Flamingods Dance Towards The Sun

 

On Friday I showed London band Darkstar's filmclip for 'Amplified Ease'. It's good, don't get me wrong - that's why I included it. But if you want to be honest - I think that it's all in who you know. Because there is another London-based band that have really killed a record that are in a similar vein, and I haven't heard much about them - despite Dustin Wong (Ponytail) having some involvement in their record (playing guitar on single 'Quessa').

The record - Sun. The band - Flamingods, a five-piece made up of Kamal Rasool, Charles Prest, Sam Rowe, Craig Doporto, and Karthik Poduval. They have an amazing genesis story too - 4 of the 5 members (Kamal, Sam, Craig, and Charles) met in Bahrain before moving to London and becoming friends with Kartik. As early gigs go, Flamingods’ couldn’t have gone much better. Having all bought tickets to the Animal Collective-curated ATP festival, they decided to take along a selection of their huge instrument collection and embarked on an 8 hour set in a chalet on-site – with up to 60 people crammed in to try and grab a view of their constantly changing line-up and enchanting tribal rhythms, and those who couldn’t squeeze in danced outside or tried clambering through windows.

Sun is a hypnotic melange of African inflection, tribal rhythms and quirk, all centred around discovering a loop or beat that serves as an electric bolt down the spine. Animal Collective, Boredoms, and Sun City Girls are cited as influences, with the former’s irreverence and innate sense of fun most evident in these tracks. This is dance music for those who don’t like dance music, and don’t hate Vampire Weekend enough to turn their backs on the brilliance Afro rhythms. Rave on, you crazy hipsters.

 

Sun is out now on the ever-excellent Art Is Hard Records - head here to get it in sexy green vinyl.

Flamingods - Quesso

And here is a stream of Sun in its entirety - it'll get you moving, even if rigor mortis has set in.

Dustin Wong's Album Of Verbs

Ponytail may be on hiatus, but the musical magpies are anything if not prolific. Guitarist Dustin Wong has been putting out a plethora of wild and wonderful releases, and is now priming a new album - Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads - coming out on Thrill Jockey tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, it takes listeners on another trip through the intricately colourful wonderland that he creates with only his guitar and a bank of effects pedals. I've only listened to the album once all the way through (this morning whilst driving to work with hot coffee in between my legs), and whilst it cements Wong's overall fingerprints in the Ponytail aesthetic, it also highlights the Baltimore artist's penchant for pushing the envelope into technicolour realms, something that other artists from the region (eg Dan Deacon, Future Islands) have undertaken for the past decade now. I think this will help to cement Wong's capabilities firmly in a positive, rather than a throwaway, light.


Furthermore, Wong has set up something interesting that YOU can be a part of! Fans and friends can tell him about a dream that was significant or surreal, recurring or unusual, by recording a description of the dream to his Soundcloud page (or describing it in a written message sent to his page). He will then create an original piece of music inspired by each of these dreams. specifically incorporating their description, and post a selection of these recordings to his Soundcloud page during the week of the release of Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads, beginning on Monday, February 20 (TODAY). He says about the project, "I thought it would be a really neat idea to be able to contribute some of my music to people's dreams, not only would it be a good challenge but it would also be a very loose non-verbal way of interpreting a dream. By reflecting the mood of what the dream is it could bring something out of the dream that the dreamer never noticed, like a glaze that brings out the colors of a painting." Head here to check it all out.

Dustin Wong - Pink Diamond
Dustin Wong - Ice Sheets On Feet Prints

Dustin Wong - Pink Diamond from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.