Shows

I confess. I didn’t discover The Radio Dept. in some dusty pile of records at Amoeba. I didn’t see them open for another band in a tiny venue in the early 2000s. The Radio Dept. and I became acquainted through a mutual friend: the soundtrack to Sofia Copolla’s “Marie Antoinette.” Say what you want about the movie (poorly-acted, aesthetically excessive, way too long, I could go on), but the soundtrack was near perfection. The woman knows how to set a mood.

Since then, it’s been an intense love affair. Wikipedia calls them “dream pop” and Last.FM labels them “shoegaze”, and this is probably because there’s no short way to say, “music to listen to when you’re stargazing or driving or sleeping or otherwise feeling trancelike.”

They’ve been on the scene for over 15 years now, though they just made it to Coachella this past April. Currently composed of three Swedish men, they take the stage silently and awkwardly, only to quickly segue into breezy, synthy sounds. The have three albums in their discography, and their most recent, “Clinging to a Scheme”, made the Best of 2010 list for countless indie blogs. Add four (beautifully subdued) EPs to that list and that’s all they’ve got. Though it’s a small list for a not-so-new band, almost every song is pitch perfect.

Three mp3s provide a good introduction. “Heaven’s on Fire” is from Clinging to a Scheme, and is upbeat and quick. “I Don’t Like It Like This” is from the Marie Antionette soundtrack, most notably, and nicely encapsulates the melancholy, slow-moving songs they often release. Lastly, “Never Follow Suit” is somewhat of a synthesis of the two. It also has a good dubstep remix called “Never Swallow Fruit”, which is my favorite remix-name of all time.

Sometimes they sound like digital rain, and sometimes they sound like music playing from underwater. Have a listen. See if your eyes start to close.

Heavens On Fire - The Radio Dept.

I Don’t Like It Like This – The Radio Dept.

Never Follow Suit – The Radio Dept.

- Lily D.