Cop Circles
Denver, Colorado, United States
Music
Press
Luke Leavitt, the force behind Cop Circles (due this Thursday, August 8, at Rhinoceropolis), apparently sees no reason to draw any lines between his interests in Afrobeat rhythms and sounds, Arthur Russell’s post-disco electronic-pop experiments and the confrontational no-wave jazz of James Chance. On stage, Leavitt may start out calm and collected, but at some point in the set, the veins in his neck begin to bulge, and next thing you know, he seems ready to swing chains and crawl across tables and broken glass, à la Alan Vega in his Suicide years. He projects a similar unfettered emotional intensity that is at once inspirational and borderline terrifying. One of the concepts behind Cop Circles is a message of sustainability — not just regarding physical resources, but also cultural and artistic ones. In that spirit, Leavitt has recycled ideas, musical and otherwise, and repurposed them for this unique and compelling project. - Denver Westword
Eslinger Gallery 10 p.m. on Saturday night was a glimpse of what aliens probably do for entertainment on the weekends. Despite the gallery’s cramped space and awkward layout (there is a large column blocking part of the stage), the vibes were incredible. If Mars had a dance club, this would be it. Cop Circles, the one-man act that rocks a keytar and some ironically-heavy auto tune, was in town. At first his bizarre vocals and nonsensical rhymes garnered only giggles and curious smiles, but somewhere after the second song he mesmerized the crowd with his funky, electro beats. It was a galactic mix of head bobbing, random hand motions and jumping that would make aliens proud. Except for an awkward mid-performance speech, Luke Leavitt (the man behind Cop Circles) shredded his keytar and wailed out his songs with the confidence of a superstar athlete. - heyreverb
No one is in charge of their awkwardness like Luke Leavitt of Denver’s newest and 100% best-est weirdo keytar solo project Cop Circles, and this fresh video for the lead track on his latest EP, which is now available as a name-your-price download, is straight-up proof of that authority. The video captures not only the general weirdness of his music’s insatiable, hook-laden nerd-funk, but also the sheer aggressiveness and unbridled confidence Leavitt manages to consistently bring to the stage in a live setting. Sum total is the kind of thing that, while certainly confrontational, is also doubly effective as an invitation to get close. Real close. Uncomfortably close. Scrape-your-cheek-on-his-braces-close. And once you’re in there, the lower half of your body may have a tough time controlling itself. But that’s completely normal. Just go with it.
P.S. Stick around for one of the more memorable music video credit sequences in recent memory at the end, featuring Colin Ward of Alphabets. - tinymixtapes
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
Photos