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Blind Pig
Tavern
a
MUSIC FEST & PIG ROAST
SilllIRDAY, JUNE 13th
UVE MUSIC WITH THE RJIIT1ERS • DASHBOARD SAVIORS •
AVERY DYLAN PROJECT • CAR1A LeFEVER & THE RAYS •
BETSY FRANCK & THE BAREKNUCKLE BAND • CHRIS MOORE
SPECIALS • PARTY STARTS ABOUT 4lsh
www.BlhidPlgllwem.com
485 BAUDW1N STREET • (706) 548-3442
visit our new website
www.bel-jean.com
voted ‘best burrito’ Creative Loafing and tnsite Magazine
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One coupon per customer per visit per offer. Not vafid H sold,
transferred or dupficated- Not vafid for catering orders.
Cast value 1/130 of 1*. Good orty st Athens location.
3 2009 WUy*s Mexican* Qrfl. Code: FP
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H| axsly doesift tntenid to save rock music.
^ The band's ambitions have a slightly
: J| broader scope. "With my bike, I'm going
to save the world," sings frontman Cody
Ground on the opening track off of upcoming
release Tomorrow's Fossils. It's the ultimate
testament to the underdog. In fact, Ground
jokingly requests in an interview that we make
him sound "more interesting." I promise to do
my best, listen to the album in its entirety,
and then decide that ego-inflating won't
be necessary. The album speaks for itself,
and to itself in its own self-referential way.
Tomorrow's Fossils is today's indie-pop gem,
existing in its own vague place and time for
future discovery.
Melancholy without being despondent, cute
but not sentimental, simultaneously hi-fi and
lo-fi—Loxsly has managed to balance seem
ingly opposing aesthetics to create an odyssey
of experimental pop without sounding compro
mised, creating retro-futuristic songs under
neath Ground's naive melodies—it's as though
vocals were recorded by a Teddy Ruxpin whose
batteries are dying, mixed on a Commodore
PET 2001 and bounced down to floppy disk
before being distributed to the indie masses.
It's the music you wish you heard coming out
of the busted old TV and outdated VHS tapes
they used to show in PE class.
"We like imperfections," Ground says con
fidently about Tomorrow's Fossils. Two years in
the making, the band approached the album
more like a science experiment, using the stu
dio itself as an instrument in much the same
way that Wilco labored away at Yankee Hotel
Foxtrot through a process of construction,
deconstruction and reassembly.
It's not hard to imagine Loxsl/s music
being played on laboratory equipment rather
than musical instruments—vocal melodies
poured into flasks and heated on Bunsen
burners until they evaporate into blue-glowing
gases while keyboards are transmogrified
through analog circuits. All experimental data
is then recorded on the track "Pet Results":
"They could clearly channel every tiny thought
they had into its own reality," Ground sings.
Perhaps it's more a statement about the
group's creative process than the recurring lab
rats Ground is so enamored of.
Though Ground describes loxslyySOifftG as
"cinematic," we derided that this half-assed
journalistic descriptor needed desperate clari
fication (would a movie critic describe a direc
tor's cinematography as "musical?"). Together,
we reached the conclusion that if Loxsly were
a movie, it could Only be Wes Anderson's Life
Aquatic—dry, redemptive, With a late-'60s/'
early-'70s aesthetic. Along these lines, Loxsl/s
sound is under-pretentious, dreamlike and
never overly grand or existential. "You & I
Were Working" blips and beeps until burst
ing into a Flaming Lips-sized vocal anthem
("Every fear and thought within/ Do we really
want to notice them?"). "Battalions" is a
Bowie-worthy track that fluctuates between
disco and guitar minimalism until sinking into
a gorgeous cascade of Pink-Floyd-like piano
chords on "Pet Results." Meanwhile, someone
somewhere tinkers on a toy piano on "Sunk
Alone," while the Grandaddy-inspired title-
track sounds like a Morse-code-arpeggiated
keyboard amplified through a submarine
vessel.
All this has to leave us wondering whether
Loxsly will be bringing the mechanical teddy
bear or the submarine vessel to its upcoming
performance at Flicker. With production being
such a valuable asset to Tomorrow’s Fossils, it's
hard to imagine how each song will be pulled
off live. As with other albums inspired by 70s
synth-rock, Fossils sounds even wider and all-
embracing on a pair of headphones. Yet, even
underneath the production sheen, each song
has well-crafted, piano-driven songwriting
at its core. Until then, it remains unknown
how these variables will interact with audi
ence members—the experimenters and the
experimentees—either participants or lab rats
in Loxsl/s grand sonic venture.
Ryan Monahan
WHO: Loxsly, Mass $6)0 Revolt,
Ths Matt tore One
:4 s WHERE: Ricker Theatre £ Bar
s£|| WHEN: timfc&Mqrit. 8:30 pm
HOW MUCH: $5 ■
^ ■ ■ ■ .
16 FUGPOLE.COM • MAY 20,2009