The Brooklyn pop/rock/stomped-foot-to-cranked-forehead-dance duo Sleigh Bells has become a favorite prediction for who’ll blow up in 2010 — or at least who’ll explode your speakers. The group consists of guitarist Derek Miller and vocalist Alexis Krauss, and they’ve received acclaim from magazines like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork as well as The New York Times; Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker placed them atop his best albums of 2009 list despite the fact that they didn’t have an album, just some songs on their MySpace page unavailable for legal download. Like Frere-Jones, many await the release of the band's first album, Treats, on May 11 off of M.I.A.’s N.E.E.T. imprint of Mom + Pop records. They're on tour now.
Sleigh Bells typifies an emerging side of the modern music business: they’re an indie Myspace sensation who rely on looped backings off an iPod in live performances and emasculate audiophilic sonic sensibilities with the rich grit of their hit “Crown on the Ground,” which sounds like a groove-packed missile homed in on your cochlea.
During their shows, Krauss moves like a being halfway between an iPod commercial dancer and a rapt Shaman, while to her right Miller jerks around his and his guitar’s body. Here is their performance of "Crown on the Ground" at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC (turn your computer speakers down before playing):
Sonnymoon is a lesser-known group within the Sleigh Bells canon of guy-girl, indie-MySpace, modern-production, kind-of-a-band-but-not-in-the-classical-sense duos. Although they lack the same pedigree of accolades, and some of the blast, their recent free LP, Golden Age, is worth the five minute download.
They're the pairing of vocalist Anna Wise and producer Dane Orr. Their sound mixes almost-psychedelic, swinging vocals with bursts of staggering beats. Wise’s vocals sound like the rippling remnants of a drop of liquid, that are sometimes being sucked up into a silent, sonic vacuum (see the end of the posted video). It’s somewhere between a musical acid trip and a Beck instrumental.
Like Krauss and Miller, Wise seems to be the most emotive in the duo, while Orr broods in her background, orchestrating beats on a drum machine — or at least that’s what can be gleaned from this video of them performing their song “Run Away” by themselves. (The LP version goes more smoothly.)
It's hard to find much on the two, aside from their music, which might be the point. Aside from YouTube clips, all the band puts in their MySpace "About" section is the enigmatic couplet "Everything under the sun is in tune/But the son is eclipsed by the moon." Although their page says they have no record label, according to a post on Okayplayer.com the duo recently signed to Plug Research, so an upcoming studio album might be in the works. (They're not on Plug Research's website yet though.)
If you're lucky enough to be at SXSW, you can check both duos out: Sleigh Bells performs four times in the next three days, and Sonnymoon plays tomorrow.
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