Frausdots / Couture, Couture, Couture

There’s something in the water in Los Angeles. Something about the zeitgeist and the mercury levels coming from the taps is convincing the city’s bass players that this is the year to go it alone. First there was Melissa Auf der Maur, (a Canadian, yes, but a Canadian who played bass on one of the most quintessentially LA albums ever, Hole’s Celebrity Skin). Next, Jennifer Finch of L7 took matters into her own hands and began a new band called the Shocker, where she could do her own vocal duties. Now, self-described “elder statesman” Brent Rademaker has given up the dim corners of the stage for the front and center, with his new band the Frausdots.

Rademaker is no stranger to the LA alternative music scene. His resume includes playing bass in three LA bands – Further, The Tyde, and the Beachwood Sparks. Finally, he is writing and singing his own music, and from the sound of it, he was chomping at the bit: “If I hadn’t been playing second fiddle in any band I’d ever been in, I would have made this record right out of high school,” he claims.

The only other permanent member of the Frausdots is Michelle Loiselle, whose list of credits is somewhat less impressive than Rademaker. She sang backup on the Guns and Roses album Use Your Illusion II over a decade ago, and then, if the All Music Guide is to be believed, fell off the musical map. Loiselle contributes vox and synthesizers to the Frausdots, as well as co-writing the tracks.

Perhaps the best way to explain this album is to recount Rademaker’s explanation of the relationship between its two flagship members: three years ago, they were friends who had decided to write a record together. Then, one magical night in Spain at a Cure gig, Rademaker reports that he and Michelle fell in love.

So in love were they, in fact, that they brought the sound home with them: The Cure’s Roger O’Donnel is enlisted to play keyboards, along with a first-rate lineup of guest band members, from outfits as diverse as Rooney, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and of course former bandmates from the Tyde and the Beachwood Sparks.

Rademacher also brings with him a healthy dose of irony – the first sound on the record is Rademaker singing a tweaked version of America’s “A Horse with No Name,” - which quickly resolves into the indie pop gem “Dead Wrong,” – whose chorus features Rademaker singing “Now everybody’s doing everybody wrong / and everybody’s singing everybody else’s songs / and everybody thinks that they’re in love / they’re dead wrong.”

Article Author: MattP

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