SXSW Local Preview: Best Fwends

Um, we don't know whether to hug or punch their name, but this Denton band on the UK's Moshi Moshi records will be performing songs at sxsw that they describe as sounding like a "hyper Hall and Oats or something." The band also refers to themselves as "two retards that don't know what we're doing." We doubt both claims.

We can't say that this is the greatest thing we've ever heard, but shit, it doesn't sound like anything else in Denton or Dallas right now, and the limited number of songs available to us on the internet were: loud, short, and mostly fun. "1000000" sounds like M.I.A. if she was fifteen and listened to Daniel Johnston, with a hard to make out dance beat and playful percussion. There is also a pretty strong Go Team sound throughout all five songs we listened to, as well as clear nods to bedroom synth pop such as The Cansecos, Russian Futurists, and mid period Magnetic Fields (for the best example of this, check "Sk8 or Live" on their Myspace page). These guys obviously don't take themselves very seriously, which is good, and the amateur quality of their songs is part of this appeal. Most of their sound likely comes from Casios, Atari 2600s and other pretty basic noise making machines (drum machines and crappy keyboards), and they seem fine with that. So are we. Although this band can be a little immature sounding at times, its mostly endearing and quite forgivable considering that all their songs seem to be a minute and a half long at most. They could improve with time and experience, but we think they're pretty interesting right now and would surely be worth seeing at SXSW if you can fit em in... especially if you can't get into that Morningwood show, you hip fuck. - JR