Kinky Creature
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Kinky Creature

| INDIE

| INDIE
Band Alternative Rock

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"WCAX Interview"

5:30 Show - WCAX


"Kinky Creature, Tiny Rooms"

Indie rock can be summed up in Kinky Creature. Ted and Deane Calcagni and Mike Healy of Vermont’s the Fifth Business return with their new outfit for Tiny Rooms, a truly worthy EP. Technically speaking, it’s fuzzy, garage rock-sounding near-punk. Drums thunder, guitars strike, bass gouges, and piano interlaces it all together over these five songs.

Produced by Kyle “Slick” Johnson (Modest Mouse, Waaves), Tiny Rooms is a mix of low-fi and quality arrangements. Like the Fifth Business, there’s a sense of lightheartedness, only here it’s more serious.

“Alchemy” is a powerful opener, continuously growing in intensity throughout its entirety. The piano work is excellent; adding something to the simple rock procedure that this song otherwise follows.

“Ennui” reigns in the heat, opting for a more synth pop crossover ala Modest Mouse, or even, in some regards, LCD Soundsystem. “Tiny creatures moving in a picture-perfect line,” Deane sings before the chorus. Echoing effects and swirling guitars create a classic contemporary oomph.

The real kicker is “Synesthesia”, a neo-disco beat chucking the rhythm up. Bizarre voice effects throw the feel momentarily off balance, but otherwise the song is close to radio-friendly.

Two things don’t work out on Tiny Rooms: hooks are limited, so although the songs in the moment are fist-bump worthy, you can’t get the songs stuck in your head. They want to be there, but it doesn’t work out. Secondly, while Deane has a good voice, his words are lost in the fuzz and his semi-mumble isn’t helpful. This might be part of the reason no hooks snag.

Yet overall, the songs are fun, exciting, and like any other music in the genre, don’t over-think things, but also think things through. It’s well made and worthy of a listen. With a little fine-tuning, Kinky Creature will have a rockin’ future.

Bottom line: Awesome indie rock EP is a good listen, even if it lacks any real hooks. - Angelica Music


"Kinky Creature, Tiny Rooms"

In 2009 — which seems like forever ago in local music time — Burlington-based indie rockers the Fifth Business released their debut album, Fiction Pilot. While not a groundbreaking effort, it was a solid first attempt. The band followed that up in 2011 with a superior sophomore record, Time of Year. On it, the band began to shed its formative influences and craft an identifiable personality and sound, which suggested these players would soon be an intriguing addition to a flourishing local scene. Aaaand … then they broke up.

Following a short hiatus, three of the band’s members, vocalist and guitarist Deane Calcagni, bassist Ted Calcagni, and drummer Mike Healy, reconvened and began working on what they presumed would be a side project, Kinky Creature. Fortunately for the indie-loving masses in Burlington, they were wrong. So taken with their lean new sound were these Creatures that they decided to give it a go as a real, honest-to-goodness group. They even enlisted a real, honest-to-goodness producer, Kyle “Slick” Johnson, to captain their freshman EP, Tiny Rooms.

Where the Fifth Business favored comparatively straightforward indie jangle, Kinky Creature tread in a more danceable direction. Some credit for that may belong to Johnson, who produced Cymbals Eat Guitars’ critically lauded 2009 record, Why There Are Mountains. Production throughout Tiny Rooms is muscular and focused. But nifty knob tweaks aside, the real story is the evolution of Deane Calcagni and mates as a collective songwriting force.

At times, he resembles the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas at his most rakishly disaffected; in others, perhaps a less-silly version of the Japandroids’ Brian King. The band follows suit with razor-sharp pop hooks shot through a dirt-encrusted prism. Free of precious phrase turns that marked Fifth Business material, Calcagni plays the part of rock-club rogue to near perfection. He’s always been clever, but now he’s loose. The combination can be devastating, as on woozy opener “Ennui,” grimy centerpiece “Mr. Michael the Sun Rises!” and crafty EP closer “Alchemy.”

Losing the Fifth Business at precisely the moment they seemed to find themselves was a drag. But Kinky Creature are more than just a consolation prize. With Tiny Rooms, the band delivers on the late promise of its previous incarnation, and stakes a new claim as one of the area’s most exciting new acts.

Kinky Creature release Tiny Rooms at the Monkey House in Winooski this Saturday, September 1. The album is available at kinkycreature.com. - Seven Days


Discography

Tiny Rooms EP

Photos

Bio

What is a kinky creature?

A creature that has leapt boldly into darkness, discovered a truer nature, and rejected the prohibition of pleasure.

Some creatures love to be tickled.
Some creatures have many toes.
Some creatures make beautiful music.

The men of Kinky Creature pile filth on top of love, blend heartbreak and swagger. Finding only a little lifeblood left in the indie rock vein of the last fifteen years, they take as they like and bury the rest in fuzz and chime. The sound is an unlikely elemental fusion of aching guitar and synth work with Bonham-esque percussive tornadoes and a slinky, always vaguely menacing low end. This is music for the first orgy after a rough break-up; a gentle nostalgic tear may fall from your chin as your body becomes a writhing sexual dynamo.

Only months after forming in Burlington, Vermont, the band traveled to Philadelphia in early 2012 to record with producer Kyle "Slick" Johnson (Cymbals Eat Guitars, Wavves), who painted their close heat with the expansive, expressive sound it always deserved. The result was the band's debut EP, "Tiny Rooms," which has been described as "razor-sharp pop hooks shot through a dirt-encrusted prism."

On stage, this surprisingly tender intensity is enhanced by a mischievous sense of humor and the constant threat of refined and delightful depravity, making a Kinky Creature show the kind of life affirming experience that usually gets someone laid.