By Keith Walsh
You’d expect a band called Pregnant to be unique, maybe even shocking. Yet this band from Northern California is surprisingly commercial — though indeed, very unique. The songs on the their new album 100% Beef (Plastic Response Records) are about life and death, commercialism, and topics as diverse as the slave trade and war. The popular, yet experimental, flavor of the musical wrapper boosts the irony and effectiveness of these messages.

Lyrics and performances are confident and sometimes confessional. Instrumentation is tight and eclectic, with creative use of synths, as well as the expected guitars and bass of the post punk genre. Though leader Daniel Trudeau calls the band’s sound ‘psychedelic electronic music,’ It’s not electronic enough to be called electronica, not hard-edge enough to be punk.  It’s revealing that at least two members of Pregnant, when playing live, employ samplers, synthesizers and loopers. The music of Pregnant is psychedelic, for sure, and can be called experimental electronic post punk pop. There’s plenty of jazz phrases and soloing, particularly on the guitar (“Big Red Rose”). There are plenty of experimental features however, for example in vocals and samplers of “Leave Me Alone.” The upbeat and fun “Senator” barely reigns in its strangeness, leaving just outside the commercial zone.

100% Beef is experimental, but safely so, in the sense that there are pop flavored melodies and grooves interspersed with the left of field sonic departures. It’s kind of like Grouplove meets The Art Of Noise at Captain Beefheart’s coffehouse. There’s loop pedals, sequencers, guitars and keyboards and at times the ride is wild, but the songs usually find their way back to popular structures. There’s lots of catchy melodies, tons of left-of-center idiosyncrasies like over-modulated synths and eccentric guitars, along with skilled musicianship and thoughtful performances. All in all, 100% Beef is a delightfully fun album.

It’s unclear who made the music on 100% Beef. Daniel Trudeau is named as the leader of Pregnant on Bandcamp.com and elsewhere, where the creators are listed as “Daniel Trudeau and his ever changing collaborators.” I hope to find out more about this extremely interesting band.

Pregnant On Facebook
Pregnant On Tumblr
Pregnant On YouTube

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