Today’s Sounds: Django Django

Record:

Django Django, Django Django (Ribbon Music)

If you immersed a half-dozen sweet Beach Boys harmonies in a light psychedelic funk, stirred in some gritty space dust, infused a few surf riffs and seasoned the resulting creation with chiptunes, syrupy grooves, haunted synths and handclaps, it would probably sound like garbage. Leave it to these Edinburgh dudes, they know their way around the lab.

This is an impressive debut album. Songwriting is tough enough, but managing so many disparate styles and sounds is a serious feat. It probably helps that the band’s drummer and producer is the younger brother of the Beta Band’s keyboardist. In fact, those who remember that defunct ’90s/’00s act will hear some real similarities here, in the way they wield psychedelic sounds, folk music and dollops of featherweight prog.

But Django Django is a pop-dance band first; their brethren’s signature psych-folk aesthetic sometimes sneaks to the foreground but lurks largely in the shadows. And this band is all the more fun for it. One of their signature images, which they print on their shirts, is a mash-up of a rave-culture happy face and the dark side of the moon. Clearly, these guys are aiming to conquer this city.

This record will be released digitally next Tuesday, Aug. 14, but you can stream it over here. They’re booked to play Montreal on Sept. 28.
 

Track:

Matmos, “Very Large Green Triangles” (edit)

 
A slice of the upcoming Ganzfield EP, to be released by Thrill  Jockey in October, by the San Francisco/Baltimore duo.
 

 

Video:

The Raveonettes, “She Owns the Streets”

 
Fresh from Osheaga, the Danish band releases a new video documenting a 21st century NYC “superstar” (à la Andy Warhol’s trashy entourage): Loan, a woman who dances daily on the Bowery.