Little Dragon is an electronic music band, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. It consists of Swedish-Japanese singer Yukimi Nagano (vocals, percussion) and her close high-school friends Erik Bodin (drums), Fredrik Källgren Wallin (bass), and Håkan Wirenstrand (keyboards). They are currently touring the world at large but we caught up with them in Detroit at Movement.
Gulping down beers with the skeletons of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops breathing down your back, dancing to DJs as they nonchalantly spin in front of elephants on the Serengeti Plains, listening to buzz worthy bands as they perform for audience members that include Grizzly bears and buffalo…sound like a typical Friday night? Probably not for most of you, but that’s the whole point.
Comprised of 3 rather pillaging-prone looking Swedes and an even more badass tiny Japanese singer, Little Dragon has eschewed the death metal-friendly territory of their hometown of Gothenberg in favor of some truly strange sonic textures. There’s certainly a dated sound to a lot of these synth samples, which a lot of critics keep labeling as ‘icy’, I guess because they’re from Sweden — though if you’re going by geek 80s record references alone, you might even recall some of the exact same effects being used on a Kate Bush or early Hyaena-era Siouxsie and the Banshees record. And yet still others sound a lot like stuff you would of heard from some flavor-of-the-week synth band like Nu Shooz or Tiffany, only a bit more tinkered with as far as delay, pitch, reverb, etc…whatever it is, it works, and to surprising effect — though it’s curious to hear sounds and samples that were considered hack 25 years ago which have now been recycled with more panache and class by new groups being revered as the Next Big Thing. I guess Baja Men have about another decade and a half to go before they start hearing the influence “Who Let the Dogs Out” had on aspiring rock stars still in their musical infancy who later ascended to greatness. Rambling aside, these guys are weird, and in a more infectious, shake-yer-ass sort of way than the aforementioned. All the more reason to get to the parti now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio…