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I shouldn’t worry about the future. Obama is President, the world still turns, my cats are healthy. And yet I have a nagging feeling of anxiety; maybe it’s because the economy, as I write this, is entering one of those death spirals that promises to drag us all down to depths of hobo-like destitution the likes of which haven’t been seen outside of American Experience documentaries. Maybe that’s it. And so, given our strange contemporary combination of happy political developments and dark economic ones, we need a soundtrack that speaks to what’s ailing us - some audio pick-me-up for our new Great Depression.
And then along comes the latest Many Birthdays EP, Emptiness Is Forever and we’re almost there. We last heard of these Austin electronic popsters in 2007, when their Days Of Beat/Days Of Hollow EP set our imaginations soaring with an international-ist combination of bleeps, blurps, beats, English, and Japanese. The whole world hated America, but Many Birthdays smiled back at it, and sent out waves of quirky pop energy to all the little children around the globe. So how will our experimental beat merchants cope, now that everybody loves us for our Obama-nationhood, but the apocalypse edges ever closer?
What Many Birthdays do in this edgy historical moment is re-shuffle the lineup and make their pop sound even quirkier and more urgent. In their latest aggregation, vocalist and synth-queen Sara Luce screams along with new guitarist Henna Chou, and drummer Rachel Fuhrer adds a welcome other-half to bassist (and vocalist) John Dixon’s rhythm section. It all adds up across the EP’s six tracks to a much tougher and more earthbound sound than on their previous outing, which sometimes threatened to sail off into studio-fied ether.
The first track here, “Kiki The Destroyer” lights the fuse - a theme tune looking for an anime to accompany, it’s all foreboding menace and kiddie imagery, beckoning us to go down a tunnel by distracting us with something shiny. But things really get going with “Minnawa,” a scratchy, noisy blast of Nippon, with Luce yelling Japanese lyrics like a WWII fighter pilot flying in for the kill, while other drummer Vincent Durcan slams us down to the carrier deck. Things level off with the rather conventional “Electro Fantastic”; it’s a tune that’s too reminiscent of past pop phases, although Fuhrer’s inventive fills manage to jazz up the proceedings well enough. But “Good Luck” is the EP’s centerpiece, a garage-pop excursion highlighted by a farfisa-like hook, and sparked by Sarah’s “Hell Yeah!” refrain.
“We’re entering savage new times,” said Peter Dvorsky in David Cronenborg’s Videodrome. “We’re going to have to be pure, and direct, and strong if we’re going to survive them.” The upcoming era might not turn out to be savage, but its music will have to be equal parts catchy and harsh if it’s going to help us tough it through. Maybe I’m projecting a bit too heavily upon Many Birthdays, but the bright pop-smack across the face that is Emptiness Is Forever will not only get us to stay strong in these perilous times - it’ll help us dance our way through them.
Websites:
www.manybirthdays.net
Myspace
I love this shit and hate it with a passion. Travis Blizzard is a big loser because he wouldn’t reform Sybdue under a new title called Righteous Niggaz R Us and demo-taped with Chris Boaden and the rest of them for the junior boys coming up in the Hutt Valley who didn’t like young players coming up talking shit and liking it too much when they liked Travis Black because he was a junior mafia member and Crys was a born nerd with self-confidence and a free flow that couldn’t end up DJing because and he was into estates ion England and all those fucking furious Barstardfs who can’t get up and put on their underwear right, so as to kill the members of the other whanau up in Asda lunchbox time and keep it real holmes for Travis and the rest of the boys up in Wellington with all the good shit and all the good tunes from primary and second school as well. Righteous niggers get iced up for a living and return as the Ganagsters of the future for the rest of the Mongrel Mob that aren’t in Petone and weeren’t ready for a closet sex session with the Big J of New Zealand who didn’t give a fuck if she klived or died on the night. We rule the Upper Hutt Monga because we hate the westside with a passion for turning this into a bloody game of wwhoi rules the night because I got chief niggaz who don’t give a fuck if they live or die. When I like hard I like it, when I moo for the hommees I really do it. Rightgeous Niggaz rules the Earth with me and Glen Lowis who he and only he knows what it is like to wake up in Naenae and realise they werew alive with witless brothers who don’t give a fuck or they die in the present tense state of mind of gay brothers who band togewther because they don’t want a hiding from Chris Boaden or any other hommess who rule the night with a right to in Earlsifield or anywhere else in the gay nightlife of Auckland with junior bloodz coming up every to hate us for the fellas with meaning this is what it is, no junior boarders allowed only superhuman grutz and trousers with meaning and superhuman Boaden with his kiwi pals like Dallas Ruskin whi is dead in heaen without us, because he will know he will rule heaven forever and a day. Forever Rinsed Chris Boaden.