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The Impossible Shapes
Hailing from Bloomington, Indiana, the Impossible Shapes are a hidden gem of the indie rock scene. Inspired by the fuzzy beauty of Olivia Tremor Control and Guided by Voices, the foursome have been making winning, layered, relaxed lo-fi music since high school. Fans of Animal Collective and Circulatory System will find much to appreciate in the sometimes weird but always accessible Impossible Shapes.
Equal parts captivating, humorous, and mysterious, their psychedelic-flavored pop shows a polish appropriate for an incredibly prolific band, one which is now on its fifth album. The songs, often less than two minutes long, showcase everything from ominous cellos to jangly banjo to free-spirited choruses of intertwined voices, like an country orchestra waiting just behind the curtain. I've never been to Indiana, but this sounds like music that can only exist in darkened barns, empty Midwestern towns, quiet rolling hills, drunken country boys on school nights, with songs sprawling over the river and through the woods.
The Impossible Shapes - Pan-ther
The Impossible Shapes - The Perfect Timing
The Impossible Shapes - Bomb
The Impossible Shapes' official web site. Buy from iTunes Music Store. Buy their latest album, Horus, from Amazon, or Secretly Canadian.
Posted by Queen of the Front Row at 02.10.05 at 4:04 PM
Comments
Hmm, I cannot seem to get 'pan-ther' or 'the perfect timing' as well as the erik friedlander tracks, two of the shearwaters, and three of the hold steadys. Most everything before and after works, and I've tried in two different weeks, so there's no common reason.
Just fyi, and thanks for the heads up on these sxsw bands. Gives us all more spice to throw into the 'who-da-hell-we-gonna-see' soup.
--D
Posted by: djm at 02.17.05 at 3:02 PM
Thanks for commenting. Actually you should not have been able to get to any tracks older than four or five days; I've now rectified that. We delete mp3s often to keep down bandwidth costs.
Posted by: Queen of the Front Row at 02.17.05 at 4:11 PM
Hmmm, I thought I tried to check those songs out last week and got the same 'page cannot be found' error. No matter, after getting loads of the sxsw.com mp3s, I got lots to listen to, and plenty of tough choices.
BTW, I found this incredibly cool link on SXSW Baby! by a guy named Dan Budiac, who created a script to build an RSS file to Podcast the entire sxsw.com mp3 list. If you RSS, it'd save you the hours I spent yesterday downloading the tracks, with the only downside (upside?) that you'd get EVERYTHING. (He's a bit geeky about his musical decisions, though, appearing to want to boil all of the bands down to one song with a 1-to-5 song ranking. I prefer a little more creative destruction, and this site is a great part of that.)
http://www.sxswbaby.com/archives/2005/02/hacking_the_sxs.php#more
http://www.dansays.com/archives/2005/02/17/unofficial-sxsw-music-podcast-feeds/
Heck, now I want to add the genre and city to all of these tracks, and I'd even add your band blurbs to the mp3 files I have. Knowledge is power, right?
Only one question remains: is there a band who has recorded a track that you DON'T know about? The depth of your (two) collective knowledge(s) is impressive, sorta like a two person allmusic.com.
Keep up the great work.
--D
Ps. Are you two gonna reveal your tentative itinerary/wishlist/top 10--ok, maybe stop at top 5--places you'd wish you could send your dopplegangers at each hour?
Posted by: djm at 02.18.05 at 6:16 PM
Thanks for the accolades, D. We just happen to be really big music fans whose tastes coincide with SXSW more often than not!
Although we haven't made a decision just yet, we'll probably put up a tenative schedule of recommended acts or a list of "don't miss" artists before the festival officially starts.
Posted by: Queen of the Front Row at 02.18.05 at 6:58 PM
Just adding my thanks, too, for you lovely comments, D.! Thanks especially for the podcasting info!
Posted by: little miss rock'n'roll at 02.22.05 at 12:12 PM
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