Hometown: Los Angeles.
The batting order: Michael Vidal (guitar, vocals), Juan Valasquez (vocals, guitar), Reggie Guerrero (bass), Dave Reichardt (drums).
The background knowledge: Abe Vigoda, named after the veteran Hollywood actor wHO portrayed mobster Sal Tessio in The Godfather, won't put a horse's head in your bed, only they are making a racket you wouldn't be able to refuse even if you took the cotton wool out of Marlon Brando's mouth and wedged it in your ears.
They're the latest American exponents of lush, tropic punk, of gamelan stain, of Afrobeat noisepop, and there volition be a lot of fuss made about them this fall in the press. They're harder and more fast-growing in sound than Vampire Weekend only the purport is standardised: to mix up the rhythms and melodies of highlife with rock's dOE and barrack to overkill. Their approaching album Skeletons - non their first, but the first to gain them worldwide exposure - is a unappeasable affair, like being attacked by a steel band playing Stooges songs at double fastness. But blink and you'll miss them. There ar 14 tracks on Skeletons, the longest at 3 minutes 42 seconds, the shortest, Whatever Forever, comprising 44 seconds of amplified static and interference, like hearing My Bloody Valentine and kid606 having a barney in a blizzard. Most of the songs come in at the one or two-minute mark, but they cram so much into each one, there are so many jerky snippets and snatches, tempo twitches and changes of yard, it takes several plays to take in what's going on.
Yesterday's NBOTD name-checked Orange Juice, citing them as the godfathers of jingly-jangly indie, which they kinda were. Abe Vigoda are truer to the Scottish band's original determination to be a white stone band playing African rhythms - that they got it so wrong merely somehow so right, was one of those happy accidents. In fact, Abe Vigoda's song Lantern Heights recalls those other early-80s pioneers of scratchy Scottish funk, the Fire Engines. Before they decided to sound like Pavement wrestling with King Sunny Ade or a post-rock circle doing shameful things to Paul Simon's Graceland, Abe Vigoda were high-school dance-punks with a penchant for no wave and new wave, making few waves with old ideas and tired strategies. Then they became involved in the unappetisingly titled The Smell, an all-ages arts/performance space in business district LA where experimental bands with name calling like No Age, Magik Markers, Old Time Relijun, Health and Mika Miko do vanguard things with a DIY attitude. Abe Vigoda take care set to be the first circle from that scene to attract world-wide interest with their excited splashy drums, intricate spurts of micro-percussion, lilting vocals crooning mistily about Hyacinth Grrls, Cranes and Visi Rings and against-all-odds cohesive pulling in concert of a myriad disparate elements.
The buzz: "The chaotic hurtle of noise-rock with the incandescent chime of highlife."
The truth: It's intriguing, it commode be annoyance, but when it deeds, and in small doses - also much is just besides much - Abe Vigoda make an exhilarating noise.
Most likely to: Lubricate your living room.
Least likely to: Pay to have Vampire Weekend, ahem, "removed".
What to buy: Debut album Skeleton is released by Bella Union on October 6.
File following to: Vampire Weekend, Pavement, 23 Skidoo, Fire Engines.
Links: MySpace.com/abevigoda
Tomorrow's new band: Anni Rossi.
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