Javelin

Bargain vinyl lovin' cousins Tom van Buskirk, 27, and George Langford, 29 hail from Brooklyn, by way of Providence, R.I. They started making music together as Javelin in 2004. Four years later, they finally started playing live shows. Fast forward two more years, and their live show now features over 20 boom-boxes, a massive collection of diced samples, 8-bit bouncy electro beats, distorted vocals and, just recently, live instrumentation, all creating a world-beat-pop that can send the listener go head-bobbing to dancing uncontrollable in a matter of seconds.  

Javelin passed around the self-released CD-R Jamz & Jemz at their live shows over the past two years and built a following through its 25 songs, only one of which is longer than 3 minutes. The disc could easily be the backdrop for a hip-hop album, only lacking a few (insert famous rapper here) rhymes atop. The track Lindsay Brohan is a spacey and psychelic daydream of jazzercisers dancing circles around a glistening boombox on a beach, the waves washing out their neon leggings. Vibrationz references an ’80s roller rink electronic disco vibe, grooving on a beat while a tiny piano and a soft voice whispering "oooooooohhh.......Vibration" smooth out the surface. Despite all the samples, the band doesn't get off as easily as pop-culture-dicing Girl Talk. Instead, other tracks reinforce the world-beat aesthetic.

Between the debut CD-R and their upcoming full length, the band has been delivering very colorfully collaged mixtape podcasts for David Byrne's world-music Luaka Bop label (which will also release their full length later in 2010). The titles of the podcasts "World MIDI Classics"  and "Andean Ocean Mixtape" say it all—a mix of electro beats with world instruments and vocals, sailing on a sea towards a kaleidoscope sunset. Mash-up may be their technical style, but the end result is a sound all Javelin's own. —Jedidiah Gant