Weirdo Rippers
Label: FatCat
Length: LP
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Weirdo Rippers
This video, performance and visual art duo surfaces from the L.A. art and punk underground with a debut album of noise pop that truly delivers the noise. The shoegaze haze throughout can float for minutes before a salient rhythm or melody punches through to shake off the gauze. Things open confidently with ‘Every Artist Needs a Tragedy,â?� a fleeting bit of fuzzed-out bliss that suddenly springs from the sound of beach tides and vaporous drones. From there, the music wobbles in and out of the white, glaring noise, sometimes dressed in punk, sometimes pop. With the punk primitive and frayed (‘Boy Void,â?� ‘Everybody’s Downâ?�) and the pop melodies immediate (‘My Life’s Alright Without Youâ?�), the animalistic directness and sheer definition of these bursts strikes an effective tension with the abstract fog. Though their guitar-and-drum approach maintains an uncomplicated mien, there’s much that flits and flickers in the ether of their sound.
This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 4, 2007.