From a literal wall of color to a figurative wall of sound (and/or both)...

° The Depreciation Guild - Water Window mp3 [download album]

° Sweet Trip - To All The Dancers Of The World, A Round Form Of Fantasy mp3

I tried to catch Brooklyn's Depreciation Guild a couple Saturdays ago at Death By Audio, but got there too late. Those who saw them said they were awesome, so I'm making up for it this Friday, May 23 at Union Hall. They go on first, at 9pm, and they've been testing out new computer-based projections: "It's an interactive program that allows the user to add splashes of color and motion to the beat of the music," explains DG's Kurt Feldman.

Synesthesia surrounds their debut 8-bit/shoegaze album, In Her Gentle Jaws, which was posted December 5 in its entirety for free on their website (itself part of the nice identity done for them by Lucha Design). It has since been downloaded more than 60,000 times. On their Virb page DG describe it as "filled with highs and lows, saturated in color, and drifting into dream." Then there's this translation of a Danish review: "The unholy man/machine-alliance plays noisy shoegazer. Beautiful pop songs draped in a veil of guitar distortion, pulsating in 60 hertz, synced to the unsteady flicker of the television."

What I like most is the balance—aggressively crackling, pounding NES programming offset by that shimmer-wash of guitar and well structured pop vocals. (Similar to, but more rock/less twee than the shoegaze hybrid on Sweet Trip's 2003 Velocity : Design : Comfort.)

° The Depreciation Guild - In Her Gentle Jaws mp3 [download album]

"What we do is not just a silly nostalgia trip," says Kurt, whose bandmates include Christoph Hocheim and the Famicom. "Even though we use the Famicom as a vehicle for our music, it's only 1/3 of the sound people hear when they listen to us." Linked with the "chiptune" scene (but not purposely so), Kurt explains:

We only use authentic NES code for our recordings which I program myself. No synths, no softsynths, no midi, no plugins. When we play live, it's only 1 famicom + guitars. We have some basic pedal effects on the guitars (reverb, delay, chorus)—that's about it.

Trash Audio has a pretty in-depth report on their working process here.

As for releasing the album for free, manager John DeCicco (who is also credited with co-art directing the site) says, "These days, it's extremely difficult to get a young band's music heard—We knew the record was really solid, and wanted to get it into as many ears as possible, thereby creating a fanbase."

I agree, it's really solid. And the dudes are still in school, it appears.

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The Depreciation Guild
[Friday, May 23 at Union Hall. Doors 8p / Show 9p. $10]
Depreciation Guild at 9p, Blacklist at 10p, Mary Onettes at 11p.

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See also:
+ Pitchfork
+ PopMatters
+ Myspace