To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie | Lovers & Liars

September 23, 2007 at 2:27 pm (Experimental, New Music, To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie)

Just a friendly warning: don’t listen to Minneapolis duo, To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie, while your trying to fall asleep. I did this last night, and ended up staying wide awake long after their debut LP, The Patron, had finished playing. During the daylight hours, it’s easy to imagine Jehna Wilhelm’s gentle vocals lulling you off to sleep, but the album becomes clearer, and far more sinister, with darkness. Merging, ambient soft-static with psychedelic dance (is that even a genre??) rhythms , The Patron is constantly shifting focus between these two aspects. As the album progresses, the two styles become more and more intertwined, almost in perfect harmony by the last track.

Obvious references include Björk, My Bloody Valentine, and more recently, Kranky labelmates Deerhunter. But don’t think that Petty Bourgeoisie are some sort of Deerhunter-lite. While the two bands share many similar traits, Petty Bourgeoisie aren’t as immediately accessible. There’s something almost disturbing about the way the album constantly keeps it’s distance from the listener; for every stunning vocal movement, there’s an equally deafening blast of static. Most intriguing, though, is the light-as-air closer, Window Shopping. It leaves us with no grand statement, instead opting to simply fade out. Highly recommended .

 

To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie – Lovers & Liars.mp3

[From The Patron, out October 8th on Kranky]