Video premiere: Brendan Eder Ensemble, ‘Vamp’

Kevin Bronson on January 15th, 2016

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Because You Need More Bassoon in Your Life: Brendan Eder is an award-winning young composer who forays into experimental chamber-pop at the fore of the Brendan Eder Ensemble, whose whimsical, jazzy explorations make woodwinds sound like the sexiest things on the planet. (And clarinet players everywhere just wondered: Why would you think they’re not?) Last August, the ensemble released a self-titled EP melding Eder’s complex rhythms (he’s a drummer in several L.A. indie outfits) with an array of woodwinds, electric bass and looping effects. He was joined on the recordings by Sarah Robinson (flute), Henry Soloman (alto sax), Paul Curtis (bassoon), Andrew Leonard (clarinet) and Sam Wilkes (bass), who conspire to make just about all other pop music sound boring. Eder, who was educated at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, obviously has some chops beyond being a composer and arranger; he’s responsible for the stop-motion video for the song “Vamp,” a panoply of textures, colors, images and figurines that is as infectious visually as the song is sonically.

||| Watch: The video for “Vamp”