Today’s Sounds: Freelove Fenner

Record:

Freelove Fenner, Pineapple Hair EP (Fixture)

 
If brevity’s your thing, consider devoting your next 12 minutes to local trio Freelove Fenner’s new economy-sized EP.

To their credit, Caitlin Loney, Peter Woodford and Michael Wright manage to eke out a fair number of ideas in the short time frame. The six songs (five of which come in at under two minutes) are skeletal and restrained, as far as jangly pop-rock goes, but instead of feeling claustrophobic, the trio has given its compact tunes a fair amount of breathing room. It’s the rare short album that still takes its sweet time to arrive at a destination.

There are essentially four unassertive legs to this musical chair: Loney’s fastidiously neutral, echoing vocals, the beach pop guitar (flanged to nice effect here and there), the snare-happy percussion and a lot of empty space. Their bandcamp quite proudly states the EP was an entirely analogue-recorded affair, and that no “digital effectors” were used in its making. As such there’s a slight hint of off-the-floor looseness that belies the clinical nature of the compositions themselves.

There’s a tendency for this style of austere rock to either be rife with unbearable tension or to be harshly terse. Pineapple Hair is neither of these things, but rather a collection of tightly wound treats ready to be unspooled.
 

Track:

Girls Names, “The New Life”

 
This single by Belfast indie band Girls Names (who’ve been pegged as everything from surf rock to post-punk) is out in 12-inch format on Nov. 12 via Tough Love, and features a remix of the tune by Optimo’s JD Twitch.
 

 

Video:

The Raveonettes, “The Enemy”

 
See and hear a track by this great shoegazing rock ’n’ roll duo from Denmark, who play tonight, Oct. 3, at the Corona Theatre. Their latest record is The Observator.