Psapp
Toys r us:We're already awash with musical genres, and now here's another one: toytronica. It's the word used to describe Psapp's charming, childlike sound made with a range of odd instruments. In fact, everything about Psapp exudes a innocence that is both weird and endearing. Their King's Cross studio in London is a romper room filled with vintage electronic equipment, odd musical instruments picked up at junk shops, toys and dolls, and enough bric-a-brac collected from all corners of the world to stock the mother of all jumble sales.
Swing a cat:Psapp are Galia Durant and Carim Clasmann, who found they shared a common love of strange sounds and dreamy tunes, not to mention a taste for the clattery blues of Tom Waits, the spidery pop of The Cure and the experimentalism of Erik Satie. The pair began making music together, marrying silly noises to Galia's sensuous vocals, and coming up with songs that were instantly, innocently compelling. They also like cats, which figure highly in the music (lots of miaowing sounds, and songs such as Everybody Wants to Be a Cat) and seen in the band's artwork and animation. They even throw cats into the audience at their gigs - not real ones, mind, but little fluffy toy cats that they make themselves.
Casio kid:Galia grew up in a house filled with old records collected by her mum and old books collected by her art historian dad. She grew up listening to Indian traditional music, Woody Guthrie protest songs and her brother's acid-jazz records, and decided that she wanted to make music that knew no genre boundaries. She tried her hand at the violin and the piano, but found that her favourite instrument was an old Casio keyboard. Meanwhile, Carim was living in Cologne, learning the ins and outs of studio production through working with such bands as Einstürzende Neubauten and Die Toten Hosen, and doing time in Can's legendary Inner Space studio. When he moved to London and met Galia, he knew it was time to put his krautrock/ electronica education to good use.
Grey area:Psapp's music reached the ears of some rather important people in the US music industry, who reckoned their sound would be perfect for television. And so Psapp found their song Cosy in the Rocket being used as the theme tune for top-rated US TV series Grey's Anatomy. Now you can hardly turn on the telly without hearing Psapp soundtracking a Volkswagen ad or an episode of Nip/Tuck or The OC. Psapp have had three albums to date, the Japan-only release Northdown, 2004's Tiger, My Friend and last year's The Only Thing I Ever Wanted. They're coming to Ireland next week, playing a show in Galway on Tuesday as part of the Heineken Green Sphere, then playing Whelan's in Dublin on Wednesday.
