MVRemix Rock

Wednesday

RAFTER’S TECHNICOLOR POP BLOW-OUT, ANIMAL FEELINGS, SET FOR RELEASE APRIL 13TH ON ASTHMATIC KITTY

Post a Comment January 13, 2010 – 8:07 pm | Permalink |  Print This Post |

RAFTER’S TECHNICOLOR POP BLOW-OUT, ANIMAL FEELINGS, SET FOR RELEASE APRIL 13TH ON ASTHMATIC KITTY

Asthmatic Kitty is pleased to announce the release of Rafter’s latest long player, Animal Feelings, set for release on April 13th. With his new offering, Rafter’s history and influences, his dreams and ambition, and his love for love and life, all come together as a beat-busting ride into the inner-core of pop and R & B music. Where previous Rafter releases trafficked in feedback and noise-informed experimentation while focusing on places of longing, recovery, sadness and new romance, this new album struts cleanly from one hit to the next, speakers blowing, bodies moving, club lights flashing. Though, don’t get us wrong, he’s definitely still obsessed with death and contradiction.

Animal Feelings hits on all cylinders, an exhilarating pop free-for-all that recalls Nintendo composer Koji Kondo leading a fantasy camp super-jam with Cody Chesnutt, Justin Timberlake, and the Tom Tom Club. Full of FM-ready pop gems playfully sabotaged by Rafter’s fearless mouth, opening track, “No F**king Around,” is set to a grooving, silky R & B stomp straight out of Rihanna or D’angelo’s cookbook, which leads to the hand-clap, clutter-free beauty of “Fruit” where Rafter sings about his recent courtship with his new wife. “Feels Good” is a slow, sexy, near-falsetto jam anchored by a minimalist Jackson 5 bassline, and is immediately followed by the house-party vibes of the title track. With “Never Gonna Die,” Rafter dials up a Clash-flavored pep talk about accepting death and celebrating love, while the record ends on a buoyant, spirited, shaker-heavy note with “Beauty, Beauty.” Ask him to drop names for his latest work and he’ll say R. Kelly and Sublime Frequencies’ Radio Phnom Penh without batting an eye. He’ll tell you Animal Feelings is “a marriage record, a lust record, a death and sex record” and he’ll tell you to read KLF’s notorious book, The Manual, on writing a #1 single.

Rafter Roberts stands no taller than your average human male, yet his fiery red-haired head is filled with the minutiae of music, swirling and churning constantly. Fortunately this leaves little room for fear, of which Rafter has nearly none. His fearlessness has led him to do just about everything he sets his mind to, which of course includes free-for-all rowdy sweatiness, hanky panky, and rolling on the stage, yelping. (Not to mention playing in bands since the age of two, new fatherhood and marriage, running a business, goin’ to shows, building a new studio, makin’ his own music, recording bands and eating raw . . . all without going furiously nuts.) His is a strong will tempered by humor. One of the most intense and powerful music nerds you may ever meet, there is a refreshing lack of poseur hipness to Rafter Roberts. In its stead is a pure enthusiasm for people, for doing it yourself, and the helping hand, for kicking against the pricks and kicking out the jams.

Listen to/download “Paper” off of Animal Feelings here

Animal Feelings track listing:

01. No F**king Around

02. A Frame

03. Timeless Form

04. Fruit

05. Feels Good

06. Animal Feelings

07. Paper

08. Never Gonna Die

09. Only You

10. Love Makes You Happy

11. Beauty Beauty

“Floaty, horn-filled kook-rock pastiche” — Entertainment Weekly

“giddy explosions of exuberance and love.” — Tucson Weekly

“Blanketing weird-pop gems in a wash of hazy production, Sex Death Cassette brings to mind summer vacations and afternoon naps. At 35 minutes, the record’s 19 tracks twist and turn between heartfelt serenades, fuzzed-out pseudo-reggae, and progressive indie rock. Despite its disparity of genre, however, the songs are all united by Rafter’s incredible production skills, which alone are worth the price.” — XLR8R

“The title is appropriate, insinuating a frenzied wizard wrestled onto the dance floor by his own wayward love spell.” — Paste

“pure booty rock.” — Under The Radar

“a disco throb pulses under most of the songs and Rafter sounds like Rafter singing Hot Chip singing Michael Jackson.” — The FADER