EAR PWR

The electro-pop duo Ear Pwr sounds like Japanese animé come to life, except via two kids from the Carolinas. You imagine them sporting neon plastic raincoats and boots, splashing around the neighborhood playground with recess-inspired enthusiasm, shouting nursery rhymes at the top of their breath. Judging from the fey, boundless energy of their recordings, that could be their process. 

Sarah Reynolds and Devin Booze got together in Asheville five years ago before eventually relocating to Baltimore. They’ve released two LPs and an EP of effortlessly upbeat party jams in the sputtering synth and glitchy drum machine mold of Dan Deacon. Reynolds’ girlish rap-sing recalls Shonen Knife in its childlike-innocence, an aspect amplified by their goofy lyrical bent. While the bounding “Jack & Jill” opens with a brash promise to “Jesus cross this motherfucker,” it ends with Reynolds offering dreamy lilting sing-song intonations of “Ramen Noodles” and “Cock-a-doodle-doo,” like an escapee from Sesame Street or a Raffi album. Other tracks offer up their affection for waterslides, “Diamonds Liquor Leather,” a “Sparkley Sweater.” 

While the words seem thrown together with impetuous, shout-along glee, the musical beds are an artful blend of inorganic tones that have grown more involved and impressive with each release. Booze took courses in the music technology program at University of North Carolina-Asheville founded by Bob Moog and has proven an analog maestro. There’s a spare simplicity to the duo’s earliest releases, which usually featured little more than a melody through-line, percussion track and series of complementary accenting samples. By last year’s Super Animal Brothers III, the mix had grown thicker and less straightforward, with a bevy of odd tones that pop up like detour signs. It’s much more evocative now, a promising advance that graduates their sugary confections from Pop Rocks to Tootsie Pops, encasing the gooey center in a hard candy shell. It’s still sweet, but takes longer to digest—unless you simply bite in, this is. —Chris Parker