But charming and intriguing as their videos are, it’s the music that matters of course. And fortunately these mysterious Californians (they wear masks in all their publicity shots) get it right in that department too. The band themselves claim they sound like the enigmatic black object being stared at by the smiling nuclear family on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s Presence Although they hasten to add, they sound nothing like Led Zeppelin themselves. This of course tells you nothing, apart from the fact that they have a surreally mischievous sense of humour.
However, what Fol Chen actually sound like, is what one might have hoped that all pop music would sound like by this dizzyingly futuristic year of 2009: Every song is gently anarchic, brimming with quirky hooks, and insidiously addictive; bombastic drums incongruously seem to compete with - as much as back up - perfectly crafted songs, and a breezy West Coast veneer of white-picket-fence perfection seems constantly under threat from a Lynchian undertow of creeping menace.
But how is the shiny perfection of their debut album going to work in a live context, particulary in the grubby, community centre ambience of Brixton’s Windmill pub? And what will the masked Fol Chen actually look like? And for that matter, what will the audience of the best kept secret in contemporary post pop, look like?
Well, the audience looks pretty much like any other audience, apart from the fact that it’s criminally, tragically small. This makes me feel a little sad for the five fresh-faced young Americans in their uniform of tasteful, self-designed T-shirts, who take to the stage. But at least it finally hits me why Fol Chen make me so happy: It’s because I no longer have to try to imagine what a cross between Devo, Prince, and the Carpenters might sound like. It’s also because the guitarist uses the same cruddy, cheap-looking acoustic guitar all evening, yet somehow managed to get the nastiest as well as the nicest noises out of it. And then there’s the fact that the drummer has the verve of Keith Moon but resembles a young Beach Boy, and the female singer/keyboard player even looks a little like Karen Carpenter. But finally it’s probably because - when I asked the guitarist which of the band was the Nabokov fan (their album's title references John Shade, the fictional poet in VN’s Pale Fire) - he responded brightly, "We all are. Isn't everyone?"
Howard Male
