JAPANTHER

Oh man, this week’s band of the week is soooo badass, I fucking love them. They’re a New York duo that writes songs about River Phoenix or how the principle is dumb and other awesome stuff. The thing is, they do it like insanely well and with a brilliant (and unquestionably New York/Brooklyn) sensibility. This week’s band of the week is…

JAPANTHER!!!

Matt Reilly and Ian Vanek formed the band in 2001, when they were both going to The Pratt Institute, a well-known New York art school. Together, the pair make awesome, charging art-punk-rock with propulsive drumbeats, cheap synths and crunchy bass playing. They write songs that are short, catchy, scratchy and clearly the work of people way too cool to live anywhere else but NYC.

Their albums have this beautiful made-in-the-basement feel which they achieve by starting most songs with random campy sound clips and having jarring transitions between songs and sound clips which are in-between or within the song itself. Like the cover of their 2007 album, Skuffed My Huffy (great title), everything they do feels very much like an awesome collage created out of the coolest bits of underground pop culture.

If you’re a fan of early Sonic Youth or Sebadoh or you just like stuff that’s noisy and cool, Japanther will just like…make you happy…cuz they rock…rarr!

http://www.myspace.com/japanther  

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