Not many bands are known for having more than five members. The Beatles were four, The White Stripes are two, Britney Spears is one (or is she?). Margot & The Nuclear So & So's is an eight-member band that has so much creativity and life that the Indianapolis weekly Westward printed an article that doubted anyone who heard the band “could genuinely claim that it had not crafted a new, wholly unique sound that merited the creation of yet another subgenre.” Chamber pop has never sounded so good, and no band before Margot & The Nuclear So & So's can claim sex folk — or for non-sex fans, urban folk — as its creation.
Singer/songwriter/guitar Richard Edwards and guitarist Andy Fry first met and bonded through their admiration for The Cardigans and Paul Simon in a chance encounter at a pet store. They would later start a band and be joined by Jesse Lee (cello), Emily Watkins (piano), Hubert Glover (trumpet), Chris Fry (drums), Casey Tennis (drums), and Tyler Watkins (bass) to form an unusual collective named after Gwyneth Paltrow’s character, Margot Tenenbaum, in Wes Anderson’s 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums. Like Anderson with The Royal Tenenbaums, the band recorded The Dust Of Retreat in an attempt to re-create New York. In Margot’s vision, the album was a way to “re-create their own unreal ideas of how Greenwich Village might have been in the ‘60s” (Artemis Records press release). Since having never set foot in New York or the ‘60s, I’ll have to let the music do the imagining.
There’s nothing wrong with imagination, but it’s hard to picture 1960s New York when the music sounds so contemporary and the lyrics so modern. Anything musical from the 1960s alludes to Bob Dylan or The Beatles. That’s strike one against Margot, but somehow the band still manages to hit a home run with its debut album. Being the originator of its self-proclaimed scarf rock (how many subgenres did the band create?), Margot crafts an elegant and sophisticated collection of songs that oozes confidence, vision, and joy.
Article comments
1 - the man in pants' love slave
don't tell the man in pants but me and my poor,sweet,innocent,hoof-tappin,knee-slappin,jib-jabbin Grissle heart the Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow song. so hmmph! and if you dont like it you can go kill yourself! hmmph!
ps....nothing will ever be right~
and you better post this or else me and my poor,sweet,innocent,hot hearted,fish skin eatin Grissle will put a HEX on you! thats right i said HEX!