Squab Teen
Turducken Recordings
Nicole Elmer and Austin Luminais are Squab Teen. Straight outta Metarie, Louisiana (a suburb of New Orleans), they combine electro beats and insane plunderphonic sampling in a way that will make you laugh and shake your ass at the same time. Their first full-length, Dance America (a co-release on Turducken Recordings and Chromosome 57), contains 12 tracks of damaged vomit-electro that combine a naughty Speak 'n' Spell with a dance floor feeling in ways you never before thought possible. Animal sounds and sneaky samples nestle in between synthesized blip-maps, and the result is a clever commentary on both music and pop culture.
"Entrada a la Salida" is the catchiest dance number on the record, layering a mundane exchange at Taco Bell over a tight bleep-blip musical background. On "My Sweatshirt," Elmer repeatedly asks mundane yet pressing questions ("Has anyone seen my sweatshirt today?") over an anxiety-inducing blend of hard electronic beats, flute samples, and crunchy guitar. Squab Teen often mixes the familiar with the exotic. The schizophrenic "Nice Little Robot" includes a sample from CBS TV's "In the News" shorts that aired in the late '70s. "I Sing the Pacman Electric" (a clever play on the famous Ray Bradbury short story "I Sing the Body Electric") features the aforementioned Speak 'n' Spell, computer voice software, and a fractured drum and bass break. Think of a car crash between a tour bus filled with professional divas and the South Park school bus, and you're about halfway there.
last updated:
08/13/01
