Gardens & Villa – “Love Affair” (Stereogum Premiere)

Gardens & Villa – “Love Affair” (Stereogum Premiere)

Gardens & Villa are following up this year’s great Dunes with a big fall tour and an EP of “musical sketches” recorded with with a pair of leading producers, Shins member Richard Swift and DFA co-founder (and Dunes producer) Tim Goldsworthy. The EP is called Televisor, and it’s available now as a free download at the band’s site in exchange for an email address. “Love Affair,” the project’s lead single, is a hallucinogenic disco-funk number they recorded with Swift in a session described like so in a press release:

During psychological experiments inspired by Carl Jung’s ‘Liber Novus’ they reflected on madness and greatness, searching for inspiration in redeeming symbols: smoke, mirrors and the late night hiss. Some danced in-between takes or barked like a train. The band later described their time with Swift as “a fun and frenzied recording, undertaken during professional hysterics.”

Dunes was such a sleek, modern-sounding record that it’s cool to hear Gardens & Villa explording filthy retro sounds on this track. It reminds me of what MGMT’s latter-day K-hole experiments might sound like if they kept a firmer grasp on pop appeal. Listen below.

Televisor is out now on Secretly Canadian. Download it for free here. Here’s the tracklist:

01 “Bullet Train” (Swift Demo)
02 “Love Affair” (Swift Demo)
03 “Minnesota” (Swift Demo)
04 “Sleepy Willow” (Goldsworthy Demo)
05 “Window Man” (Goldsworthy Demo)

Gardens & Villa tour dates:

09/12 San Luis Obispo, CA @ SLO Brewing Company
09/13 Sacramento, CA @ THIS Block Party
09/18 San Diego, CA @ The Casbah
09/19 Santa Ana, CA @ The Constellation Room
09/20 Las Vegas, NV @ Bunkhouse Saloon
09/22 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
09/23 Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
09/25 St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
09/26 Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
09/27 Cincinnati, OH @ MidPoint Music Festival
09/28 Champaign-Urbana, IL @ Pygmalion Music Festival
09/30 Nashville, TN @ High Watt
10/01 Asheville, NC @ The Mill Room
10/02 Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
10/03 Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle (Back Room)
10/04 Washington, DC @ Rock & Roll Hotel
10/05 Philadelpha, PA @ Johnny’s Brenda’s
10/07 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
10/08 Providence, RI @ Fete Lounge
10/09 Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
10/10 Rochester, NY @ Lovin’ Cup
10/11 Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
10/12 Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Cafe
10/14 Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern
10/15 Pontiac, MI @ The Pike Room at The Crofoot
10/16 Indianapolis, IN @ Radio Radio
10/17 Madison, WI @ University of Wisconsin: der Rathskeller
10/18 Ames, IA @ The Maintenance Shop
10/19 Kansas City, MO @ The recordBar
10/21 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
10/23 Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
11/06 El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
11/07 San Antonio, TX @ 502 Bar
11/09 Austin, TX @ Fun Fun Fun Fest
11/20 Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst
11/21 San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
11/22 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
12/13 Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex

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