Band : MGMT

Album title : Oracular Spectacular

Label : Columbia

Distributor : Sony-BMG

Release date : 22/01/2008 (US; UK= 10/03/2008 )

Release : CD

Brooklyn, New York based duo Ben Goldwasser and Andrew Vanwyngarden first met in 2002 while attending Westleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. They weren't even trying to start up a band, just hanging out, showing each other the kind of music they liked, and they found out that in spite of their opposing views on methodology (one is spontaneously practical, the other practically spontaneous), they found they shared a common love for mystic paganism (which is indeed ironic, as the campus they were studying at is named after the founder of Methodism), psychotropic sounds, and the belief that a joke (or a joke song) could be sad, profound, and funny at the same time.

Drawn to the music of other duos, they soon found themselves incorporating elements of the "...hallucinatory power-twee of the Incredible String Band, theroaring subway minimalist electronica of Suicide , the silky Pop-Soul of Hall & Oates, the pulsing narcotic Trance of Spacemen 3, the Avant-Garde Industrial romanticism of Royal Trux and much more into the constantly evolving sounds of MGMT ..." (taken literally from the band's website whoismgmt.com, where I also found the other relevant info that makes up this intro). Soon the duo started sharing stages with other campus bands, which were usually "...obnoxious, noisy live electronic...", where the duo would write weird Techno loops and arrangements played through a computer, with a turntable plugged into some guitar pedals, a radio, and a tape player. Of course everything was electrically generated at that time. They would write a new song for each 15-minute show. Then, they hired a drummer and went on a tour for which they'd written weird California Creedence Clearwater-style songs, and then never did the songs again. A lot of people who'd become infatuated with the duo's music hated that, which was exactly what Ben and Andrew had aimed for. To them, it was all just a joke, and some songs were written just to learn how to be really bad within a genre. Still, people started to like what they were doin', and a couple of students at NYU got so fed up with the band's tactics they formed Indie label Cantora Records in order to issue MGMT 's first commercial outing Time To Pretend (a 6-track EP, of which the title track and "Kids" would make it to this very full-length I now am listening to) on Jan. 1 st of 2005, thus securing the posibility to have at least sóme "fixed" audio material by the wacky twosome!

Following the release and a couple of one-month long tours, the duo took half a year off, during which Andrew moved to Brooklyn for a "post-college existencial crisis", and Ben heading out to upstate New York to work woodland construction, after having hung out for a while in Connecticut. After that musical hiatus, the duo got together again and after reconnoitering Brooklyn started to compose/ record new songs (on an " Mbox computer set-up) for the sheer fun of it. It's that collection of demos which became the basis for the material which we now find on the band's major label debut full-length! In the Fall of 2006 the band was signed for a six-figure, four album, deal to Sony/ Columbia.

The Dave Fridmann produced (see also Flaming Lips, Low, Mercury Rev) album was released digitally on October 2 nd of last, and in this form it already got around the "bigger" Pop media, with enthousiast reactions as effect. Rolling Stone's Kevin O'Donnel wrote "..."Time To Pretend" is a Space-Rock gem that mocks the clichéd coke-and-hookers Rock star lifestyle, over big synth whooshes...", also claiming MGMT is "A Top 10 artist to watch in 2008!", and Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs) has been rumoured to say that there is not one bad song on MGMT's debut.

The duo describes their music as "...an enigmatic and prophetic collection of hallucinatory sounds and hook-riddled Pop tones for the new millenium...", and seen the fact that it contains elements from Surf, Jungle, Prog, mild bombast with a prevailing neo-psychedelic flavouring, they may well be quite correct in their bold statement. With the Psychedelic mood as the prevailing one, the actual musical fillings differ somewhat from song to song, making album opener "Time To Pretend" get that Space Rock feel spoken about above, giving "Kids" a complete synth/ keyboard-driven sound beyond compare, getting "Pieces Of One" to start off like an actual ballad (with only acoustic guitar and some "piano" in the opening, which is somewhat "minimalistic" when compared to the usual material) before adding swirling electric guitar and orchestral keys for a more filled ending. I could go on and on explaining you the different moods on the album (and making references to the music of the likes of Scissor Sisters, Suicide, Electric Light Orchestra – those orchestral parts, you know –, the playfulness of Ween, Muse, Mew, and what would you have more) but actually you're very fortunate in that the band has posted the 6 first songs of the 10-track (40:26 long) album at myspace/mgmt for you to listen to. For snippets of the other tracks, you surf to last.fm/MGMT, where you can also listen to another song (off the EP). Surf to cantora.com to find yet another track off the EP to sample!

When push comes to shove, this may not be music the "normal" Metal or Punk fan among our readers would be listening to, but I'm sure that the more open-minded ones among you will agree that this duo, which has meantime grown to a 5-piece touring band, indeed makes a very catchy kind of music with a sufficient amount of guitars in it to make it interesting enough for all you Air Guitarists out there! Check it out, I'm sure you'll have a very nice half hour spent listening to the mp3's available (that is, if you can keep yourself from listening to the material more than once)!

A week before the UK album release also saw the (UK) release of the Time To Pretend single in two versions, the 7-inch coupling the title track to album song "Weekend Wars", the CD-single featuring non-album "Metatonia" as second song. Released earlier in the States, it was the iTunes Single Of The Week for the 2 nd week of January (not surprisingly, as it was made available on iTunes as free download during that period. The band performed the song on David Letterman's The Late Show, and the song sebsequently hit #38 on the Mediabase Alternative chart. You'll also find it in the soundtrack of the 2001 movie 21.

European live fanatics can welcome the band on a stage nearby starting the end of April (first gig of their European tour is in Brussel's AB Club on April 30th, with gigs in Holland, Germany, the UK – quite a few, Switzerland, Paris, and Spain to follow...in between hopping back and forth to New York to perform at Conan O'Brien 's Late Show on May 15). As a teaser to that, check out the band's performing "Kids" at Academy in Dublin (Ireland) in the video you'll find at the band's Myspace page (other videos available, but not live at their own website). And talking videos...there's an "interactive" one featured on the European retail version of the album (I'm not sure if the US audiences will also get that treat) for "Electric Feel" (the "interactive part being that you can change background and frontplay in a variety of ways thanks to a number of spot to click, making that you can change the video each time you watch it...quite nice, actually).

94/100

Tony.