Photo for the Phoenix by Charlotte Zoller
For the past three years of our annual CLASS OF 2013 series we've frequently kicked around the idea of getting the bands together for one big live show blowout. The chatter for this year's sonic powwow reached the collective ears of Allston dance party machine COLOR CHANNEL and that same hood's always on-top event planning and video production crew EYE DESIGN, and before we even looked up Carl Lavin's new Bowery email address, a party was born. Tonight at the Greatest of Scotts, the CC crew drop new EP Pyramid Of Love, a dance-mad fire-starter that they've teased appropriately with soulful first single "Way Back," which we swear reminds us of that mid-'90s hit from Ghost Town DJs, "My Boo." (We mean that as the biggest compliment ever.)
Joining the Channel tonight are two other hotly-tipped Class of 2013 acts, intricate indue dudes ABADABAD and electro duo EARLY NINETIES, who just last week changed their moniker to YDIMITU, which is an acronym for Why Do I Matter In The Universe. True story.
Here's what we wrote about each back in January in Class of 2013. See you on the dance floor.
COLOR CHANNEL :: ALLSTON :: Every time electronic-pop collective Color Channel hit the stage in their home 'hood, Allston Rock City morphs into Allston Dance City. The sextet hold court over a sweaty sea of bodies that get busy doing the un-Boston — which is to say, they dance their fuck off. Color Channel's pinwheel-spun post-disco is an unmitigated feel-good, pretense-free party. In 2013, they're faced with the daunting task of capturing that live vibe on record, but their spring EP promises to be one hot-blooded bacchanalian love affair on the dance floor. "Our goal is to get our music out to just about everybody possible," says bassist Jay Thomas. Unless everyone finds it first.
ABADABAD :: ALLSTON :: Named by Tennessee native and Allston gentleman Jeremy Lee Given after his mishearing of the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, Abadabad picks up where his previous band, Rodeo Church, left off: hazy, jangly indie pop with a slicked-back snarl just beneath the surface. Given and Adam Taylor Young lend the band an effortless cool, and next week will hit up the Converse Rubber Tracks studio in Brooklyn for a recording session. Most of the press after the release of September's The Wild EP used the words "summer" and "warm," and though that's not too far off the mark, the music of Abadabad is also similar to that feeling you get when you wake up in the morning after an overnight snowstorm. Just add an umbrella to your drink.
EARLYNINETIES :: BOSTON :: No, Earlynineties don't sound like Pearl Jam, though the duo are already tired of explaining themselves. As Adam D. McGinn and Andy Kai Nagashima contemplate nomenclature — by the time this issue of the Phoenix drops, they may be called YDIMITU, short for Why Do I Matter in the Universe, the same name as their upcoming EP out next month — what is certain and cast in sparkly stone is the kaleidoscopic electro-pop appeal that's led them to share the Paradise Rock Club stage with Break Science last month. "XLR" is a bubbly head-bobber that McGinn crafted in his basement nearly five years ago, but now E90 — or whatever his beats-and-synth daydream project will be called in coming months — is ready to start a party in the early 2010s.
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