Remember when Animal Collective was shiny and new? Remember how you felt… confused, intrigued, but ultimately starving for more? This is the kind of tingly feeling I got when I listened to Old Arc. Old Arc is Austin Lee and Stefan Lazer of Santa Cruz, California. These guys are a duo of another world; trip-inspired, neo-psychodelic, tribal kind of electronic sound. Did that sentence even make sense?! I hate to throw the genre in there but they sound very much witchhouse a la Pictureplane.
Biography: “in the forgotten days of the old arc, an epileptic hallucination of two musical spirits battling it out in an ancient colosseum of godly funk, rages on. Only after the truth of human serenity has been exposed like an open quake in the heart of the earth, will the warrior within, truly begin, to boogie down. Stay calm soul brother.” I love this, it’s like if Enigma got some synth and dropped some acid. It takes something to stand out these days and Old Arc has it. The disco-wave feel in the background of these songs sound very much a la Lexicondon but the sound is still confusingly surprising, where you want to keep taking in more to figure it out.
They’ve collaborated with Blackbird Blackbird, shared the stage with Teengirl Fantasy, and have just released a new EP. This momentum needs to be blasted through the atmosphere. Their EP “Old Arc E.P.” will keep your ears on their figurative feet, with complex songs that amaze and delight and their newly-released track “Stay Calm” is just divine. Taking it to the next level with a great mix of sounds and a heavy disco feel, I’m officially converted. “Stay Calm” has been on repeat for the past 20 minutes.
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Old Arc – “Home”
Old Arc – “Merchant Cross”
Old Arc – “Poster Boy”
Old Arc – “Chief Of Sun”
Old Arc – “Awful Smell”
