Updated Thursday, September 3:
Chairlift will be touring as a quartet this fall, with the addition of Animal Collective composer and collaborator, John Maus. They play Cincinnati’s MidPoint Music Festival on Saturday, September 26 and will be going on the road with The Killers and Phoenix. Maus, a Hawaii native, was a member of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti and also played keys with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear. Here’s a quote I found about John from Upset the Rhythm:
“John Maus is a maniac on a bloody crusade – a tortured evangelist on a mercenary quest to rid our world of villainous defilers of The Gospel of True Love. By turns shockingly infectious and disarmingly unpredictable, his music conflates a perplexing marriage of Moroder’s ‘Never Ending Story’ and classical 12-tone renegades of 20th century past, harking the new path which resurrects romance from its post-modern shackles, and reignites the promise of a better world.”
Chairlift (Brooklyn, New York)
Electronica/Indie/Pop
What started out with a couple of college students who wanted to make music for haunted houses, has grown into one of the hottest, up-and-coming electronic, indie bands of the present day. Aaron Pfenning and Caroline Polachek met in an Economics class at the University of Colorado in 2005, where they would swap demos from the back row. They later brought in bass player Kyle McCabe, to work on what would become the Daylight Savings EP. The collection of songs were recorded at the late-Elliot Smith’s studio in Los Angeles, with the band handing out demos at their shows.
Soon after, they relocated to New York, where Caroline was a transfer student at NYU, focusing on art and philosophy. In the summer of 2006, Aaron and Caroline created the Lady Ava Pop Festival, featuring some of their favorite experimental, pop bands. When they decided to settle in Brooklyn, they found themselves sharing a small, underground practice space with the local indie-folk band Grizzly Bear. Chairlift continued to hand out demos of the EP, and should be noted that there are dozens of versions in circulation, as different tracks were added and taken off of the EP.
Back in Colorado you have Patrick Wimberly, a DJ for a jazz radio station who had previously played in a jazz-rock band with Caroline. Wimberly made the move to New York City to start a career in music production, however, was asked to join the band. Although the band was in search for a replacement bassist, it was Wimberly who would first add the drums to their music, with each band member rotating on the bass.
Chairlift kept busy for the first two years while in New York, first releasing the single “Evident Utensil” (later remixed by fellow Brooklyn-ers MGMT) and writing the debut album, Does You Inspire You
Check out Chairlift at MidPoint on Saturday, September 26, when they play the Topic Design Tent at Grammer’s, located at Walnut and East Liberty Streets.
Check ‘em out if you’re into: Passion Pit, MGMT, Ra Ra Riot, The Bird and the Bee, Matt & Kim, Au Revoir Simone, School of Seven Bells or Black Kids
Listen to Chairlift on MySpace