By Rachel Nichols  |  Send to Friend

Chairlift is a questionable band name. Awkrawd, clunky and bare, it is difficult to imagine the sound that might come from such a threadbare moniker. Yet, Chairlift’s new album Does You Inspire You? is changing people’s minds rather quickly. Coquetttish vocalist Caroline Polachek, guitarist Aaron Pfenning and drummer Patrick Wimberly have just played a 45-minute set that left the crowd silent and motionless, a far cry from the usual restless head nods and knobbing knees that are all too prevalent at most indie rock shows.

Polachek is tiny, pale, and could pass for a 16-year-old. It’s hard to believe she's the one wailing the high-pitched cowboy cries blasting from the speakers. When guitarist Pfenning sings with his dark Lee-Hazlewood-esque tinge, you would swear he’s a virile graybeard and not the lithe, barely there, early twenty-something that stands feet-firmly planted behind the mic.

Though, unlike their physical aestethic and band name, Chairlift’s music is everything it appears to be. An expansive romp through cocaine-adeled ‘80s porn jams like “Planet Health” and shoegazey heartbreakers like “Don’t Give A Damn Anymore” melt seamlessly into smiley-pop femmo tunes like “Bruises.” (The song that caught the eye of the iPod Nano fatcats).

Though touted as a Brooklyn band (and really, who isn’t?), the band actually met in Boulder, Colorado, where they attended college. Polachek, originally from New York, decided not to finish school and took her two mid-western friends back east with her. “We moved to Williamsburg in 2006, that’s when we started recording tracks in Patrick’s bedroom,” she says. “I was a studio art major when I moved back, and Aaron was just really ready for a change of scene, so he came to New York.”

This year has been huge for them. In addition to playing, like, nine separate times at CMJ, they also embarked on a worldwide tour with fellow psycho-trippy Brooklynites, Yeasayer. When Polachek is asked whom she would ideally like to tour with, though, she responds firmly, “Air. Definitely, Air.” Fitting. Chairlift does share the same ability to take a pop song and make it something else entirely -- much like the well-established French-duo. We’re not sure what is in store for the little band Chairlift, but we wouldn't be at all surpised if a Sofia Coppola film were in the mix sometime in the near future.

 

 

Guest Illustrator Rich Lippold was able to stay at the Poison concert until they mooned the crowd. See his work here:  richlippold.com

 

If you'd like to illustrate a Play By Ear email : abigail@215mag.com