Joy Orbison: Flavor Flav Was Wrong!

by A New Band A Day on Thu, 2009/11/19 - 9:40am Post to Twitter

Everyone’s yapping about him. Joy Orbison has the blessing and curse of hype. Hype in itself is enough to rule out listening to any band that is suspiciously soaked in the stuff - a standpoint which is both flawed and infantile, true, but has served me well enough so far. Well, except when six months’ stubborn rebuttal of LCD Soundsystem resulted in another six months of self-kicking in penance.

But Joy Orbison was approached differently. The Pun-tastic name, the screenshots from Twin Peaks on his Myspace page - something just seemed right. And so - further proof that the gut has much more intelligence than the head can ever hope for: the hype around Joy Orbison is justified.

Much like Tuesday’s showcased artist, Jakwob, Joy Orbison’s sound is now, and it will still be now in six month’s time. Today’s new electronic musicians are evolving their sound at an unprecedented pace, and in songs like Missus, are revisiting the past to mould the future.

Missus is minimal, sharp and rigid, but also human - and in these qualities finds itself aligned with all the bright spots of electronic music from the last 20 years. Wet Look places its pulses and sighs in the right spots, never using the beat or an effect as a means to an end.

Joy Orbison is another artist who places himself firmly behind the music. It talks, we listen, he enjoys our response, we just keep dancing. A situation where everyone is, indeed, happy.