The Golden Filter

Electronic duo The Golden Filter come by way of New York City, but as is the case with most New York bands, neither member is from The Big Apple. Lead singer Penelope Trappes grew up in Australia, and synth-programmer Stephen Hindman is from Ohio. She studied classical, operatic vocals. He's an auto-didact. This distance between the two members' backgrounds figures, sicne their collaboration as The Golden Filter is a bit more European than the average American electronic group and much more polished than your average DIY band. 

With influences like tarot cards, ’60s french pop, noise rock, Saint Etienne, Pink Floyd, old vinyl, disco and thrift stores, The Golden Filter create mysterious electro that belongs as much in the celestial realm as it does on the dance floor. For years, the band shrouded their live show with mystery by performing with masks, representing themselves solely through their keyboards, drums and airy vocals—a darkened and spacey disco. Furthering this darkly obscure and cryptic indentity, the band's name refers to an inside joke about gauzy ’70s photography. 

The Golden Filter is most known now for a few singles and remixes of Cut Copy, Peter, Bjorn & John, Empire Of The Sun, and Little Boots. But UK label Brille Records, home of the Swedish electro-duo The Knife and British indie-pop band Good Shoes, will release their debut album, Voluspa, in April 2010. The album consists of eleven well-matured tracks that owe as much to Electronic Body Music from the early ’80s and Industrial music from the late ’70s than it does to disco and synth-pop. Ethereal tracks like "Moonlight Fantasy" and "The Underdogs" unravel slowly with R&B-influenced grooves and weightless vocals, while "Solid Gold" and "Thunderbird" show off the disco and soul influence with bass-filled pulsing electro-dance tracks. 

Despite all this talk about mystery, secrecy and boundlessness of their sound, The Golden Filter, at their core, are almost the exact opposite. Their lyrics are personal, emotional and evoke meaning while the music reaches towards the abstract. From mythical creatures to relationships, the band's music is progressive in execution and vintage at heart. —Jedidiah Gant