Darwin Deez: Darwin Deez

    Darwin Deez, yes the curly haired guy (a.k.a. Darwin Smith), is an artist I've been listening to a lot since hearing him for the first time about a week ago. So much so that I did not want to wait for my ritualistic weekly (roughly) posting rate date to come around before I pitched Darwin Deez to you. The aforementioned is an indie pop group of rather large membership; perhaps not all those listed on their wikipedia entry here are regular performers. I wonder if some had small parts in this relatively new, it seems, band by helping out with clapping or singing here or there during the recording process of their debut album Darwin Deez, which came out in May of 2010. Listen and you will understand what I mean. You hear very scarce instrumentation: singer with backup vocals, 2 guitars, bass, drum machine? and a lot of clapping. If Darwin plays guitar along with vocals, then that would necessitate four members, five maybe, leaving 2-3 unaccounted for. Well, tangent aside, this is not a post about Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle, so I'll leave my mysterious curiosity for now to write about more important things.
    In my defense, such light hearted music that contains particularly ironic depth of emotion, requires some incorrigible fun. If you pay close attention to the lyrics, which I am admittedly not good at, you will notice they can be a real downer. Listen especially to "Bad Day" on their MySpace here. It is this fun loving almost hippie pop tune, and yet, it's all about break up and heart break and wishing bad things to happen to those responsible. Next, go to YouTube and watch the music videos for: "Radar Detector", "Constellations", "DNA" and "Up in the Clouds". They are simple and appear to be of low quality production, but they add so much flavor to the serenading and strolling-along-in-the-park quality of the music. It's almost like dream pop without the dreaminess, the lyrics are clear, but the music is only partially lo-fi and as innocent and feel good as can be.
    I actually think the melodic and harmonic quality of the music is surprisingly good. Some of the guitar chord changes are impressively well used and the interlacing of the even simple rhythms between guitars works so well too. Consequently, take the near vocal talent of Sondre Lerche, add a little vampire weekend guitar playing (ya know that sparse but effective baroque pop-ish, very off-beat or arpeggiated rhythmic type), and add the electronica beats of say Discovery. Then, you have Darwin Deez.
    I hope you find his music as catchy and enjoyable to listen to as I have, and enjoy the track "Deap Sea Divers" in the MixPod! It is not the best track, but I love the chorus and you can check out my links to hear the rest (which I recommend!). Also if you want more info, check out this great article, "Darwin Deez: Evolution of a pop star" by British newsgroup, The Independent, here.