the pocket gods
lo-fi sci-fi
reviewed by Gary Levinson
Within the first 20 seconds of listening to the pocket gods, one thought and one thought only formed in my head: “they sound like the Velvet Underground!”. Some more listening confirmed this. the pocket gods sound like some of the most famous music from the late 60s or early 70s, like the music from the iconic The Velvet Underground and Nico album, but also the Rolling Stones’ fabulous Exile on Main Street, or possibly even David Essex, with his Rock On album. Their music could be described as (alien) Protopunk, or (alien) Experimental Rock.
Actually, its not really true that there was only one thought in my mind. There was another thought also: “Man, that dude has a nasal voice!” And not only that, when later on the pocket gods Nico chimed in I thought: “She’s nasal too!” Then after thinking about it, I realized that this nasal sound was desired, that they purposely tuned the recording to make it sound nasal.
“Ah ha!” I thought “this nasality is how they focus in on the irrelevant, ineffective and basically meaningless drivel of reality!” It hit me like a revelation: “The nasality is exactly how aliens would sneer at us after seeing what humans do and have done here on earth”. So after listening some more I really began to appreciate this nasal approach. Listening closely to some of the songs made it clear to me how really out of this world the music from the pocket gods is. Their songs talk about shaving, lard, and mosquitoes as the ubiquitous defining characteristics of human existence.
While sneering along with them, I noticed that the pocket gods’ music has a really strong percussion section and some great guitar riffs. With time this all becomes infectious, and is really dance-able, perhaps something like an alien version of the B-52s.
If you think you’d like a present-day, out of this world, interpretation of The Velvet Underground and Nico, you’ll like the pocket gods.
- Gary Levinson
http://www.myspace.com/thepocketgods
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