Ears Wide Open: The Garden

Kevin Bronson on January 2nd, 2015

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[As much as we covered in 2014, there were things I simply didn’t get to. So file today’s posts under Stuff I Missed …]

The best thing about The Garden’s sonic experiments is that if you don’t like one, hold tight: The next one will begin in about a minute and a half. The Orange County-bred bass-and-drum duo of twins Wyatt and Fletcher Shears have captured the fancy of both the SoCal underground and the international fashion world. Blessed with lithe frames and angular cheekbones, they walked the runway at Paris Fashion Week in 2013. Blessed with a sparse sound and the derring-do of aural assassins, the Garden’s 16-track debut album that year on Burger Records clocked in at under 19 minutes. The appeal of their conceptual, post-punk-ish, lo-fi scribbles continues to spread; they released a series of 7-inch singles this summer and in December unveiled “Surprise!” via LuvLuvLuv Records in the U.K. (where they will tour in support of Warpaint in March). Live, they take a smirky delight delight in their inscrutability, but thankfully you don’t have to get it to get it.

||| Stream: “Surprise!,” “We Be Grindin'” and “Devour”