Fol Chen: "Cable TV"

The “low sexy voice” is the Liars’ own Angus Andrews, so let’s go ahead and bet those are some of his handclaps too. Fol Chen—essentially the work of Samuel Bing, Julian Weiss, Melissa Thorne, and Rafter Roberts, Highland Park denizens, but leased out to wiry and hirsute darlings like Raymond Raposa and another Liar, Aaron Hemphill—revels in that Spartan energy of assembly and common interest. Their debut LP, Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune’s Made, dabbles in the smooth electro-pop best left for sweaty cluterfucks as much as for headphones and hot tubs sync’d warmly together. What Danielson accomplished, going to a ton of friends to blow out the kernels of his songs, to leaven the incomprehensible strain of his voice, Fol Chen mostly pull in to streamline their groove. Sometimes it’s crisp and muscled and sometimes it’s sleazy like stealing hotel towels is sleazy. “Cable TV” struggles with the latter, literally curbing the vocal melody to “Raspberry Beret” and dousing Prince’s fantasy with ice water. It makes for vaguely exotic fun, digestible, clean-cut soul, and another batch of chicken bullion synth blurbles to bleed out from the increasingly celebrated incest of the indie community. I suppose there’s something hopeful to be said about how concise and empirical this group-think dance music’s become, how self-deprecating and wheezy a band like Hot Chip has inspired this stuff to get, but I’m afraid the cleaner Fol Chen seems with their assimilation the more faceless they’ll start to sound, casiotone contraband and adult diapers all that remain.