Los Angeles' Little Joy is the new project of The Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti and guitarist Rodrigo Amarante of the popular Brazilian band Los Hermanos. Amarante also played on Devendra Banhart's Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon record, and Devendra produced much of Little Joy's upcoming debut for Rough Trade Records. Neat!
Rounding out the line-up is Moretti's girlfriend Binky Shapiro. Together, Little Joy sounds, understandably, kind of like the sum of its parts. This is breezy guitar pop that's kind of Strokes-y in the vocals (all those years with Julian Casablancas must have rubbed off on Fabrizio), with shades of easy Brazilian rhythms like samba and bossa nova keeping the music clicking in a perfectly toe-tapping and swaying kind of way.
The band's easy-going vibe doesn't really lend itself toward selling-out arenas like The Strokes and Los Hermanos (in Brazil anyway) do, but Little Joy is certainly catchy enough to be thoroughly entertaining at a small- to mid-sized club. Take that, Nickel Eye! (That's Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture's new side-project.) |
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