New Music: Mint Chicks – Screens
posted ~ October 22nd, 2009. Filed under: Music Reviews.
If I could actually successfully kick myself and do any decent amount of damage, lord knows I would be doing so right now. I’m mostly angry that my dumb ass only got around to giving the Mint Chicks a good listen until NOW. NOW that I’m living in their country of origin, New Zealand, and NOW that I’ve conveniently terminated my resisdence in the city that they’ve since relocated to, Portland, Oregon. We did the ol’ switcheroo, the Mint Chicks and I did. I remember so clearly reading about them in the local weeklies and thinking that the descriptions of their tunes were right in line with something I’d enjoy. They’ve been playing low-key off they radar shows in Portland ever since they moved there a few years ago. The story goes that they left New Zealand after a quick rise to near super-stardom for a more un-noticed, out-of-the-spotlight lifestyle. It’s true, they are a big deal here. Their videos get played on the local music television stations and everyone knows who they are. They’re even returning sometime this year to headline some huge national music festivals. This elusive phantom band has grabbed my attention for more reasons than I just listed, and they are as follows:
The Mint Chicks’ new record, Screens, fucking rules. It’s like a blow-pop you dropped in the dirt. Screens is a pop record, specifically, it’s bubblegum pop but it has a just the right amount of contemporary modernization to push it past the its-all-been-done realm. The vocals are often fuzzed out in a lo-fi styling and electronically chopped to pieces. There are gritty synths and tinny drums speckling the record like shiny pieces of gravel and hair stuck to said lollypop. This record is fun and easy to listen to, but it engages and forces you to listen deeper and see what actually going on. When I first got it I seriously listened to it six, yes, six times in a row.
The Mint Chicks – Red, White, or Blue
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The Mint Chicks – Don’t Sell Your Brains Out, Baby
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Another reason that I have a boner for the Mint Chicks right now is that they do though provoking excellent experiments with new tunes. Recently, they released a new song, but the only way to hear the song was to go to a web site they’d set up with four separate videos embeded within it. Each video contains a separate part of the song, and when played simultaneously they come together to formulate the new song. It’s an absolutely brilliant way to engage your audience a in the fibers of your art (though not the first time, see The Flaming Lips’ Zaireeka). I love it and I would love to see many, many more experience-based musical endeavors be celebrated and proliferated throughout the mainstream. Cheers, Mint Chicks.
Watch the four video song thing here.