Gangpol & Mit: The 1000 Softcore Tourist People Club (Ipecac, 3/29/11)
Gangpol & Mit: “The 1000 People Band Part 1”
[audio:http://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Gangpol__Mit_The_1000_People_Band_part_1.mp3|titles=Gangpol & Mit: “The 1000 People Band Part 1”]French animation/electronic duo Gangpol & Mit makes music for a playful cartoon world. On its newest album, the bizarrely titled The 1000 Softcore Tourist People Club, G&M expands its zany video-game aesthetic with a conglomerate of textured, glimmering Tinkertoy instrumentation.
“The 1000 People Band (Part 1),” one of the album’s first “singles,” demonstrates this Mario Kart-meets-Architecture in Helsinki-meets-The Books musical collage. The rest of the album is a strange and lighthearted romp through airy and electro-classical orchestrations, drum-and-bass distortions, wandering keyboard melodies, and other oddities, using mallets, flute, harpsichord, harp, oboe, and other “standard” sounds alongside the 21st Century additions.