Bio: Armed with merely a doubleneck bass/guitar, drums and a dizzying array of foot pedals, El Ten Eleven is the duo brainchild of Los Angeles-based musicians Kristian Dunn and Tim ... (more)
Bio: Armed with merely a doubleneck bass/guitar, drums and a dizzying array of foot pedals, El Ten Eleven is the duo brainchild of Los Angeles-based musicians Kristian Dunn and Tim Fogarty, who, with two critically acclaimed albums already under their belts, will release their third album, These Promises Are Being Videotaped, this fall.
Since their inception in 2004, their densely textured, atmospheric instrumentals have found them mentioned alongside such post-rock elite as Tortoise, Explosions in the Sky, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. While the acclamations from both studio albums have extended worldwide, actually seeing the songs performed live by two musicians without the use of sequencers or laptops is nothing short of phenomenal.
Much of the music on the first two records has been featured in numerous TV shows and films including “The Real World,” “Shalom In The Home,” “So You Think You Can Dance?” and most recently their song “Jumping Frenchmen of Maine,” off their forthcoming LP, was used in the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. The Independent Spirit Award-nominated documentary “Helvetica” prominently featured the band’s music throughout the typography-themed film.
“We have so many new fans from all over the world because of that film,” exclaims Fogarty. “We get emails from Moscow, Estonia, Australia, Malaysia, Japan… it’s amazing!”
Their third album, These Promises Are Being Videotaped, sees the band veer in a slightly new musical direction. "I just became obsessed with electro music,” Dunn explains. “I’ve been going to a lot of DJ-type events and listening to music by artists like Boys Noize, Justice, Digitalism, Soulwax, etc. A lot of that music is really digital and created on computers. It has been our latest challenge to try to do this style of music live with real instruments and looping pedals. There aren’t many bands doing this." The end result, while in the vein of their aforementioned instrumental brethren, is more akin with contemporaries that are pushing the dance rock envelope such as Holy Fuck and Ratatat.
This is not surprising since Fogarty and Dunn’s day job is being the drummer and bass player for indie electro pops the SoftLightes (on the hip Aussie dance label Modular).
El Ten Eleven will embark on their third national tour this fall, splitting time between proper rock club shows and DJ dance venues. “We seem to be equally at home at an all-ages dance night with DJs and sweaty kids jumping around or at a theater with people sitting down, watching us play our more thoughtful, slower stuff,” muses Dunn. “We figure, why not do both?
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