Dollar Bins of the Future
Javelin is the experimental sampled-based music created by cousins George Langford and Tom Van Buskirk who have been making music all their lives, but have been producing music as Javelin since 2004. They have created an interesting live set-up (that has seen them play the Museum of Modern Art in NY), in which they stack up colourfully painted boomboxes (”boombaatas”), allowing the audience to bring their own stereos to tune in to the FM frequency they’re using, “fuelling battery-powered mobile parties”. They mix tape samples with handmade instruments like thumb pianos and wooden recorders and have cutely admitted in interview that they like to hum auto-tune and synthesiser parts while driving alone.
The song ‘Soda Popinski’ stands out in Javelin’s catalogue with its unusual pairing of a sample of a child singing with an amazing electronic symphony of pop break beats and jittery keyboard. Elsewhere they get more ambient and funky, with ‘Vibrationz’, and tropical ringtone pop in ‘TWYCE’, and seem to be heavily influenced by African and South American music, as evident in their screeds of samples and involvement with David Byrne’s ethnomusicological record label Luaka Bop, for whom they’ll have an LP out around March.
Their limited release self-titled 12″ has sold out despite being released less than two weeks ago (although you can buy it digitally), there’s little wonder why it was snapped up so fast. Housed in acquired secondhand record sleeves, some willfully obscure, others deliberately mainstream, with their name screen printed over the top, the record literally and musically re-contextualises and recycles old music. Delving further into their back catalogue, they’ve also released an LP called Jamz n Jemz, an awesome tape called Andean Ocean, and the amazing World Midi Classics Vol 2 mix, both of which you can download at Dollar Bins Of The Future, and a 7″ called Oh Centra on Thrill Jockey, who will also be releasing their next 12″ early next year. They also do remixes, including their popular re-do of The Very Best’s ‘Julia’, and a great Future Islands remix that sounds like Howlin Wolf-meets-Tom Jones-meets-’60s doo wop.
Javelin played the recent CMJ festival and are currently touring the mid West of the USA with Lucky Dragons and playing odd shows with psychedelic contemporaries Rainbow Arabia and Yeasayer.
Javelin- Soda Popinski: MP3
Javelin- STD Fury: MP3
Javelin- Flitter and Flutter (Future Islands Remix): MP3
Javelin- Myspace
Posted by Sarah Gooding under Brooklyn, New York, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A
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