The Naked and Famous: The great undressed

Finally. A young New Zealand band so brilliant, so thrilling, so daring and delicious that I want to write their name in big red letters on my pencil case, even though I left school eons ago.

Perhaps I should write their name on my computer keyboard instead. Great name, it is, too: The Naked and Famous. Both pervy and shallow, it smacks of sex and celebrity in the best possible way. In your mind’s eye, you see forbidden vistas of skin, lit by popping paparazzi flash-bulbs. Like I said: brilliant.

A more desperate writer might witter on about this band’s splendid debut This Machine EP arriving just in time for New Zealand Music Month, but not me. To be honest, the fact that it’s May, 2008 has precisely zero to do with this band’s appeal. This EP would be equally impressive in April or June, and I’ve no doubt these songs will still be lighting my fuse long after 2008 has shuddered to a close.

Not that it’s timeless music, by any means. You can hear the early 70s glam shuffle of T Rex in it, and some cheap-as-chips 80s pop synths. There are flecks of late 70s punk spittle on this band’s lips, and some 90s indie pop cardigans quite possibly hanging in its wardrobe, too. On the single Serenade, there are even cunning references to beardy old folk tunes and English music hall.

Although this music is far from timeless, the time for music like this is certainly right now, when so many other bands seem to be borrowing the crap bits of bygone musical styles rather than the good bits. The Naked and Famous have better taste, better songs, and a more well-developed sense of what’s worth stealing, making this a band you can love, rather than merely appreciate.

Though they add a drummer and bass player for live gigs, The Naked and Famous mostly operates as a duo comprised of composer Thom Powers, 20, and singer/lyricist Alisa Xayalith, 21. Which one’s famous and which one’s naked, I could not say.

"Actually, the name is tongue-in-cheek," says Powers, as if I hadn’t worked this out for myself. “We’re not naked or famous. We chose that name because it stands for everything we think a band shouldn’t be about.”

The fully clothed and fame-less Powers and Xayalith have been friends for years. They first bonded over a shared disappointment with tertiary music biz education: Powers dropped out of an audio engineering course, and Xayalith dropped out of a performance course.

“The EP was mostly recorded in a bedroom of our house in Grey Lynn, with another flatmate doing the recording. Like most musicians, I come from a background of terrible bands and failed ideas. I was even in a Pantera covers band once.

‘‘All those experiences convinced me that I’m a control freak who shouldn’t try to make music when there’s too many people involved. But then I found the perfect collaborator with Alisa. I come up with most of the music, she comes up with most of the lyrics, and we like the same kinds of songs.”

Ah, yes, the songs. What can I say? There’s such stylistic variety to the material on this EP, my favourite song changes from day to day.

Today I favour Kill The Little Black Dots, which marries a droning four-note riff from a $10 synth with a fuzzy punk bassline and a drum track that sounds like a robot trying to play along to a Gary Glitter record.

Yesterday I couldn’t get past Post, a sad and lovely shoe-gazer track that suggests My Bloody Valentine jamming with the Shocking Pinks.

Tomorrow, I’ll probably be shedding a thankful tear to the wistful, rainy-day melody of “Part One”.

Part of what makes this duo’s songs so fascinating is that its key influences are relatively recent. Unlike most pop snobs, neither Powers nor Xayalith have slavishly studied the hallowed texts of 60s and 70s pop music.

They are relatively unfamiliar with pop’s holy trinity (Beatles/ Beach Boys/ Byrds), or The Stooges, or the Velvet Underground. Instead they profess a love of 90s acts such as Tricky, Radiohead, Bjork, Queens Of The Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails, and current NZ bands such as the Mint Chicks and Shocking Pinks, all performers who have gleefully bastardised earlier styles, mashing together snippets of punk, hip hop, rock and electronica.

Like magpies stealing from  magpies, Powers and Xayalith swipe elements of the already hybridised sounds of these bands, and strap together their own wonky hybrid from that. 

“Our take on pop music is unusual. We compile snippets of different genres to make music with a lot of surprises in it. We might build a song around a country riff, or some post-punk synth, or a dance bassline, but we take those songs somewhere you didn’t expect. And we find the mix of tragedy and pop music really fascinating.

“You hear it in our song, Serenade. The music is over-the-top happy, but . . . there’s tension to it, a twist, you know? If I had to sum up what we do in one line, I’d say it’s intense pop music, full of cool noises, made with minimal equipment.”

The Naked And Famous
This Machine EP (Round Trip Mars)
A band you can love
5 Stars

grant.smithies@star-times.co.nz

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SJD: Songs From A Dictaphone
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The Brunettes: Structure and Cosmetics (‘Lil Chief/ Sub Pop):
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