| Breaking down beats seems as natural to Head Like a Kite'sDave Einmo as breaking down genre barriers. HLAK's second full-length album, There Is Loud Laughter Everywhere, takes listeners on an aural road trip, mixing propelling hip hop drum beats with electronic Krautrock and indie pop peppered with field recordings captured while HLAK toured the United States. The result is a lush, party soundtrack with guests from Smoosh, The Long Winters,Radio 4, Crooked Fingers, Trent Moorman and other Northwest friends joining the ride on Head Like a Kite's stunning and infectious sophomore release. Where HLAK's debut, Random Portraits of the Home Movie, was inspired by sampled sounds from Super 8 movies that Einmo's parents shot in the late 70s, There Is Loud Laugher Everywhere fast forwards to the future, taking us on a memorable sonic trip around the country. It seamlessly ties epic pop overtones to sunny bliptronic beats, sounding like a marriage of electronic indie rock remixed by DJ Shadow and DFA. And remix is the exclamation point. "I wanted to create a record that sounded like big beat remixes of songs that didn't yet exist," says Einmo. "I recorded the melodies, and then constructed and deconstructed the melodies into loops, taking the approach of a DJ cutting up and looping my own tracks." There Is Loud Laughter Everywhere draws from Einmo's fascination with the subtractive arrangements of trip hop and Krautrock, but is executed using a far brighter, more organic palette of mellotron, koto, cello, and bombastic drums with warm Moog synths, sinister guitars, Theremin and an arsenal of old, analog effects. "It's an optimistic, playful record," Einmo says. "The kind of record you put on when you invite your best friends over for a party." - Popwreck(oning) |
