In recent years lo-fi indie music has steadily risen up, like a giant cumulus nimbus, reaching it’s uppermost heights with the likes of Toro Y Moi, or Beach House, or Tennis – or any others from the multitude of artists that seem to fry their music by utilising the power of the sun through the magnifying glass that is Stereogum or Gorrila vs Bear. Today we bring you the next in line on the horizon, the Brooklyn-based Ex-Cops.
Just like their genre-mates, this is atmospheric mood music, that will surround and indulge you like a soundtrack to your afternoon. This is music to listen to whilst you do other things. It won’t penetrate your thoughts or demand attention, only warm you up or cool you down, proving as forgetful as office air-conditioning. Like rainbows or clouds they look beautiful from a distance, mesmerising even, but close up you notice the illusion, realising that they don’t actually have any real form or substance. It’s like they don’t really exist, floating in the air like a smoke ring that dissipates when you reach out to touch it.
That’s not to say they’re not enjoyable. This perfectly-pitched, beautifully melodic music serves it’s purpose well by raising or lowering your mood. Much in the same way that punk or dance music can’t suit every single frame of your mind through the day, neither can this, but select them when the mood is right and they’ll fit like a silk glove filled with Vaseline.
Inevitably a batch of excellent blogs, such as No Modest Bear, My Old Kentucky Blog, I Guess I’m Floating and The Needle Drop, among others, have picked up on them early with the track The Millionaire, which flew around online after they played their second ever live show at this year’s SXSW. Nursery rhyme vocals come in dream-like waves, over a beat that sounds like you’re listening with bathwater in your ears. It’s utterly lovely, but we can’t help but feel like we’re trying to look at something through our fingers because the sun’s burning our retinas – it’s simply impossible to make it out properly, even if you squint.
Tracks such as You Are A Lion I Am A Lamb and S&HSXX pick up the pace by adding in beats that serve to drive the songs in a new gear. The former lightly riffs away and earns a bassline backing that gives the melody a heartbeat, whilst the vocals hand you something to hum to. The latter introduces an industrial beat, refreshing you before the guitars appear like sparks that grind away at the wall of vocals. Both tracks show the band off in a more palatable light.
Spring Break (Birthday Song) sounds as positive as the track’s title suggests. It feels like you’ve gone camping for your birthday with Brian Wilson and he’s picked up a guitar around the campfire and started to make up a birthday lament on the spot. It’s another great example of their appeal, with their signature feather-light touch applied throughout yet another typically short three minute pop song.
This new project, from ex-Hymns frontman Brian Harding, only formed a few months ago, but the buzz is rising considerably, as we await the debut release, an EP entitled White Women. With music that takes the beautiful harmonies and melodies of a Radiohead ballad or a Beach Boys b-side, burns them and then plays them back to you through the walls of the apartment next door, this is an artist that will likely go on to gain blog inches in the months to come. However, this inevitable coverage is still unlikely to rack up much commercially successful chart sales, but it’s still worthy of your time. The clever trick that’s played with music of this fuzzy, lo-fi nature is that it’s actually pretty timeless and pitches itself well at the ears of the already converted, blog-reading public. It’s those discerning listeners that will appreciate this long after any charting hits have been forgotten. (MB)
EX-COPS – THE MILLIONAIRE
EX-COPS – BLACK HELICOPTERS
EX-COPS – S&HSXX
EX-COPS – SPRING BREAK (BIRTHDAY SONG)
