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Belaire

One of the wonderful things about the myriad intertwining tentacles of the Austin music scene are bands like Belaire. Made up of twin sisters Cari and Christa Palazzolo (the former had a one-girl band called Fancy Feast, and worked with bands Flashlight Fiction and Arkay) along with Jason Chronis and Matt Simon (who do double duty in See You in the Pit favorites Voxtrot), Belaire are relatively young band, founded in 2004. I first saw them play in late 2004 or early 2005, I suppose, and was utterly charmed by their perky and delightfully energetic synth pop stylings -- and they've done nothing become even more amazing at every live set I've seen over the past few months.

To wit: They're a bit like a sweeter and more twee version of Le Tigre or The Rondelles or Palomar, with mirror-reflection twin sister harmonies reminiscent of Tegan and Sara or Kim and Kelley Deal. And on top of all that, they carry a dash of affinity for punk and bossa nova and hip hop (there's really nothing like hearing an adorable girl yelling about sipping the syzzurp -- see the Kanye West cover below) and Italian horror films (and their soundtracks), which certainly takes some doing. But in the end, Belaire pulls it all off gracefully and offers up a wonderful synthesis of surprising and unexpected influences that wouldn't be caught dead in the same room, much less mesh well together.

There's not too much more to say here; Belaire is nearly as unknown to me now as Voxtrot was to The Last Girl at the Party when she covered them last year. If you take that into account, along with the fact that there are members of Voxtrot actually in Belaire, one can only hope that the band is headed for similar greatness. Luckily, they're currently recording a full-length album, so we're totally keeping our fingers crossed.

Belaire - Da Da Da
Belaire - Hit and Miss
Belaire - Through the Wire (Kanye West cover)

Belaire's official website. One of Belaire's best tracks -- RIP -- is available at their MySpace page and there's two live tracks on the KVRX website.You can buy a hand-decorated, limited edition EP directly from the band.

Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll at 02.09.06 at 1:16 AM

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See You in the Pit is an MP3 blog exclusively featuring artists who will be playing the SXSW Music Festival, because the best way to learn about music is to hear it. This weblog will self destruct on March 22nd. You have been warned.

Queen of the Front Row is a twenty-something music fan in New York City who spends more time looking for new bands than she'd care to admit. She can usually be found watching live music in divey clubs on the Lower East Side. She loves that everybody she knows from NYC ends up in Austin for SXSW.

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