Indian Jewelry
Totaled
Monitor
Texan noise-terrorist duo Indian Jewelry radiates fuck-you body language on the cover of Totaled; they look like Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg (or is that Neil and Jennifer from Royal Trux?) recreating scenes from Two Lane Blacktop and Baader Meinhoff recruitment videos. They just radiate this outlaw cool and it’s exhilirating, but it’s also kinda bittersweet and makes me sad because Dennis Hopper just died… fuck it, I’m sentimental.
There is, in fact, a lot of lineage behind Indian Jewelry’s sound – though they don’t seem too weighed down by it – from United States of America to Silver Apples to Suicide to the Cure to early Alien Sex Fiend (I hear a lot of prime Alien Sex Fiend in there) to Jesus and Mary Chain. It’s a rich fucking lineage of disorienting primal one-chord scuzz euphoria. There’s a certain consensus that Indian Jewelry plays on the psychedelic side of the street, but I gotta tell you, I’m hearing a lot of Gothic in here. Not GOTH, the realm of Hot Topic and Evanescence, but Gothic – the aforementioned Alien Sex Fiend, the Cure, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Sisters of Mercy, etc. The darkness, the drone, and dalliance with the forbidden. Thematic hints to the Weathermen, the SDS, the Manson Family’s dune buggy brigades all linger even as the feedback fades from blown-out speakers.
The elements of Totaled are such a perfect mix of angular soundfuck – the drum machine pounds out krautrock’s heartbeat and/or Nitzer Ebb’s disco sledgehammer – overlaid by chopped-up guitar, broken glass synths, towering Cure-worthy basslines, and vocals straight out of a Renaldo and the Loaf album (whatthe?). It’s music that hedges the bet between too easy to make and too bizarro to figure out. Spooky outlaw noise. I fucking love this!
Indian Jewelry: http://www.swarmofangels.com
