Bikeride "Your Lips and You"

Social networking sites—mainly Myspace Music—have quickly turned musical influences and genre conventions into metadata; layering 3 more tracks of tambourine with appropriate reverb equates to a Phil Spector RIYL, and a different type of density could result in Spector’s indie heir Dave Fridmann making an appearance on the “sounds like” section. While forty years ago, Brian Wilson’s attempt to top Pet Sounds by extracting the sublime directly from his unconscious left him Indian-style in a sandbox then bedridden and severely bearded, excess is easier now, using the masonry method (stack away). A bittorrent account, an apartment, an understanding significant other and a few months to master some software could easily suffice to create a simulacrum of insanity.

And that’s where I come to Bikeride, a toybox-indie genre goulash of a band that takes as many detours within songs as between them on their forthcoming record The Kiss. The first song I heard from them, “Podiaphobia,” was directly reminiscent of early 70s Sparks (you heard it and were all OMG—Ed.) and made me seek out the album directly, which revealed subsequent nods to the Byrds (ooh), the Flaming Lips (ahh), and Phish (oh noes). The song that kept me coming back, however, was “Your Lips and You” (mp3), but for different reasons entirely. On the surface, it’s an indie(an)-pop raga-jam: tabla rhythms share space with feverishly bowed strings, resulting in something like Polyphonic Spree scoring a Bollywood flick. The first few times I listened to it though, something seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. It definitely wasn’t a cover, nor did it borrow lyrics from another song. Then, I figured it out, as the pulp settled to the bottom and the clearer stuff stayed up top. The tablas, as well as the strings, were pulled (I’m about 99% sure) from Soundtrack, a loop-based scoring program made by Apple, that comes bundled with Final Cut Pro. It comes pre-packaged with thousands of non-copyrighted loops that one can stack to infinity to score one’s awesome movie.

Now, the last thing I’m trying to do here is call this band out for using software presets to make music (“Photoshop filter-indie”–Ed.). I mean, if adopted as a methodology, it could certainly be a pragmatic sampling method, mindful of the current hyper-legal atmosphere of pop music, where intellectual property ambulance chasers have to firmly secure their iPods before taking flight, right? Or how about a set of competitive boundaries for a reality show competition—”here are your pieces, teams. The team with the most killer jam after 2 hours wins.” Also, it must be said that The Kiss is an enjoyable trainspotting pop record—there is plenty of pleasure to be had in a 60-minute game of “name that influence.” Bikeride isn’t necessarily the most inventive band in the world, but they do know how to arrange their top-8s, and they certainly have no shortage of ambition. The Kiss is what I’ll call a “Mind’s Eye” psychedelic record—if you stare long enough, the “real” image will eventually make itself known.

Dig some more Bikeride at their Myspace.

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