![]() I don't think that TV on the Radio is some dark mysterious band that no one can know about. We don't want to be hidden behind some shroud of secrecy. Was that mainly a means to improve distribution and PR support?ĭavid Sitek: Just to get the music heard by the most amount of people. Pitchfork: You guys recently signed to Interscope. This is the cost of helping to hype a neighborhood, but Sitek sounds resigned: "It just means I'll go make somewhere in New Jersey cool." One of the only blends of New York noise, beats, and soul that actually adds something to its influences, the five-piece has been called "Brooklyn's best band." But that tag might not apply anymore: not only does their new label deal give them a way out of cult indie status, but Sitek tells me his landlord is tripling the rent to try to drive out the nest of prestigious studios in his building and replace it with a high-rise. ![]() ![]() These days, it counts five members: Singer and guitarist Kyp Malone joined the band before their last album, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, and drummer Jaleel Bunton and bassist Gerard Smith are the latest recruits. Sitek started the band in 2001 with singer Tunde Adebimpe. "I have saxophone players and flute players in here." But we were talking about the project that christened the studio, Return to Cookie Mountain, the major label debut by the band that Sitek produces, plays in, and co-founded: TV on the Radio. He was in the middle of a Beck remix- "It's turning into a free jazz song," he laughed. With this kind of sound, it's telling that TV on the Radio finish by covering one of the most idolized bands in independent music it's a bold calling card for their upcoming full-length.David Sitek spoke to me on the phone from Stay Gold, the studio he built from scratch over the past two-and-a-half years. As the song spins out its last few seconds, Young Liars ends just as it starts, with such an immediately affecting resonance for which words seem almost unfair, if only because the time needed to consciously process them seems a frustrating juxtaposition to the spontaneity of the connection to something so unique. Like a streetcorner serenade, it's got all the oooh's, aaah's, handclaps and snaps of classic doo-wop, and yet it somehow remains brilliantly, unwaveringly faithful to the original. On this disc, in which every song bears the weighty finality to close, TV on the Radio provide a surreal bonus track: an a cappella cover of the Pixies' "Mr. Adebimpe is plaintive and almost impossibly haunting here, but the jagged tears of Hemphill's guitar, distant enough to sound two studios away, sends the song blissfully over the edge. Zinner's trademark, tremulant surf-waves are the vital undercurrent of "Staring at the Sun", while his low-register distortions lay the foundation of "Blind" in drugged-out slow motion- atop Chase's loping mechanics, he creates a grim, plodding backdrop in stark contrast to the chorus' heavenly reprises, compellingly tarnishing the optimism of the gorgeous vocals with just a hint of uncertainty. ![]() The guests make their presence known in subtle but unmistakable ways. Without hyperbole, the effect is electrifyingly direct, nearly mesmerizing, and nothing quite like anything else I can recall.Īdebimpe and the Siteks are currently only playing AAA ball in the New York PR farm system, but in preparation for their call-up to the Big Show, it doesn't hurt that they've befriended the three-, four- and five-hitters in the Brooklyn All-Stars line-up: Aaron Hemphill (Liars), Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and Brian Chase (also Yeahs). It's the spirituality and soul of the blues filtered through barbershop harmonies, but accompanied in counterpoint by dehumanized pulses and drones. ![]() Bands have played up singers in the past, but here, the single-minded focus of every musical element seems designed purely to elevate the vocal melodies out of the realm of the merely "real" and into the hyper-real. A massive confluence of factors- masterful levels, nearly too-crisp production, and David Andrew and Jason Sitek's beautifully translucent arrangements- conspire to allow Adebimpe's vocals to shine, diffuse and radiant, as the stunning centerpiece of every track on Young Liars. ![]()
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