Doombird

It's easy to misfile anything with a steady beat and a synth as EDM, a genre whose reputation is mixed, to say the least. Thankfully, bands like Sacramento, Calif.'s Doombird are around to showcase the nuance electronic music can offer. Vocalist Kris Anaya's gentle upper register stands in very human contrast to the orchestration around it — and not by accident. "We really wanted to capture that live, organic sound while still maintaining an electronic feel," Anaya says of the group's forthcoming album, Past Lives. "Also, there are a few tracks that fall into the musical realm of [our] first album, which was more chamber-pop influenced." However you choose to categorize Doombird's music, don't ignore the literate sophistication the band weaves in to the "oontz-oontz-oontz-oontz" of its beat.

—Nick Brunner, Hey, Listen! from Capital Public Radio - NPR

We're very happy to premiere the latest track from Sacramento's Doombird, "Gottlieb" It appears on the Cygnus EP, out today on Oakland-based label Eightmaps Records (owned by Mike Sempert of Birds & Batteries).

Kris Anaya and Joseph Davancens are Doombird's core, composing space-age electronic pop with live drums that's evolved from the former, slightly more folky days of Doombird I recall from seeing them perform at Sea of Bees' release party at the Townhouse in Sacramento with John Vanderslice. The direction of Cygnus is described as "[setting] fragmented first-person narratives of the lives of composers of the past against a rich tapestry of swirling keyboards, vocoded vocals, luxurious bass and deep live drums."
Here's more about Doombird's latest EP, from the artist website:

In CYGNUS, Doom Bird plies their syncs and runs in service to the lives of a myriad of classical composers:their exile, their political engagement in foreign lands, their misbegotten passions that drive them to the brink and drive them to complete themselves, their curious habits of mind that structure their creative impulses. In these songs I have heard Beethoven on his spazierung composing his only song cycle. I have heard the juxtaposition of Mozart's up-tempo confession to Costanza and his God with the love call of Pac-Man for his beloved. I have heard Messiaen calculating the best angle by which to triangulate posterity. I have heard Cage's emptiness cut by surging machine language. When you listen, you will understand what is only beginning to percolate among your cells and their unseen mechanisms. Your intuition will urge you to believe that Doom Bird is that rare band, a band that dares to look to the past in order to cast the future.
Doombird is playing the Launch Festival in Sacramento this weekend. For more information on the mind-blowing lineup (Blonde Redhead! Rocket from the Crypt! Washed Out!) and tickets, visit the festival website. - The Bay Bridged