Thomas Function set out on tour earlier this month and are making a stop this Friday at Linneman's in Milwaukee. Fresh off the release of their new single on Dusty Medical Records, the Huntsville, Alabama act employs a fresh take on southern dipped pop that melds rollicking and building guitar with embittered and often introspective lyrics. Amalgamating the same shadowed and blurred optimism that has set fire to such classic acts as the Modern Lovers and Lou Reed, Thomas Function updates that archetypal sentiment with a modern vale delivered in an acute voice that cuts through their songs with an affecting crooning that will leave marks on your psyche and keep you humming all the while. You can listing to the title track, 'Relentless Machine,' here and buy it directly from Dusty Medical here.
Also performing are The Kind of Jazz Music That Kills, the Milwaukee act that brilliantly melds off-kilter song structures, contextually bizarre instrumentation, often sparse landscapes of sub-melodious breaks, and gruff fuzzed-out vocals that pull past the No Wave acumen with a sound that's sure to ruffle all the right feathers and should give the noise crowd something to think about.
In between Thomas Function and The Kind of Jazz Music That Kills lays the Washington, D.C. outfit The Points who open the show. With buzzing keyboards, distorted rhythms and vocals that sound like they're delivered through a filter of metallic excrement they pull together a sound that is oddly enslaving and memorable. One track of their most recent split 7" with Maaster Gaiden (available on Big Action Records), called 'Rock 'n' Roll No Rules,' has a building and repetitious keyboard noise that sticks in you like a rusty hook and reminds us that the best music always comes from a boundless approach to sound that usually digs up something interesting.
