columbia: freelance whales

freelance whales: the love child of sufjan stevens, the postal service, and hellogoodbye. happy, poppy, synthy tunes for your summertime ears. love em! i heard about these guys from the amazing thedownplayer.com which gives away ten free songs every single week day. how amazing is that? well the very first set of ten songs i ever downloaded from their site included "generator (first floor)". and from there, i immediately went to itunes and bought the whole album "weathervanes". and boy was it worth it. a few weeks later i saw the show posted on mojo's website and immediately bought a ticket.

i wasn't too sure what to expect going to the show. i usually do my homework regarding the bands that i'm going to see, but i knew absolutely nothing about these guys. i didn't know if i'd be walking into a sold out show, or if i'd be the only person there. i have this problem where i think that all the bands i like are absolutely huge. and most of the time they're not. i was also a little uneasy about what they'd sound like live. freelance whales are definitely technology-friendly; lots of warbling synths, tinkly layers of bells and xylophones, banjos, mandolins and lots of other laptop-sounding noises. so i was curious to see how that would pan out on a stage. but it was great, and my medium level expectatuons were well exceeded. freelance whales have only been together for a year and half, and although you can tell, they still played a great set. vocals weren't quite as strong as they could have been, and there were a few little "oops" noises here and there, but they were easy to overlook. freelance whales produce a very ethereal sound that may not appeal to some, but i know i enjoyed myself, and hope i'll get the chance to catch them again at lollapalooza this summer in chicago. their bass player is also adorable; she had some sweet moves and reminded me a bit of gen schatz from company of thieves. yeah, i said it. i just compared someone to company of thieves. i'm not saying by any means that this chick was as bad ass a s genevieve. she simply reminded me of her cuteness and they shared a lot of the same sweet dance moves.

keep your eyes and ears open for freelance whales. they might need a few years to mature, but i am confident that we can expect great things from them in the future of the indie music world. if you're in st. louis, go check em out at off broadway tonight!