I try to resist describing bands too much based on their influences, but for the rural New York duo Phantogram, it’s hard not to, since they draw from so many and find such striking ways to incorporate them all into something new. Their debut full-length, Eyelid Movies, which receives its belated American release Feb. 9 on Barsuk Records (it’s been out overseas since last fall), recalls the eerie mystique of Blonde Redhead, the electronic shoegaze of M83, the sensual charge of Serge Gainsbourg, and the unflappable cool of The xx. But where The xx’s debut album was all groove and no beat, Eyelid Movies’s differentiates itself with bold, kinetic hip-hop loops of the sort Pete Rock, J. Dilla and Madlib pioneered. In short, it’s a trip-hop album, and an esoteric one at that (as if in 2010 the idea of releasing a trip-hop album wasn’t inherently esoteric enough).
Anyway, that above laundry list of RIYL reference points makes Eyelid Movies seem more muddled than it really is. It’s a remarkably assured record, holding together even as each track introduces a new sonic twist. At first I dismissed the record as a pleasant diversionan "A for effort" experiment in melding unlikely sounds that made for nice background musicbut each listen reveals it to be something more than that. There’s an allure to it that’s kept me returning to it regularly over the past couple days, a secret coded into these tracks. While I haven’t quite cracked it yet, I’ve sure enjoyed trying.
Here's a video of Phantogram performing "Mouthful of Diamonds" for Seattle's KEXP radio that pretty much dares you not to fall in love with the group:
