DJ’s I share a room with more often than not on turntable.fm played this week’s Song of the Week, “Lawn Knives,” by a band called GOBBLE GOBBLE.
Truth be told, I had heard mention of the band on the wonderful ohmyrockness.com back last summer…but was immediately turned off by the name. I know. Shallow, yes, and my loss, again, yes—but it’s a known and accepted prejudice I have in such situations. It’s what kept me from truly liking Archers of Loaf and Superchunk for so long in college.
The band is the brainchild of ex-hardcore singer Cecil Frena—originally form Edmonton, Canada but now based out of the San Francisco Bay Area—and it blends the best of glitchy electronics with catchy, poppy, emotional song-writing, pulling it safely far from any of that washed out, cold, sterile electronic music that tends to get boring quicker than you can say “vintage drum machine.” Check out that photo, for god’s sake. These dudes will straight up fuck up your house.
Some of GOBBLE GOBBLE’s songs can veer a little close to the overly abrasive for my tastes, but it’s all totally original and most of it’s superb. Honestly, hearing “Lawn Knives” and some of the other better tracks (“Boring Horror,” “Wrinklecarver”) reminds me of the first time I heard Michael Angelakos of Passion Pit prior to band-ing up—less in terms of having a similar sound, more in terms of having a musical energy that’s ready to burst from the speakers and out of whatever self-impossed confines currently exist. You can hear more songs and purchase tracks from GOBBLE GOBBLE via the band’s bandcamp page. Along with a bunch of WEIRD album covers.
UPDATE: Craziness. As per the commenter below, our band of the week—Gobble Gobble—literally just changed their name right around the time of posting to Born Gold. Coincidence? Direct result of our post? I mean, PROBABLY the latter. We’re drunk with power! DRUNK WITH POWER!!! Born Gold also seem to have posted shows on their new splash page (they’ll be in NYC for CMJ) and they’ve announced they’ll be releasing their debut LP via Hovercraft/Crash Symbols on September 20th. But you can pre-order the limited edition vinyl at InSound now and get immediate MP3 download. Cool? Cool. You can see the announcement here and preview on of the new tracks (BE WARNED: It’s auto-play). GOBBLE GOBBLE IS DEAD! LONG LIVE GOBBLE GOBBLE!
