Strange Fruit
IN THE REALM of dance music with an electronic bent, a dexterous band that can channel the genres energy and aural acrobatics with live instrumentation has a rare gift. Lemonade, a Brooklyn-based trio, accomplishes this by melding an ever-shifting array of tropical beats and rave sensibilities with punk tactics into a smooth sound thats packed clubs on both coasts.
Though Callan Clendenin, Alex Pasternak and Ben Steidel met in high school playing in scream-y San Francisco punk bands, they eventually transferred their efforts from the political angst of punk to complex musical experiments, uniting under the influences of Liquid Liquids post-disco, A Certain Ratios punk-funk and a load of dub reggae.
Ben was the only other guy we knew who... was into dance music, and knew more about it than Alex and I did, and also knew experimental noise, says singer Clendenin at the Williamsburg loft apartment that doubles as Pasternaks home and Lemonades production studio. That was what we were listening to simultaneously. He was literally the only other person in the Bay Area that was a musician that had those exact tastes at the exact same time. So it was fateful, I suppose.
When the trio formed in 2005, the Bay Area was filled with harsh, moody No Wavecentric guitar bands, Clendenin explains, and Lemonades rave-y elements were not in line with that aesthetic.
The total enemy of the punk scene and the hip sort of art scene was a rave or techno sound, especially in San Francisco, he adds. That was by far, at the time, the most taboo sound to use.
But Lemonades ecstatic fusion of samples, tweaked synth noises, heavy bass and throbbing beats transcended boundaries, and soon the three were performing at events across the underground music scene, from world music nights to hipster dance parties to techno warehouse throwdowns.
Three successful years into what Steidel (Lemonades bassist) describes as an attempt to incorporate dance music into San Franciscos noise scene, the group packed up and moved to New York. Lemonade released its exuberant self-titled debut last summer, and a slew of accolades, as well as remixes from Delorean and C.L.A.W.S., among others, ensued.
But while the records rapid-fire beats sound perfectly suited to a club, its follow-up, the forthcoming Pure Moods EP (due out Mar. 9), comes off like a rowdy street carnival, its tropical polyrhythms defining what
Lemonade calls its Caribbean record. Cheekily named after the series of ambient, world music-influenced New Age compilations released in the 1990s with tracks from Deep Forest and The Orb (both of which Lemonade readily admits are influences), the EP begins with Banana Republic, a bouncy, steel drum-punctuated anthem about living in a loft (much like Lemonades production studio) whose main portal to the outside world is a skylight.The first single from the EP, Lifted, follows, and it too is peppered with sweet steel drums intermingled with a sample of a girls echoing laughter and Clendenins warm, at times breathy, croon. The only steel drum-less song on the new EP, Underwater Sonics, includes drum and bass elements and tinges of chiptune (Clendenin references Sonic the Hedgehog as an inspiration for the track). Inspired by everything from Soca to R&B to Balearic beat, Lemonade defies easy categorization, which suits the band just fine, even though it means Lemonade has few comrades in its style of cross-pollination.
Were creating from so many different influences... its really hard to fit into some scene, says Pasternak, the bands percussionist. People dont recognize a lot of the places were getting our ideas from.
Though they reference their compatriots in Tanlines and These Are Powers, two Brooklyn bands with post-punk tendencies and constantly morphing approaches to dance music, as sharing some of their musical interests, ultimately, the three prefer the open-endedness of a singular vision that they can reconfigure as the mood strikes them.
Every time theres any sort of scene that might make sense to be a part of, we kind of push.We dont push the scene away, we just push away from that, because our influences keep changing, Clendenin says. Were still doing exactly what we want, which just so happens to be not what people would expect from us.
> Lemonade
Feb. 18, Glasslands, 289 Kent Ave. (at S. 2nd St.), Brooklyn, 718-599-1450; 9, $10.