motorboater
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motorboater

Kansas City, Missouri, United States | INDIE

Kansas City, Missouri, United States | INDIE
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This band has not uploaded any videos

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"Local album review: Motorboater"

True story: On my first listen to P/U Yr Heart, the new EP from Motorboater (aka Dan Eaton of Kansas City’s Queens Club), I was engrossed in something else on the computer. Motorboater’s last tune ended, and next up was a song from Some Bizarre Album, the seminal various-artists disc from 1981 that features early works from the likes of Depeche Mode, The The and Blancmange.

Eaton might be proud to hear that I didn’t immediately realize I’d switched over from his Motorboater to Soft Cell’s “The Girl With the Patent Leather Face.” Both share a similar, stripped-down aesthetic of chilly synthetic bleeps, mechanical old-school drum-machine beats and plaintively aching vocals buried deep within the mix — all with a decided handmade, DIY vibe.

But Motorboater isn’t engaged in pure puffy-hair-and-eyeliner Brit synthpop. Instead, P/U Yr Heart trades in a sense of wit and fun that was anathema to the early new wavers. The first track, “Take Yrself Out,” establishes the mood with a catchy, sing-songy refrain that’s partly repeated in the poppy verses that clip along underneath a pair of squiggly electric drones that variously diverge and intersect.

“Coatchecking” has another retro synth vibe, with hesitating man-made beats set against processed vocal “ahs” and “ohs” and minimal blippy arpeggios. Next up is “Semifinalist,” probably the EP’s least reformed ’80s jam, with hand claps straight out of the New Order playbook and a backing track that bubbles along with major nods to the Detroit techno scene that spawned hip hop.

Those drones continue throughout, dominating again in “Francois’ Dream,” and ratcheting down to a low growl in “Seeing Things.” Finale “Je Mange Titties” injects a dose of glittering euphoria to the album’s most straightforward pop song.

Motorboater’s debut feels loose yet purposeful and wholly organic beneath its mechanical face.
- Ink Magazine


"Motorboater!"

Dan Eaton isn't interested in aimless drifting. Judging from his solo project's name, Motorboater, he seems to crave forward motion, even if progress is a bit choppy. Riffing on an obscure electro outcropping called chillwave, the solo debut of the Queens Club frontman is brimming with hazy, cocaine-coated euphoria. With droning '80s synths that could be ripped from a Simple Minds track, "Francois' Dream" is a slice of space-jam heaven that begs to be pumped through a ripped-up stereo at a Brooklyn dance party. But some of Eaton's deeper tracks aren't orchestral enough to sustain the EP's coasting flow. Focusing on atmosphere rather than song structure, ambient howls fill space where clear verses and choruses are missing. "Je Mange Titties," with tunnel-like atmospherics and taut bass line, is the strongest (and most structured) track on P/U Yr Heart. But it's the catchy "Semifinalist," with its mushy vocals and head-bopping beat, that is the most apt summary of Motoboaters' debut: so close, and yet not quite far enough. - Pitch


"Download: Motorboater - "You Belong To Me (T. Swift vs Uffie "First Love" mix)""

The newest signee to the The Record Machine roster (and fellow Midwesterner) who calls himself Motorboater is announcing himself with this killer mash-up that he's produced by marrying the slums of Beverly Hills raps of lil miss Uffie and the just-won-this-massive-award-so-why-is-everyone-hating-me-now country crossover star Taylor Swift, creating a hybrid of slow-oozing pop mastery. "You Belong To Me (T. Swift vs Uffie "First Love" mix)" is something of a prototype of what's certainly going to come in the next eon, as styles and language and culture smash and clash and marry together into a sludge that's either tremendously engrossing or just plain gross. Motorboater is putting the finishing touches on his EP, P/U Yr Heart, which finds him working with another electronic tweaker, Max Justus. - Culture of Me


"Motorboater - P/U YR Heart"

Mental images from the state of Missouri usually depict such American staples as long stretches of highway, Waffle House, and Harry S. Truman. For those who know the Midwest mostly for its great plains and dabbling in hillbilly behaviors, musicians like Kansas City, Missouri’s Motorboater come as quite a shock.

Creating clubby and calm electronic beats under the aforementioned pseudonym, Dan Eaton brings a certain kind of energy makes it impossible not to shake it, or at the very least, bob your head. Described by Eaton’s label, The Record Machine, as “the kind of jam that finds all your joins needing constant motion” Motorboater is definitely a creation of the synthesizer-keys-computer frenzy that has hit music as of late- and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Hot of the presses just today is Motorboater’s debut EP P/U Yr Heart, six tracks of electronic/dance that seems to fall between the cracks of the current major definers of this genre. While tracks like “Seeing Things” give an allusion to Vampire Weekend’s recent stint, Contra, P/U Yr Heart also takes a shine to the beats of MGMT, though Eaton’s sound is far less psychedelic than the other group’s East Coast effort.

While all the tracks on this album do have a certain kind of cohesion, stealthily sliding into one another at their beginnings and ends, there’s also a subtle diversity in P/U Yr Heart. From the chirpy, almost jungle beat sounds of starting track ‘Take Yrself Out’, to “Je Mange Titties” where we essentially get a clubbier version of Mates of State, Eaton has done a fine job giving this album range without bringing anything too far out of left field. “Francois’ Dream”, a track we already see Motorboater listeners are getting all a twitter over, has a notable frantic trill right out of a television dream sequence throughout the song that we couldn’t help but shimmy to. One would think with all this synth that an 80’s new-wave vibe would be inevitable, but it’s only in “Semifinalist” that we get the wah-wah effects and bathroom acoustics so common to that genre.

As a whole we have to say that Motoboater’s debut is a good start, albeit a little safe, but it has definitely peaked our interest in this Kansas City musician, and we look forward to seeing what else Eaton comes up with in his career. - Reviewsic


Discography

P/U Yr Heart EP(2010)
Sport EP(2011)

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Bio

Motorboater is Dan Eaton of Kansas City Missouri, at first glance it is bedroom/laptop pop, but with just a little bit of listening it is obvious that Motorboater takes a much warmer and dreamier side to digital pop. Motorboater combines elements of dance in a way that makes it feel like this is the type of music you would want at your make-out party, and then you would want to hear it again in a completely sophisticated documentary about teenage make-out parties. . Motorboater brings a kiinetic energy that makes you not be able to sit or stand still and when you hear it you loose yourself to Motorboaters modern elctro space jams.