Matt Mehlan has a specific
interest in ambiguity. In an age where everyone is told countless
times throughout the day exactly what to think, he seems bent on
providing options for interpretation. Take, for example, his band
name.
“’Skeletons’ has so many different connotations
for so many different people, ya know?” says Mehlan, a 23-year-old
originally from Illinois. “It can be real cartoony or Halloweeny,
or truly scary, or, I don’t know, scientific.” He pauses,
considering the moniker under which he has released four albums
in the past four years. “Or just dumb. And I like all those
things.”
There is much to like about Skeletons and the Girl-Faced Boys’
new album, Git. While the overall vibe is in the same vein
as Mehlan’s previous solo efforts, countering atmospheric,
discordant ambiance with soulful, off-beat world beat, the tracks
sound richer and more fully developed. Perhaps this has something
to do with his backing band finally being given a chance to flesh
out their leader’s, ahem, bones. Before, whole songs would
be orchestrated and musician friends would be brought in to record
specific, pre-written parts. With Git, Mehlan told his bandmates,
“Ok, here’s a big empty hole in this track – fill
it in with your brain.” The results are brilliant, though
sometimes perplexing, a wildly varying array of groovy electro-pop
and ambient noise puzzles.
“See the Way” opens the album with an infectious lilt,
melding jungle rhythms with all sorts of synthesizer trickery. The
title track (whose name refers to the phonetically spelled “get,”
not the British colloquialism for fool) is a funky nugget of danceable
retro-rock, suitable for some art school version of Soul Train.
With the fourth track, Skeletons et al downshift from tribal ecstasy
into a moodier groove more prone to cacophonic impulse. “There’s
a fly in your soup and I put it there” is the sound of someone
on a rusty swing in a ghost-filled cemetery, with occasional Space
Invaders flying overhead. The track itself decomposes in its final
minute, leading the listener through what sounds like a bored dominatrix’s
lair, complete with the slapping of metal on metal and catatonic
moans.
Such transgressions from melody usually aren’t calculated
decisions – they just happen. Mehlan sees his writing method
as organic, even when 1’s and 0’s replace F#’s
and Cmaj7’s. “I think that sometimes I’m really
trying to make a really normal track… as soon as you start
recording it, [it’s] like you put on roller skates, and trip.”
His vocals ebb between a forced falsetto and nonchalant, almost-spoken
word singing, not unlike a David Byrne on barbiturates.
Mehlan grew up in a suburb of Chicago, down the street from a studio
where Sam Prekop and Jim O’Rourke often recorded. He honed
his eclectic taste as an observer of the Chicago music scene. At
Oberlin College in Ohio, a place he concedes was “good for
house parties and recitals” and not much else, he met who
would later become The Girl-Faced Boys in their shared Music Technology
classes. (And incidentally, it’s not that these boys use excess
amounts of moisturizer; the moniker comes from lyrics to a song,
ultimately scrapped, on early versions of Git. But Mehlan kept introducing
his band that way because he thought it was funny and because it
made the audience “a little uncomfortable.”) Most of
them have recently moved to Brooklyn, and are now in the midst of
a nationwide tour in support of their latest effort, which marks
Mehlan’s debut on Ann Arbor’s own Ghostly International
label. The crowd reaction? Like their music: decidedly mixed.
“We’ve played a few shows that have been just crazy,
full of people… really good, energetic, rowdy party-vibes,”
Mehlan said. “And we’ve played a few that are like no-energy,
cold refrigerators. But we’re trying to keep it exciting for
us, at least.”
At a recent gig in D.C., the audience consisted of their opening
act, the bartender, and the sound guy. The band took the opportunity
to explore “things we wouldn’t put an audience through.”
As Mehlan put it: “’’Cause then we don’t
have that filter, we don’t have that mirror to look in. So,
it’s kind of like we turn around, and look at each other,
and crack a nasty grin and try something new.”
When not playing shows, they routinely draw and jot ideas in their
respective notebooks, plotting out various “hare-brained schemes”
and “crack-pot inventions.” The band’s day jobs–from
Flash video game designing to food delivery–don’t provide
many luxuries on tour besides sleeping bags. The effort is paying
off. Git, released this past June, is garnering widespread
praise, from tiny online music ‘zines to the Washington Post.
Independent and college radio have already started putting the title
track single in their rotation.
Skeletons stroll through Ann Arbor at the end of August, ready to
play their label’s home turf not at the typical small club,
but a residence on Liberty Street. And Mehlan seems intent on keeping
his fans, and hosts, guessing.
“I’ve been joking with the guys who live there,”
he says, “and telling them that we’ll probably burn
it down, and make hot dogs.”
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