February 20, 2010

REVIEW: YOU, YOU’RE AWESOME – YOU’RE GETTING OLD (2010)

The daring darling at The Hot Half Life recently made a monumental shift to Cincinnati from Chicago, leaving our fair city resembling more like a lawless, crime-infested Gotham City than…I exaggerate…but she did telegraph back dispatches in the Cincy scene! One such cherished discovery was the indie electro two-piece, You, You’re Awesome possessing more energy than Araknoid hopped up on two pots of coffee.

Yusef Quotah and Kevin Bayer are the duo behind the cartoon masks, combining atari-synth electro productions over live drums. You’re Getting Old happens to be their third EP in as many years, with the brilliant You’re A Fun Drunk jumping out the gate first. The joyously spacey “How To Get The Most Out Of Your Instructional Videos” starts off rather tame, prepping and stretching for nearly a minute and half before “Hey, you’ve got it!” lets Yusef and Kevin flex their dance-synth muscles.

Yet “Oh, Hi”, despite its industrial synth giving into a pop build is bogged by the Frampton meets 1980s vocals. The song itself is bright, and pulls you into a zone the way Ratatat can, yet the “verses” detract with due to their unintelligibility. Nevertheless the dynamic duo draw upon the fuzzing scuffs of braking Paperboys and crashing Excitebikes in the jaunt of “Yippee Ki Yay, Mister Falcon.” It’s a downhill, no-handlebars steady ride until shifting gears and rearing back onto one wheel towards the end.

What You, You’re Awesome needs more of in their all-out electronic pop-fest is spacing, not spacey. They achieve a perfect example about 3/4s into “There I Was, In A Well” yet it could have been continually developed and drawn out, as Girl Talk should try beats longer than 30 seconds. The EP draws to a close with “Guess What? Shun!”, providing a celestial example of how distinguishable, synthed vocals can be clinched. They are layered, heavy over subtle echoing, giving a sheet of subtitles to the sonically serene ending.

Unlike the past two EPs, “You’re Getting Old” draws the curtains leaving the listener at an intermission. The tracking clues at a continuation just by the flow, leaving the individual at a lull before what may be cooking in those two’s cartoonish craniums. The more the Cincinnati two-piece experiments and incorporates unexpected, dancey rhythms, the more likely moving to Cincinnati should be on everyone’s priority.

Rating: 7.4/10