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Paul Arnush - drums
Rob Batke - keyboard, laptop
Steven Batke - vocals, guitar
Tim Batke - vocals, guitar, keyboard
Scott Gallant - bass
Hauntingly beautiful and defiantly hopeful, Faunts
create perfect music for the twilight hour between wake and sleep. “High
Expectations/Low Results,” their remarkably assured debut
album, weaves together shimmering walls of pink noise with dreamy,
languorous guitar, gently-treated vocals, and swimmingly beautiful
melodies.
Faunts was formed in the fall of 2000 by brothers Tim and Steven
Batke and soon after, Paul Arnusch. At this point the band emerged,
squinting, into the nightlight of their hometown of Edmonton,
a modest-sized city in northern Canada with a healthy and thriving
music scene. Not long after their inception, Faunts shared the
stage with prominent Canadian bands Broken Social Scene, Stars,
and Do Make Say Think. Two Canadian tours followed shortly thereafter
including a show at the Popmontreal festival. Now with the addition
of Joel Hitchcock, Faunts continue to play breathtaking shows
from local theatres to New York’s CMJ music festival.
Steven’s guitar is at the core of Faunts’ sprawling,
ethereal sound, and Tim and Joel’s keyboards add layer
upon layer to the music – which makes it all the more powerful
when the wall of sound drops away, leaving nothing but a sparkling
echo. This is headphone music at its finest – the band
is comprised of musical perfectionists, and they can most often
be found in the studio tweaking, recording and mixing until each
song is sculpted perfectly to define a specific mood.
If you listen from the right
angle, “High Expectations/Low
Results” will reflect the musical tropes of bands like
Mogwai or Sigur Ros, while still holding on to the pop sensibilities
of bands such as Starflyer 59 and the Cure. But “High Expectations/Low
Results” is its own distinct entity, from the soaring,
spiky guitars of “Parler De La Pluie Et Du Beau Temps” to
the hushed lullaby of “Memories Of Places We’ve Never
Been.” It is an accomplished, drowsily beautiful album
from what is sure to become one of Canada’s most acclaimed
musical groups.
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[Faunts
are] "driving
along the same star-lit road as The Smiths' "There Is A
Light That Never Goes Out," but these love-sick passengers
are lucky enough not to get hit head-on by that double-decker bus" -
Fluxblog
"Gorgeous, lush shoe-gazey indie rock...very pleasurable" -
Music For Robots
"Despite the self-deprecating title, 'High Expectations/Low
Results' is an amazingly ambitious and expansive album, garnering
the group comparisons to the likes of Sigur Ros and the Cure.
While the record's sound is completely Edmonton - cold, sparse,
yet comforting - it's hard to believe that the band's combination
of ambient guitar, soft drums and ethereal keys was born here
rather than Montreal or Toronto" -
Vue Weekly |