The names of Dirty on Purpose and Au Revoire Simone take us back to the very early Deli years - we covered both bands in print and online somewhere around 2005. ARS also played a rather legendary (at least for us) Deli show at Pete's Candy Store (capacity... 30 people maybe?) before they started filling up Japanese arenas. But why are we saying this - you ask? Because we just learned that Doug Marvin from Dirty Projector and Annie Hart from Au Revoir Simone not only are married, but they also have a new musical project called Pursesnatchers. This is actually Doug's home recording project which ended up expanding into a 4 members band. Pursesnatchers have their debut album "A Pattern Language" scheduled to be released in July. Faithful to Dirty on Purpose's aesthetics, this free single offers some catchy and upbeat drone-pop, although the sound and style are quite different from Doug's old band - in a word, more concise.
We've always been big fans of Luke Temple, and it's good to see that, together with the Here We Go Magic crew, the man is keeping at it with increasingly beautiful records and videos. The band's new album "A Different Ship" (stream it here) will be out on May 8, and betrays at least a partial return to Luke Temple's more intimate and melodic sound from his solo repertoire - in this regard, lend a ear to "Hard to Be Close," "Alone but Moving" and "Over the Ocean". This is welcome news for fans like us who always thought that in most HWGM material Luke's noteworthy songwriting skills seemed a little sacrificed on the altar of textural experimentation. This doesn't mean that the band's signature hypnotic, impressionistic sound is lost - it's just that these two elements work together better than they did in past records, and this is what makes this album one of the NYC highlights of the year so far. Indeed, this collection also features songs more in line with the band's past releases ("Make Up your Mind", "I Believe in Action"), which follow on the steps of brainy-pop icons like Brian Eno and The Feelies, but there's definitely a balance here, also betrayed by the almost perfect alternation of melodic songs and less traditional ones.The just released video of "How Do I Know," telling the story of a rejected dancing robot that ends up revitalizing an older man's appreciation for life, seems to reflect on this brain/heart, mechanic/organic dichotomies and somehow bring them to unity. - PDG
