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Just in time for summer’s porch nights and lightning bugs, Voxtrot provides the fittingly innocent coos of their self-titled debut. Hailing from the musical haven of Austin, Texas (home to the ballooning South by Southwest Festival), the five-piece band outlines its three-EP follow-up with a mini-documentary (available on the Web site) and 11 shiny new tracks, each suitable to please any poofy 1960s prom queen. Every neatly packed tune is wrapped so snugly in the sweetly expressive vocals of Ramesh Srivastava - over soft, paced guitar, percussion and assorted strings - that by the end, Voxtrot is one big, bulging indie-pop gift. From opener “Introduction,” the band fabricates a faint and elegant world, fading in layered instruments that give way to crystal clear bittersweetness like, “And you love me just like a stranger/ And you love me just like I am.” But with nary a moment for grievance, “Kid Gloves” livens the step with quick guitar strokes, “Stephen” spins the theatrics of a Freddie Mercury-worthy spectacle - with spoken word and abundant piano chords - and the drawing chorus of “Firecracker” is underscored with a foot-stomping dance-floor rhythm.Final track and single “Blood Red Blood” ends on a strong note, building with insecure outbursts and a steady rise of static intensity. Focusing less on the proceeding Belle and Sebastian-esque murmurs and more on the elements of rock, unkempt horn squawks break the instrumental cookie-cutter and an emotional chant explosion - “Got to lift your face to the breaking day/ It’ll eat you up, blood red blood” - proves this season is more than sunshine and rainbows.

By Kathryn Berk

Taken from: ucsdguardian.org

Band: voxtrot.net

The Spank Rock hip-hop collective — three producers cum deejays plus an emcee — has been widely praised for its genre-bending, nasty fusion of party rap and electro-sleaze. So you might think a Spank Rock mix would be a wild, eclectic affair. Think again. FabricLive 33, Spank Rock’s contribution to the FabricLive mix series, doesn’t straddle diverse genres the way you might expect.

On paper, the track list seems to boast considerable variety, with twenty-seven tracks spread across a seventy-minute mix. But despite the broad(ish) range of artists, the mix maintains a steady course, sonically speaking. For better or worse, listeners are in for a consistent stream of artfully trashy dance grooves, with a few chunks of hip-hop floating in the middle. Tracks by Daft Punk (”Technologic”), Dominatrix (”The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight”), and Spank Rock’s own remix of CSS’s “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above” set the tone.

Though lacking in sonic variety, the mix is cleverly assembled. Tracks from later in the track list are “teased” in early transitions while bits and pieces from earlier cuts reprise later on. But the mix is slightly marred by a few clumsy transitions and the fact that its energy peters out toward the end. At about fifty minutes in, the plodding Maurice Fulton remix of Hot Chip’s “Over and Over” has an effect reminiscent of a cold shower.

In fact, the mix is generally lacking in the Sexy. At its best, Spank Rock’s music has a rough, horny edge to it. It’s music to fuck to; FabricLive 33 seems more like music for doing laundry on a Sunday afternoon. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se, but we really can’t be expected to “shake it ’til our dicks turn racist” at the Laundromat. Shaking it in this manner is a surefire way to get thrown out of the Laundromat. Trust me on this.

Considering the visceral appeal of Spank Rock’s original material and live act, you wonder if the boys couldn’t have provided a mix with a higher thrill count. Other than the undeniably genius inclusion of Yes’s “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” the mix is woefully short of highlights. FabricLive 33 is competent and at times enjoyable, but it’s hard not to think the group could have delivered something with a little more personality