Pitchfork

We're almost positive that during our collective adolescence, Hoboken's Bar/None Records was largely home to American semi-weirdos like The Embarrassment, Glass Eye, They Might Be Giants, and The Ordinaires. Maybe it was just all the glue we were huffing, though, because in 2004 Bar/None seems to have a surfeit of bands offering gentle, elaborate pop, such as The Mosquitos, Trembling Blue Stars, and Architecture In Helsinki.

AIH's debut album Fingers Crossed won accolades from all over (including Pitchfork) earlier this year, but the eight-member Australian band has already released an EP in advance of their next record, which is reportedly due in February 2005. Do The Whirlwind is available as a CD single and/or limited-edition hand-screened vinyl-- available in Australia now, and in America whenever you get around to ordering it from Australia. Hear, hear:

01 Do The Whirlwind
02 Love Is Evil
03 Find Your Power Animal

You can hear "Do The Whirlwind" for free on the band's website, where you will discover that it's great and that it sounds kind of like-- don't hit us-- electroclash. The two B-sides are apparently anything but, as bandleader Cameron Bird has described them thus: "Love Is Evil started out as a dejected tropical love song and ended up an epic bilingual apocalyptic hip hop opus... Every Japanese friend we have asked to interpret the lyrics sung on the track has no idea at all what [Japanese guest MCs Filmmm and Kaigen] are saying. Find Your Power Animal... We are all big fans of Pharaoh Sanders, Sun Ra, that whole hippy jazz thing, I guess this was us doing a distinctly AIH take on it."