Le Diamant Brut: Hospital Ships & The Happen-Ins
What’s the Deal: Hospital Ships is a musical project led by Jordan Geiger, songwriter for Minus Story and multi-instrumentalist for Shearwater, enhanced by a large group of frequent and occasional musical collaborators and live players including members of Shearwater like Kevin Schneider, Thor Harris, and even Jonathan Meiburg. Geiger’s cozy bedroom pop is based in Lawrence, Kansas.
“I Want It To Get Out” from the 2008 release, Oh, Ramona, made the rounds as one of the record’s featured songs, and is a great starting point for introductions to Hospital Ships. Haunting sounds and keys, low and trudging vibrations, and sharp chimes and tinkering craft a winding symphony around Geiger’s high range, fuzzy vocals.
Something Interesting: You can easily hear the Flaming Lips influence in the music of Hospital Ships, a name which was even borrowed from a FL track.
Other Tracks Worth Checking Out: “All the Drugs in the World” and “The Shots I Drank”
Hospital Ships [MySpace]
What’s the Deal: They sound just like they look in their photos and album cover, riotous fun retro rock, and they’re playing the Pixel Pop party at the Mohawk Friday along with Candi and The Strangers, The Bubbles and DJ sets by uLOVEi.
The group has only been kicking out the tunes since early ’09, but they released their self-titled debut earlier this year. With a 70s rock sound inspired by blues and R&B, tracks like “Be Yer Fool” and “Baby” groove and writhe with funky and wailing guitars and easy-to-follow, multi-level choruses.
Something Interesting: Following Pixel Pop, the group will be playing Emo’s on the 23rd, then the KPFT studios and Cactus Records in Houston on July 30th.
Other Tracks Worth Checking Out: “Do It”
The Happen-Ins [MySpace]
