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I feel honoured to be able to write an article on The Jellyfish Bandits, for aside from this amazing photo, the band is relatively unknown. I discovered them after they added Einstein Music Journal as a friend on Myspace. After a quick message to the the band I discovered they are lovely people indeed.

Living just outside of Portland, Oregon, The Jellyfish Bandits are Melinda Tracey and Aaron Leck. The pair say “we met in an art class at high school and decided that when we grow up we would like to be starving artists,” perhaps an unusual ambition, but one many young musicians can relate to. Showing acute modesty about their talents as musicians, they declare “since we’ve always had the same taste in music, we recently decided to put our lack of musical talents together to start The Jellyfish Bandits.”

Creating Unicorns-inspired electro-pop, the duo fit the recently coined ‘bedroom pop’ umbrella quite nicely. Similar to recent blog hype band Little Pictures but with less love potion, The Jellyfish Bandits make minimalist pop with keyboards, guitars and an assortment of other random objects. “One of our favourite instruments is a ring of keys that we jingle in front of the microphone.” Their music may be simple, but it surpasses many similar artists who fail to recognise the importance of balancing instruments with good vocal structure. Tracey and Leck have beautiful singing voices and they use them perfectly on every song.

Currently in the studio recording songs to make up their first EP, the pair regularly updates their myspace page with new material. “We’re currently trying to get an EP off the ground titled Bat in the Blowhole, which should be out in early October,” they say. Time is a very precious commodity for both Tracey and Leck, they have more to do than just write and record an EP, they explain, “We are going to hand draw on each CD and case so they are each one of a kind.” A pretty choice idea, I have a hand drawn Holiday With Friends CD somewhere, indeed a unique way of individualising your music and providing more than just a digital download.

The Jellyfish Bandits- Ghostical Love: MP3

The Jellyfish Bandits- Last Summer: MP3

The Jellyfish Bandits- Myspace

Posted by Nick Fulton under U.S.A