Weekly Release Spotlight: Le Loup

Posted on 9/19/2007

Le Loup

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Milennium General Assembly

[Hardly Art

If you didn't roll your eyes at the album title, you're either an art aficionado or dangerously open-minded. Regardless of gut reactions, this band's debut (an artist's first record is new territory for the Radio K Weekly Release Spotlight) deserves to be given a chance by every set of ears that has ever perked at the sound of a banjo in contemporary music and/or dramatically multi-layered instrumentation. In addition, nothing really comes to mind when I try to think of other bands whose name, album, song, or even lyric references a mysterious piece of 20th century art. So you've got to give this D.C. 7-piece some kind of credit before you dismiss them as just another group of pretentious dime-a-dozen indie hullabaloo noisemakers. Especially when on record, it's only the ringleader Sam Simkoff making the noise of what could very easily be mistaken for his live cavalcade of seven musicians.

Look at the keywords in my rambling above: banjo, multi-layered, lyric(al) reference, pretentious, ringleader. Who do you think of? Hopefully we're on the same wavelength and your answer is: Sufjan Stevens. Now, Sufjan's someone we can all agree on, right? He's become a mangod of sorts in the recently mainstreamed indie pop scene--there's nothing particularly experimental about him or his music, but his eccentricities and knack for catchy and gentle melodic prowess jump at you through his amplified banjo and choral arrangements. He literally took American history folklore and infused it with an American indie folk aesthetic, thus creating albums that were equal parts Social Studies lessons and life-affirming soundtracks to summer nights on the porch with a boombox, a ragged blanket, and your loved one. So are Le Loup Sufjan redux? I of course wouldn't have written such a hype-inducing introductory paragraph if my answer weren't, "Hardly."

We're living in a post-Sufjan world, so of course we have to consider him when listening to Le Loup. But while Sufjan puts a smile on your face and you imagine the intolerably happy Raisin Bran sun shining behind him and his band of merrymakers, Le Loup's very namesake is French for "The Wolf." THE WOLF, DAMMIT. The sun has set ("Planes Like Vultures"), the rain is pouring down in thick sheets of melted ice ("Outside of This Car, The End of the World!"), and the dark of night is enveloping us before we can make it to the kitchen drawer in time to get the flashlight ("To the Stars! To the Night!"). Le Loup is providing a dusty and dusky alternative art history lesson about a man, James Hampton, who worked long lonely nights in secret to create that which the album title refers to: an inviting yet intimidating ("We Are Gods! We Are Wolves!"), glorious yet overbearing ("Breathing Rapture") place of sanctuary. It's everything you've heard before, but with just enough aural density and mindful energy to keep you hooked for the entire ride. (Our last ride into oblivion).

Stream: Le Loup - To The Stars! To The Night!