Talkdemonic started out as a solo project
of drummer and electrician Kevin O’Connor after he moved to Portland, Oregon in
the early 2000s. Initially mostly hip-hop and electronic influenced,
Talkdemonic developed its sound after Lisa Molinaro – violist, who would later
move on to play with the Decemberists and Modest Mouse – joined the project as
a collaborator and added some classical sounds to the beats. And because everything needs a label nowadays, they coined the name for their own genre: folktronic hop.
While defining mucicians solely by the place they origin from is plain uncool, there is no denying that Portland is a big part of Talkdemonic’s story. Home to such greats as Wipers, Sleater-Kinney and Menomena, also known as a realm in which bath pictures are a great idea for a band photoshoot, was praised by the duo for its atmosphere of creativity and “feeling that you’re growing and doing whatever you want, being any kind of musician you want. You don’t feel beholden to any kind of genre or scene”*.
Beat Romantic, band's second and possibly best LP to date, is the truest testimony to these words. Effortlessly crossing genre boundaries, Talkdemonic are mixing hip hop, electronics and classical music, adding accordion and banjo as a cherry on top and bringing out some beautiful post-rock aesthetics at the same time. Switching from lush melodies to crisp drums and melancholic, minimalist pieces, the record is bursting with variety of sounds and emotions, successfully making up for the lack of vocals. And the story it tells is no less than exciting.
*In the same interview, O'Connor and Molinaro mentioned other important factors such as Portland’s coffee, low rents and “being here and not having a job at times, because no one else has a job either”. FYI, people.
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