If someone took Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon aside and gave him a handful of happy pills, he’d come out sounding like Michael Angelakos and band Passion Pit. This guy is about as straight-up bubble gum techno power pop as you can get. It’s infectiously danceable, it’s soulful, it’s creative without being a chore to listen to – it’s pretty easy on the ears.
Angelakos started composing just three years ago at what has become the instrument of choice among Generation Y’ers: his laptop computer, using multi-layered tracks to bring the orchestral cacophony in his head out into the aural world. From the comfy bubble of his college dorm room, naturally.
Though he writes for just himself, Passion Pit’s live shows typically feature a full compliment of other humanoids, each manning one of the tracks separated from his initial compound. Which I’m sure helps add energy to the music – both for creative flourish and performance vigor. Which they need in order to keep up with these guys:
I hear a number of similarities between P-squared and MGMT. You’ve got your catchy synth hooks, your impromptu dance party beats, your borderline-annoying falsetto male vocals… But here’s the thing: I think MGMT just does it all better. Maybe it’s that they’ve been around longer – could be more musically mature. It’s a shame they’re not all playing the same festival so we could just bounce around like ecstatic five-year-olds to scientifically determine which group’s better at helping us reimagine our childhoods through LSD-tinted glasses…
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