Track Marks: How Malajube Became This Week’s Biggest Band In The World

Brian Raftery | October 19, 2006 4:46 am

Welcome to another edition of Track Marks, in which your Idolators perform an autopsy on the latest whisper-down-the-lane Internet-sensation of the moment. Today’s entry:

Artist: Malajube Hometown: Montreal Album: Trompe-L’oeil First online mention (according to searches on The Hype Machine and Elbo.ws): A March 28th mention on myselfmyself. The Build-Up: A few posts pop up sporadically in the spring on sites like ELECTRIC SOUND BASEMENT, DoCopenhagen, and Mystery and Misery. After Stereogum praised the band’s “dreamy soundscapes, indie-ska, and Brian May-styled solos” in an August 21 “Band To Watch” post, more sites picked up on the group’s MP3s. The Dam-Break: Yesterday’s 8.2 review in Pitchfork, which praises the group’s ability to create “a ghostly box step where funereal arpeggios twist into bass-driven helixes of weird falsetto harmonies.” At least, we think that’s praise. Odds of Backlash: 6 to 1. Nobody in the indie-rock realm is quite ready to hate on Canada–especially not French-speaking Canada. That said, we would like to heartily smack at least 3/4 of the band’s press photo. Are They Worthy?: We could do without the aforementioned “indie-ska” elements, but we are digging two of the album’s other stand-out tracks.

Malajube – Le Métronome [MP3, link expired] Malajube – Monogamie [MP3, link expired] Malajube [MySpace]

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