Listen to Little Beards’ Track “Silverfox”:
Little Beards is the Dallas-based husband and wife duo Nan and Sean Kirkpatrick and the pair’s debut LP Midnight in the Garden of Chaotic Neutral came out this month via Pour le Corps Music. Sean is a member of Nervous Curtains and played piano in The Paper Chase, while Nan is in the “gothgaze” band Frauen–currently on-hiatus, though still together. Using a handful of vintage gear like a Roland TR808 drum machine, ARP Solina String Synthesizer, Korg Mono/Poly, real tape Mellotron, Roland space echo, and what they described to Noisey as “some 70s German bass amp”, the pair craft angst-ridden synth pop filled with urgency and dread.
“Silverfox“, one of the album’s standouts, opens with a seductively dark bass line before swirling synth strings curl upwards like black smoke from a chemical fire. Sharing vocal duties, soon the Kirkpatrick’s begin intoning the track’s lyrics in eerie harmony. The whole mood here is unsettling and the paranoia grows when “Silverfox” adds a pitch-shifting synth line that seems to flare up like a neon colored flame everytime it appears. While the track’s instrumentation lends a dark wave feel to the proceedings, Sean Kirkpatrick’s insistent refrain, “Coming to terms with breaking apart”, gives the cut a pressing, punk intensity well-suited to our dire times.
You can stream Little Beards’ Midnight in the Garden of Chaotic Neutral LP below via the Pour le Corps’ Bandcamp page.
