You know Alex Ebert. You know him even if you don't know that you know him. Ebert is best-known to most of us as Edward Sharpe, and his band Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes were the progenitors of the stomp-clap folk movement that you know and love. Earlier this year, there was a whole lot of online chatter about whether their 2010 hit "Home" is the "worst song ever made." In the wake of all that, our own Chris DeVille had a long, fascinating conversation with Ebert, which also touched on his time in the pre-Edward Sharpe dance-punk band Ima Robot. Now, a lost Ima Robot album is about to get an official release.
When "Home" was at the center of all that online conversation a few months ago, I also saw a bunch of people bringing up the fact that the same guy was once in a mid-'00s dance-punk band who were extremely of their era. It's true! Ima Robot might be the most mid-'00s band of the mid '00s. They released a couple of major-label albums, and their song "Greenback Boogie" became the theme music to the TV show Suits. In 2006, Ima Robot made Search And Destroy, an album that never got an official release. They sold it at live shows, and it has a Discogs listing, but it never officially came out. That's about to change.
Next month, Ima Robot will finally release Search And Detroy. In a press release, Alex Ebert says, "In a lot of ways, this stuff sounds like the original Ima Robot, the pre-signed fuck-it. There's a lightness to the whole thing. It feels more like the original concept, a reclaiming of the initial vibe." Check out the title track, which is so 2006 that you might find yourself magically transported into an American Apparel, with a can of Sparks in your hand.
Search And Destroy is out 11/14 on Community Music Group.
