Recent subjects of one of the infamous doodles in The New Yorker, The Phenomenal Handclap Band have been ramping up press in the latter part of 2009. From the awesomely mischievous video of “15 to 20″ airing on MTV’s Subterranean to best of 2009 lists to the approval of one Sasha Frere-Jones, this collective deserves a round of applause… err, handclaps. If you’re in NYC tonight, don’t miss them headlining Bowery Ballroom!
From The New Yorker:
“A few years ago, the producers Daniel Collás and Sean Marquand were working with other musicians, like the New York salsa legend Joe Bataan, when they decided to start something from the ground up. The result is the Phenomenal Handclap Band, and you’ll need both hands to count all the personnel, which sometimes includes members of the Dap-Kings and TV on the Radio. What makes this collective appealing is its disregard for genre, which is no longer a new strategy, though this bunch reaches its own spacey conclusions. Collás and Marquand are both d.j.s with a taste for psychedelic disco and rock, and this makes their outfit feel more like a commune than an army. Songs drift from Miami disco into Brazilian soul into early New York rap, much like a friendly night at a bar with a guy flipping through his favorite records. The relaxed feel masks a lot of work—you can’t just invite your ten best friends down to the pub and hope they make sense of decades of music history. The band plays at the Bowery Ballroom Dec. 11.”
The Phenomenal Handclap Band
“15 to 20 (feat. Lady Tigra)” (mp3)
from “The Phenomenal Handclap Band”
(Friendly Fire Recordings)
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