New York:
Capillary Action
CITY: New York City
SONG THAT GOT US: “Elevator Fck”
ON THE TUBES: MySpace, YouTube
RECORD LABEL: Natural Selection
WHY THEM? If 2009 — with all of its Dirty Projecting, Cryptacizing, and Animal . . . Collectiving — truly is the Year of the Destabilized Pop Song . . . well, this still won’t be Capillary Action’s year. Winning over legions of Les Claypool fans at home and hordes of soul-patched jazz hippies abroad doesn’t quite lube up the fast track to indie stardom. Nor do songs that sound like both Elvises in a serious Burt Bachawreck with the Mothers of Invention. But even as this all-acoustic quintet pull their best white-rabbit impression, darting behind any available obstruction, it’s clear they want you to follow them — and Jonathan Pfeffer makes sure his soaring, seizing, stammering, polymath out-bursts are worth following. “Elevator Fck,” for instance, is as impossible to forget as it is to hum.
BONUS BIT! Immediately after performing “Elevator Fck” for a German radio show, the host rushed up to ask Pfeffer, “Why do you do that? That kind of music?” Pfeffer’s reply: “I don’t have a choice.”
