We’re big fans of singers who can’t sing, and bands that made it cool to not really know how to play their instruments. The band writes aptly over a mail. Grand Electric’s Based Magic is a really solid record inspired heavily by Pavement’s lazy indie rock of the 90s driven more by feels and rhythms rather than by technicalities.
Peacetime Activities opens up slow, steady and melodiously. There’s a beautiful groove to this intro that leads out to Bad Actors which is too-cool-for-y’all-punk-rock.
I just met you
You talk just a little
In a way that’s deliberate
But I wouldn’t know
Billy Joel meets modern sensibility. Grand Electric is absolutely unbothered about sounding good and that makes them sound ridiculously good. After The Strokes made nonchalance cool with their debut there have been many imitators but making music out of nonchalance requires style. Technicalities cannot be substituted unless for style.
I suspect you’re a thief
Lost in the dizzying chambers of belief
You’re just like a lighthouse
That casts a shadow
With a darkness
That blinds the light
Lighthouse is formidably stylish. Grand Electric fuses indie, punk and grunge with vivid originality and utter honesty. The music sounds both happy and confused. Lighthouse could fit the soundtrack of a coming-of-age movie so well with lyrics that go: –
Well I heard you gave up
And took out your phone
And he didn’t even call
Well, you should have known
Lighthouse sounds like a demo which The Strokes cut but forgot to put in their debut. The guitar parts are jarring. They sound a little like Oasis, a little like Interpol, a lot like themselves. Limitlessly formidable in their self-expression… Grand Electric is an insanely original band. They know what they’re trying to do. They’re just trying to be themselves in a genre dominated by pretenses.
Madam President is the final song on the 11-minute-long Based Magic that sounds both like a demo and an underground hit for a 100 people.
She hits reset and then my eyes turn blue
Despite the clues
You didn’t guess that I had died for you
Madam President is a Sonic Youth styled youthful song where Noise Rock meets Brit Pop meets Indie Rock meets Punk Rock. The lyrics are all about you know whatever. The twist around the 2:40 mark is really well done and lifts the track into another spectrum sonically.
And out on the streets at dawn
We were cruising through the haze
Madam President has a very Brit-Pop sensibility. A nostalgic vibe, a fun rhythm and it has no fucks to give. Solid 10/10 and would listen again.
It takes an EP like Based Magic to realize how music never was ever about technicalities. But about fun and feeling. Grand Electric is a solid alt duo that has crafted an excellent EP for a ride back home after a party. This is 11 minutes of electricity. Grand Electric has made one of my favorite rock records of the year and nobody knows them yet.
