I've always taken as given that we'll all eventually wake up in a post-apocalyptic dystopia not unlike Terry Gilliam's Brazil. In that particular nightmare scenario, huge loudspeakers on rusted towers blast Fake Babies in all directions. Maybe it's a society-wide kneejerk reaction to bubblegum pop that the post-industrial electronic sludge peddled by Fake Babies was voted best new music in Connecticut by The Boston Phoenix, or maybe we're all just doing more drugs than we used to. In either case, these guys are gonna be huge. Fake Babies began as a duo in 2007 with Justin Roberts and Robert Nuzzello Jr. The group has since expanded to include Gary Velush and Jay Sirianni, and is now signed to New Haven's Safety Meeting Records, who will be releasing Fake Babies' debut LP We Started Blues on February 18th, 2010.
Just as miners in rural Kentucky wrote mountain ballads to express the trials of their time, Fake Babies convey the full extent of New Haven's battle with urban poverty, crime (a national study ranked it the 18th most dangerous city in the country), and commercial blight through a brand of electronic creation that's marked by a tendency towards improvisation and open experimentation. While I've heard them compared to witchhouse/rapegaze hoodlums Salem (and this is true in so much as both bands share a certain gritty aesthetic), Fake Babies have real technical virtuosity and an overarching musicality that allows them to transcend the repetitious patterns that plague most electronic groups. Let's say I traveled back to 1968 and gave Can a laptop with Ableton and some midi controllers, then brought them back to 2010 New Haven and locked them in a room with nothing but the Devo box set--you'd pretty much get Fake Babies.
Intrigued? Can't wait until February to slip into the ooze? Like watching naked women rub themselves with animal blood? If yes, then Fake Babies' latest video "Sophisticated Thighs" is on the fast track to blow your mind: http://www.vimeo.com/8898362
-- Ben Heller of The Ampeater Review (ampeatermusic.com)
