The Canadian duo Phedre is one of those groups that makes you think the music industry will disintegrate until all that is left are a bunch of teenagers instant-messaging songs to each other.
This will be music that they made in their bedrooms and closets in their government-subsidized apartments, or whatever private spaces they are able to occasionally occupy.
Their music, like Phedre’s music, will be like taking drugs by yourself, or maybe like taking drugs with a friend. It is one giant meaningless distraction, a method for getting comfortable with the fact that your own life doesn’t mean much, so you might as well space out and watch in bewilderment as the world just sort of floats by, always a few millimeters, or maybe a few light years, beyond the ends of your fingertips.
Photo courtesy of Phedre
While you are listening, maybe you will dance around a bit, as if no one is looking, because in all probability, no one is.
More of a musical project than a band, Phedre is a laptop pastiche of everything trending in the musical landscape right now: glitchy dance beats, esoteric hip-hop, neo-psychedelia and more.
They are currently on a do-it-yourself tour of Asia, and will appear tonight in Tainan, tomorrow in Kaohsiung and Sunday in Taipei.
Based in Toronto, the group is essentially a two-person act of April Aliermo and Daniel Lee, both singing while manipulating MIDI consoles. Aliermo’s voice is like an auto-tuned little girl robot, and Lee weirdly approximates the baritone ennui of 70s and 80s glam-pop vocalists, with Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode as a possible template. Lee also sets most of the foundation on a synthesizer, noodling through cut-up, psych melodies.
Phedre’s record label, Daps Records, describes them as making music that’s “digestible to internet-induced-ADD-types and also those who can sit through a heavily conceptual full-length.”
In performance, they do the artsy thing of wearing masks and outfits that ride the line between outlandish and normcore. With their masks and head ornaments, they are definitely in a form of stage dress, but unlike the musicians of the 70s and 80s who dressed outrageously to occupy an extreme identity (David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust, the interplanetary weirdness of Parliament Funkadelic, and even hair metal like Twisted Sister offer a few diverse examples), with Phedre (and so many others) it feels like they’re just playing make-believe in public.
The music, however, is interesting in places. Their shows this weekend might prove to be a string of really good bedroom parties — as long as they are able to convey that high-in-my-own-bedroom aesthetic to an audience of strangers.
Phedre performs tonight at 9pm with Physical Chemical Brothers (理化兄弟) at TCRC, B1, 14, Simen Rd Sec 2, Tainan City (台南市西門路二段314號B1). Tickets are NT$300 at the door. Tomorrow at 8pm, they are at Paramount, 70 Minzu 1st Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市民族一路70號), with tickets at NT$300. On Sunday at 8pm they play at Pipe, 1 Siyuan St, Taipei City (台北市思源街1號). Tickets are NT$350 at the door, and NT$300 for the first 20 ticket buyers.
ARISTOPHANES EP RELEASE
Aristophanes (貍貓) is a female rapper with a quirky indie persona that thinly veils her clearly pop ambitions.
The cover art of her new EP, No Rush to Leave Dreams, is a macabre version of a Japanese doll comic, and one can interpret that as an alter ego.
She raps in a conversational, emotionally tinged way, adding singing at times. Her voice is by turns breathy, cutesy and seductive, but always with a very intimate delivery. If she is as good live as her studio versions, she will pack a wallop on stage.
Her music was worked out with the help of various key figures in the Taipei indie electronic scene, notably SonicDeadHorse, who will join her on stage. Visuals will be provided by another denizen of the scene, Children Chiu (邱智群).
Aristophanes performs with Prairie (落差草原 WWWW) tomorrow at 8pm at The Wall, B1, 200, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段200號B1). Tickets are NT$600, or NT$500 in advance through www.indievox.com.
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