Kevin Bronson on July 26th, 2016

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L.A. duo Fenway are not named for Boston’s historic ballpark but after the character in Thomas Pynchon’s “Inherent Vice.” They are Nicolette Yarbrough and Joseph Lorge, who met in the Ethnomusicology program at UCLA, played in a bluegrass band and formed the band Alto before embarking on their indie-pop adventures as Fenway. And they are adventures. The duo’s first single “New Status Quo” is a pop sophisticate’s dream — a caffeinated, chiptune-inspired frolic that mixes time signatures and organic and electronic instrumentation behind Yarbrough’s bright vocals (reminiscent of Carol van Dijk of Dutch indie-rockers Bettie Serveert). The playful string flourishes make you want to sign up for one of Yarbrough’s violin classes; the perfect mix makes you wish you could spend some quality time in the studio with Lorge, who works as an engineer for Blake Mills and Andrew Bird. In all, it’s delightfully outside the box. More of this, please, and soon.

||| Stream: “New Status Quo”