Album Review: Rainbows, Let's Kiss (Party Damage)

[A.I. POP] Since 2012, Wild Ones bassist Max Stein and Seattle studio owner Paurl Walsh have been conducting an experiment in repression. As Rainbows, the two musicians, both composition majors, purposely deny themselves their strengths—namely, guitars and the ability to compose—€”in favor of synthesizers and spontaneous songwriting. It smacks of extracurricular distraction, and the recordings they'€™ve released up to this point haven'€™t been all that listenable. With the three-song Let's Kiss EP, however, they seem to be getting somewhere, ditching contorted Battles bubble-prog and arriving at the threshold of digitized pop. Opener "Bhangra College"€ is the highlight, not just of the set but of the collaboration so far, an ellipse of sherbet-colored keyboards and android vocals that sounds like what would happen if someone programmed ASIMO to write a Chvrches song. "Knuckles"€ and "€œChords,"€ meanwhile, stir together bits of Aphex Twin, Art of Noise, Matmos and Röyksopp until it'€™s as bright as a Lisa Frank sticker sheet. It's still an experiment in the "€œlet'€™s twist this knob and see what happens"€ sense, but now they’re finally justified in letting the rest of us hear it.

SEE IT: Rainbows plays Dig a Pony, 736 SE Grand Ave., with Fog Father, on Wednesday, Sept. 2. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

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