Spend Some Time With Le Loup's Family
October 21st, 2009
Le Loup, a young band founded by one Sam Simkoff in 2006, is deeply interested in humans and their innate connection with the surrounding world. The band wonders how these beings spiritually append themselves to a confounding and magnificent rock floating in space. It explores the fabric of communal life, focusing on ancestors, communities, tribes, gatherings, people and planet.
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It follows suit, then, that the second record from the D.C.-area band, courtesy of Hardly Art, depicts an amorous, wide-eyed view of the universe and its indigenous contents. Entitled Family (naturally), it’s a collection of songs that should be experienced in the presence of an outdoor landscape, with a macrocosmic frame of mind, or with a circle of friends. It’s an album that is best described using terms such as ‘percussive’, ‘tribal’, and ‘folk’; or ‘pastoral’, ‘rustic’ and ‘anti-urban’. There are idyllic reverences to beach towns, open plains, mountain foothills, oceans, peaks and valleys. There is nothing pristine or rigid about these songs; their fluidity and rugged familial openness are utterly human and, ultimately, vulnerable.
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Vulnerable in that cynical listeners may choose to hear only the similarities to some of today’s most popular artists—Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, and Grizzly Bear—and decry the band’s originality. And while the band has openly stated to be more influenced by their peers than their musical forebears, don’t let these comparisons turn you off. Family is every bit deserving of that aforementioned lineage. As well, there is a musical continuity that permeates our world, in all regions, in all tribes, that Simkoff and his bandmates have captured. Native cultures have long created their own signature music, but, really, that sound and that spirit is fully common in a human way. “Saddle Mountain”, for example, has a Celtic element to it; “Family” is unabashedly African; “Forgive Me” hints at an exultant Native American sound; and “Morning Song” recalls the Appalachian hillbillies. Yes, the long forgotten, banjo-wielding Appalachian hillbillies.
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Le Loup (which is French for ‘wolf’, btw) hope to make you part of their family this Friday October 23rd at Chop Suey. Portland’s excellent and equally-intriguing Nurses will be opening.
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(you can also listen to the entire record on myspace)
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