Discovery

LP (XL)

By Britt Julious
Published: August 1st, 2009 | 12:08am

A little less superfluous than the current Auto-Tune trends that dominate the Top 40 charts, Discovery — comprised of Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend and Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot — has created a collaborative aesthetic that is more representative of some of the earliest instances of the voice box, with touches of '80s electro-funk and R&B.

LP is an experimental side project, and yet many of the group’s trappings occur when they result to cheap, gimmicky club tunes such as “Carby,” featuring Vampire Weekend lead singer Ezra Koenig. However, when the group succeeds, they do so to mind-blowing proportions. “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” featuring the delicate vocals of Angel Deradoorian of Dirty Projectors, is an addictive number full of jarring yet deliciously dirty synths. “Slang Tang,” the gorgeous finish to the album, is an amalgamation of the Upper East Side–meets–Ghanian highlife of Vampire Weekend and the experimental electronic flourishes that are distributed throughout the album.

The strongest song on the album is the aptly titled “So Insane” and is the group at its most charming, with Batmanglij and Miles sing about meeting their significant others at the discotheque. The vocal arrangements sample Marcia Griffiths’ 1989 reggae dance jam, “Electric Boogie,” to brilliant effect. One could imagine the song played at a futuristic roller disco or during an eclectic wedding.

Despite the album’s flaws, LP demonstrates the democracy inherent in Auto-Tune: vocal cadence typically separated by racially defined music genres seems non-important, as the only thing that truly matters is the effect of the musician’s instrumentation. In this case, the effect is winning.

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