Quick Review: Glass Candy - Deep Gems [2008, Italians Do It Better]

Dec
17
2008

Quick Review: Glass Candy – Deep Gems [2008, Italians Do It Better]

glass_candy

Toronto – I have been listening to a lot of Glass Candy lately. Who they be you ask? They are a disco punk band from Portland, Oregon. The album is called Deep Gems. The members of the band are called Ida No and Johnny Jewel. What is it with bands from Portland having fake names? I guess that Johnny Jewel guy also plays in the band called The Chromatics which seems fitting because they both sound very similar. Looking on the wiki site, it appears that this album is a collection of singles, b-sides and rarities. My real question is – how rare are the rarities? I mean seriously, is it like the first pressing of Tigermilk rare? I don’t think so.

What does the album sound like you ask? Like the Chromatics album that came either this year or last year, it sounds like 80s music. It sounds like 80s Manhattan after party music, right after you’ve downed your 10th gin and tonic and the club is nothing but swirls of line and patterns of bright lights. It sounds like the feeling you have as you leave the club, stumbling about as strangers look at you in a funny way. It sounds like the paranoia you are now feeling as you try to find a way home, only you left your wallet somewhere and you are now in some dark alley, lost and alone.

A standout track on this compilation is the tune Geto Boys, which samples the Geto Boys song “My Mind is playing tricks on me“. It also has a wicked bass line.

I don’t really have a rating for this album yet, but I find myself loading it into winamp often, so that says something.