(le) poisson rouge

Yes Giantess (formally known as just Giantess) are a four-piece who make pretty party-worthy jams and originate from Boston, Massachusetts. The band members are Jan Rosenfeld (vocals/ synth), Chase Nicholl (synth), Karl Hohn (synth) and Joey Sulkowski (drums). With Ratatat-sized synths and huge pop choruses, Yes Giantess is pretty much the sonic equivalent of flying down the yellow brick road while its raining ecstasy and skittles. They’re like the tequila-fuelled love-child of Iglu & Hartly and Hockey, with a raging doubt that Passion Pit might actually be the father. They’ve practically swallowed a Lego kit of synths and beats before spewing it up again with a scream of intent. Sensible songs these are not, but they are very fun. The same sort of fun as ending up getting it on in the bathroom at a houseparty; edgy and immense at the time but with a distinct bitter taste of regret in the morning.

Shannon Funchess and Bruno Coviello are Williamsburg Brooklyn's answer to the reemergence of new romantics. Like their predecessors, they have a penchant for walking on the dark side while carrying the torch to new dawns of rapturous, post-punk, new wave and industrial sounds. LIGHT ASYLUM is a musical echoing from the past reverberating against mans foreshadowing, apocalyptic plight, to destroy what light is still being held up high to guide us all inward and homeward. As a beacon is to sailors lost to a battle with the sea, beats, synths and vocals come in waves leading listener ashore in the darkest of nights.

When your songs are too big to be contained: form a band. Maybe call it after your family name because you like the way it sounds (shit, if it worked for Bon Jovi then who’s to argue). Record those songs in the basement of your parents house in Tacoma. When that burns down, shake it off and move to New York. Find a new band to play with, start working on a symphony (no really, do it), mix your newfound formal training with the noisy exuberance of youth. Get raucous.

It's high noon in Brooklyn but its always midnight on southern, dead end suburban streets. Here, there is total silence except for the house at the very end, where inside a tin roof garage, teenagers are kissing for the first time. The humidity is too great, the boys peel off white t’s and the girls cheeks are flushed, beet red under the garage’s two fluorescent stripes. In a pond behind the house an alligator waits for a snow birds’ Pomeranian to take its night stroll. A child is sleep walking for the first time. Some one is running away for the last time. The music is too loud on the 12 D battery boom box radio, the cops are on their way. It’s at this moment you hear the music of Twin Shadow on a radio station transmitting suburban ghost dreams that sound like a slow motion shot of a cannon, singing about spirits, visions, and aural hallucinations cutting through the first American night.