Passion Pit

By Ben Liew  •  in Detonate
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Proving that geeks still rule the realm of electronica are Passion Pit, an electro quintet from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Formed in late 2007, the group consists of Michael Angelakos (lead vocals/keyboards), Ian Hultquist (keyboards), Ayad Al Adhamy (synth/samples), Jeff Apruzzese (bass) and Nate Donmoyer (drums).

The driving force behind Passion Pit, frontman Angelakos combined MGMT’s cosmic kaleidoscope with Hot Chip’s geeky gizmos while writing and recording all the music himself, enlisting 4 more musicians for his live band.

In 2008, after only a short period of gigging, they were voted Best New Act in The Boston Phoenix’s Best Music Poll. Soon the band was signed to New York City-based French Kiss Records. The band’s Chunk Of Change EP was originally intended as a Valentine’s Day gift from Angelakos to his girlfriend but ended up in stores as well.

Their debut album Manners will be released on 19 May 2009 and to celebrate the occasion, the band will be playing on a boat. We’re not sure if this has anything to do with the sink-or-swim nature of internet hyped bands, but we’re guessing that Passion Pit will be treading these waters carefully.

After all, they owe much of their success to the song ‘Sleepyhead’ which comes with an equally snazzy music video. Not only was the cerebral single featured in a Canadian PSP advertisement, Pitchfork Media included the ‘Sleepyhead’ music video in its top 40 music videos of 2008 list. Passion Pit also placed 9th in BBC’s Sound of 2009 list of up-and-coming acts and has opened for bands such as Death Cab for Cutie, Girl Talk and These New Puritans.

Their latest single ‘The Reeling’ stirs up some nostalgic Daft Punk-retro feelings while tweaking with the MGMT meets Postal Service nu sound. Think of it as electro nu romantic. And Angelakos’ emo side comes out sincerely in between the bleeps and bloops in the form of a poppy introspective chorus: look at me / oh look at me / is this the way I’ll always be ?

Sigh. Only geeks can make such beautiful bittersweet music on computers.

Fall into Passion Pit’s music at www.myspace.com/passionpitjams. Manners hit stores on 19 May 2009.