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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Watch: Friend Roulette Breakthru Radio Live Session

One of my favorite things about Brooklyn chamber pop sextet Friend Roulette is that they seemed to be linked into the very spirit of instant gratification that motivates a lot of my musical discoveries. They're not the kind of band that can just sit around and play the same songs over and over again for years at a time until their next big record release. No, Friend Roulette are a band that are unsurprisingly brimming with new ideas and a need to get them out there. That's resulted in an increasingly larger and larger back catalog of live song staples that have yet to be committed to tape.

Considering that it took the band about three years of actively working on their debut record I'm Sorry You Hit Your Head, that might seem a bit surprising but Friend Roulette are a set of gifted innovators who have a very apparently need to create music. That's rare considering some bands seem content to just muddle around for years playing the same three or four songs until they can drum up enough money to record them before working on anything new.

So when I heard news that Friend Roulette was heading in for a BreakThru Radio session I knew the results would be quite appealing. "I Guess" is a song I've only heard live, the rare time I've been able to catch the band live and it's a definite favorite. Encapsulating everything that band has become in the past year or so, "I Guess" has hard-hitting grooves, relateable memorable lyrics, and plenty of funky EWI action. Since shelving the bass clarinet for the EWI, Friend Roulette have embarked on a far more evidently orchestral pop direction and it's really helped to establish them as unlike any band currently going in the New York music scene.

There's also some peeks of unreleased tracks "The Kitty Song" and "Rocket Dog" which are pretty incredible even in their shorter snippet like featurings.


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