[mp3] you want to know where I'm from? well, I'll tell you:

IBOPA - "Leopard Coat" (mp3)

What I'd heard about IBOPA: "Oh yeah, the guy from Xiu Xiu used to be in a ska band or something."

IBOPA (originally Indestructible Beat Of Palo Alto) had six members, including saxophonist and accordion player, with names like "DJ Fonzi Dream Taco" and "The Bionic Millionaire". Their website, untouched for years, has a photo of them in snappy retro clothes. If they weren't a ska band, they clearly didn't care about being mistaken for one; I've liked Xiu Xiu ever since Knife Play came out*, but even being kind of a completist about most bands, I never figured it was worth the time to hear IBOPA until last week.

But, like, their first record begins with Jamie Stewart yelping lines that are presumably a lot more familiar to Xiu Xiu fans than to Gilman Street kids: A-I-D-S, H-I-V / I cannot wait to die / Can't you tell can't you tell can't you tell? "Or something."

While they get goofy, which Xiu Xiu never do, even then just as many creepy fragments float past, in songs just as layered and disorienting.** The fact that Stewart's backing band sound like Oingo Boingo is a boon for daytime listeners with officemates, but not much of a salve for one's own raw nerves. Anyway, listen closely.

* The promo sticker on the front famously read "When my mom died, I listened to Henry Cowell, Joy Division, Detroit techno, The Smiths, Takemitsu, Sabbath, gamelan, Black Angels and Cecil Taylor." This would have been insufferable if it weren't a good summary of the music.

** IBOPA also have weird misogyny going on that I haven't noticed in Xiu Xiu. Of a drag queen: "She won't sell your ass down the river / Because she ain't no TUNA, baby!" I'm sure that Stewart isn't singing that because he's a woman-hating gay stereotype***, any more than he named a record "Fag Patrol" because he likes to go gay-bashing at night. And it's far from the most fucked-up lyric he's written. But I have to admit it made me uneasy.****

*** Nor do I know Jamie Stewart's sexual identity in the first place. Attempts to research this question on the net led only to learning that nobody can agree on whether his bandmate Caralee is his cousin, his girlfriend, or both.

**** As though you should bother listening to Xiu Xiu in the first place if you don't want to feel uneasy, nor to feel like Stewart is messing with your head!

[music] SWORDS - Metropolis (Arena Rock)

Swords' record label seems to half-disavow their previous record, pointing out accurately that it had ten-minute songs and some 'post-rock' moves, while this one consists entirely of songs recognizable as such by your parents. It also looks like they've definitely renounced the name 'The Swords Project' in favor of this one.

This is reclusive enough that I can't guarantee its overall appeal to anyone in particular, but I enjoy it, and if you like both Fables of the Revolution and New Adventures in Hi-Fi, you might want to hear it. If you also go for Kid A, your odds are actually pretty good. And "Family Photographs" was one of the last few really great songs I found in 2005; conveniently, it's downloadable from Arena Rock.