If you've been paying attention to what's going on in the underground caves of the real Southwest, you'll no doubt be familiar with Digital Leather, who are an odd sort of unit that seems to shift shapes as often as it does record labels. The dry Arizona desert where these truly twisted tunes emanate from can be one of the reasons for the lack of "punk conformity," but with three albums worth of moody, eclectically dismal homemade electronic songs and a new home run of a hit single on their hands, it's about time you sat up straight and paid attention. The band focuses mainly around one mysterious central figure, and as this seven inch single on Goner will attest, it's "She Had A Cameltoe" that might just be their coup de gras that wins them over to a wider audience. The stellar A-side to this week's Breaking Sounds spotlight record is a high-energy new wave departure from the early Human League-style sound they've come to be known by, and scores a high water mark as a real "hit" that should instantly stick in the mind of anyone who hears it. It's not just the sped-up tempo that's changed, but also the repetitive and addictive chorus along with that irresistable rhythm of keyboards and overlapped vocoded backups that makes "She Had A Cameltoe" the dancefloor smash that it is. Their hyper-driven noises remind you of that golden era of good synth-pop without any of the assymetrical haircuts or pasty white faces twirling endlessly into the night. That aside, Digital Leather have pulled themsleves up to the surface of the pop surface to claim their place and break out of their preconceived mold to amaze us all. Although the cameltoe concept has long been the focus of many teenage jokes over the years along with it's counterpart, the always hilarious "moose knuckles," the term has finally got it's rightful place in music history with this single, and soon after, a close spot next to your heart. The B-Side's "Abrasion" descends into more familiar Digital Leather territory and continues their sinister plan to deconstruct underground weird pop to the fullest extent of the law, and reinstates the question as to why you don't own more of their records. Pick up the latest full length album, still available on Shattered Records, and do NOT pass up this new single on Goner which establishes Digital Leather as another electric anomaly that you really should't go through another summer without. Pick up a copy right HERE.
