Behave Yourself
[Behavior], a Brooklyn-based post-punk trio with artistic leanings, might be the perfect thing to try on for winter if you cant afford that new coat. Its comfortable music, organic, expressive, a bit cold but poppy enough to soundtrack your trudge through the sludge, so I sat down with Bryce Hackford (vocals/guitar/synth/effects), Ian Campbell (bass) and Khira Jordan (drums) for a chat over a bottle of wine at the exceedingly cozy Lucien in the East Village.
Behavior formed as the result of lingering Long Island bonds that stretch back to high school. Campbell and Hackford were both veterans of the areas insular music scene. Both had been in countless bands ranging from experimental to punk but decided they wanted to take on pop music as a new challenge. They met Jordan in September 2008 and have been tinkering with an organic, improvisation-based form of pop since then. That work, which found the band parting ways with a keyboardist and changing direction a few times, culminates in the bands first LP, Lands End.
I feel like were playing pop music but theres an element of experimentation running through it, explains Hackford. People talk about lo-fi, but were not a lo-fi band. Were poli-fi. Everything is being mediated, yet were coming to a point where the fuzz is more distinct. The blur is clearer.
Like its forefathers, Can and Suicide, Behavior knows how to create a cold trance by combining genres. Yet, like both of those other bands, a pulsating brand of rock n roll is at the center. PS from the new LP would be equally at home in a Sofia Coppola movie, a 1984 Manchester rave or any number of gallery openings in modern-day Brooklyn. Its shoegaze-pop on one hand, yet hints at strange musique concrete on the other. Its also notable that Behavior is an actual band. No single member shines more than any other, and the whole is more than the individual parts.
Its unorthodox because the front man doesnt come to the studio with a song, explains Jordan. Were sitting in a room and something comes out of our energy together in that room.
Laughing, with its echo arpeggios, is pure moon-landing music, while Ghost builds on the frosty paranormal post-punk of acts such as Joy Division. Somewhere, someone is listening to V during the long walk home from a one-night stand. On composition issues, the group is more careful than many of its peers. Behavior takes its time recording, follows intuition, hones the textures and then throws its tracks into the ether for free.
In terms of form, it responds to the 21st-century demand for accessibility and piracy, theorizes Jordan. Were sending it to everyone for free. We just want it to be out there, distributed and appreciated. Anything that happens later happens."
The group plans to move forward by keeping things casual. Each member has an outside job and other prospects. A tour might not be in the cards, but fans can expect more oddball recordings like the bands recent two-song Fleetwood Mac covers cassette. If Lands End is any indication, the band is inching closer to its mission statement: songs you can reach out and grab.
I like treating songs as found objects because we havent paid for anything, says Campbell. Its such a small operation. Im interested in the found object and thinking about songs as just things around you that are free to be taken. You can work them into your own conversations.
>> [Behavior ]
Nov. 18, Santos Party House, 100 Lafayette St. (betw. White & Walker Sts.), 212- 584-5492; 7, $20.