Ekko Astral
pink balloons
Spectrum Culture 80点相当
Pitchfork 80点相当
ソニックユースをもうちょっとポップにした感じ。
90s中期のチボ マット等のローファイ時期に
The Breeders に 初期LUSH風味みたいな。
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/ekko-astral-pink-balloons/
Ekko Astral tear through their songs furiously, avoiding the post-punk cliches prevalent among their peers: social justice messages so obvious they’re annoying, repetition as a form of sarcasm. Instead, the band has mastered the art of casual erudition, doling out lines that are incisive but never forced—think Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner or Gilla Band’s Dara Kiely, both of whom Holzman admires. In “on brand,” Ekko Astral go noise-pop while calling out women who submit to manipulation, romantic or capitalistic, in the name of boredom. “She’s got a pair of cheetah print pink pumps made by federal prisoners/She likes to wear ’em to the seventies club, wax nostalgic about racism,” Holzman sings melodramatically, puckering the answering refrain of “so, so, so bored” until it turns to mush. Even when she uses others’ words, it feels like a handmade collage; in the unnerving spoken-word track “somewhere at the bottom of the river between l'enfant and eastern market” (Yes, that’s a reference to La Dispute, darling), Holzman excerpts a friend’s poem about the necessity of tense conversations, however uncomfortable, before building to a recorded chat about mortality with her late grandfather.
When Ekko Astral drop names, they couldn’t care less about appearing in the know or accruing social capital. Holzman quotes AC/DC and Kreayshawn alike, and references Lite-Brite and Molly Shannon without goading anyone to prove they get it. She takes a crack at mispronouncing Bon Iver 13 years after the internet overdid that joke on Grammys night, and uses Frank Ocean, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Carly Rae Jepsen as wordplay. When she does jab at pop-culture shibboleths, it’s with reason, like shading communist consumers who gobble up brunch and blast Beyoncé songs about hustle culture. Hearing a singer who isn’t preoccupied with topical jokes or outdated trends is refreshing. As Holzman explains on “Sticks and Stones” over a bassline fit for 13 Songs: “Nothing’s funny anymore/I wanna laugh at all the things/I don’t care about.” Though Holzman churns out plenty of zingers on pink balloons—“He skipped just one of her episodes and now he’s completely lost the plot,” she deadpans on “uwu type beat”—it’s “devorah” that uses every word carefully and cleverly. What appears as a serious, six-minute call for solidarity with Indigenous peoples subverts itself until it’s a parody of a parody, squirming at the idea of falling victim to your own hypocrisy through a checklist of blood-soaked goods: expensive shampoo, Taco Bell mild sauce, the fabric of a ratty college couch.
ワシントンDC拠点のバンド