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Freelance Whales On World Cafe

March 16, 2010

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[19 min 9 sec]
 
Freelance Whales
Enlarge Courtesy of the artist

Freelance Whales

Freelance Whales
Courtesy of the artist

Freelance Whales

Set List

"Generator 1st Floor"

"Hannah"

"Location"

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March 16, 2010

For most new bands, attracting crowds to their shows is one of the biggest initial challenges. Rather than simply rely on its friends to fill up whatever venue the band happened to be playing, the members of Freelance Whales instead chose to take their buoyant dream-pop to the streets. After re-working their material to be played solely on acoustic instruments, the band hit the sidewalks and subway stations of New York. It wasn't long before they gained a sizable following and more than their fair share of attention from bloggers. For such a young band, Freelance Whales have a lot of eyes on them in anticipation of their debut album, Weathervanes.

Built on densely layered arrangements featuring a wide swath of instruments — among them harmoniums, glockenspiels and waterphones — Freelance Whales' songs sound like a mixture of Sufjan Stevens' sugary sweet chamber pop and The Arcade Fire's propulsive, exultant hymns. In this session for World Cafe, they play three songs from their forthcoming album, set to be released on April 13th.

 
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