On the Dum Dum Girls’ MySpace page, the Los Angeles-based indie outfit categorize themselves in deadpan fashion as Melodramatic Popular Song. Certainly, it’s a bit more complex than that. Take in a wide range of influences: Iggy Pop (who notably wrote a song titled “Dum Dum Boys”), Patti Smith, Billy Holiday, The Ronettes, early-1960s pop. Give it a modern aloofness, a concern for self. Mix in a fascination with lo-fi music. That’s their sound. You can hear that wall of fuzzy warmth scratching throughout their songs, blending in with the vocals and making the steady kick of the drumming really stand out. It’s a unique set of influences for a modern band with such retro aspirations.

Dum Dum Girls is the brainchild of Dee Dee Penny, who originally started the group out as her solo project. She expanded the group to add Jules (on guitar), Bambi (bass) and Sandy Vu (drums) before signing with Sub Pop in 2009. The group’s first full-length LP, “I Will Be,” was released on March 30, 2010. They manage to stuff 11 songs into 28 minutes of music.

“I Will Be” starts off with a bang, and the Dum Dum Girls relentlessly stripped down sound doesn’t let off—sometimes they slow it down, but usually the songs are loud, fast and in your face, the vocals reverberating and full of static so sometimes you can’t hear what Dee Dee is singing, the guitar and bass blending into the wall of noise, the drumming lively, sure and steady, a heartbeat to give life to this sometimes schizophrenic sound.

They are four women dressed in black sucking on colorful Dum Dum suckers, playing an infusion of punk and pop, a mix of old and new, of archaic, simplistic pop given an edginess by its lack of fidelity and the resulting dissonance.

And then there’s that haunting album cover, like something dug out of a box of forgotten trinkets in hot attic or a dusty, forgotten closet. A woman dressed in red, hair down, freckles dotting her cheeks. Endlessly intriguing for what it doesn’t say, what’s left to be imagined. It’s a picture of Dee Dee’s mother, young and free, with that untelling look on her face, a lot like the girl from Vampire Weekend’s “Contra” album—though the two look strangely similar, the LPs they adorn couldn’t be more different.

Official website: http://wearedumdumgirls.com/
Check out: “Oh Mein Me,” track 3; “Blank Girl,” track 7; “I Will Be,” track 8

Dum Dum Girls are touring the West Coast this summer, playing at the Hawthorne Theatre in Portland on June 25. The all-ages show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.

Jordan Jacobo
Columnist Jordan Jacobo can be reached at linfieldreviewopinion@gmail.com

Photo courtesy of Sub Pop

My apologies, dear readers, but all this time I haven’t been honest with you. No matter how truly interested the Americans I met seemed to be, I always politely smiled and then told them my lies for coming to Linfield for one year: I didn’t want to go to one of the universities back home straight after high school. I liked the American system of campus life and the variety of course options. Then there was the location with Portland and the ocean nearby, and San Francisco relatively not so far away at all. Blah, blah, blah — all true, but never the main reason for my stay.
I am about to reveal my secret mission to you.

The American music industry is one of the biggest in the world, and that was particularly appealing to me when I was a little 14-year-old with only one goal in life: making my favorite Dutch artist world famous. I was in my room, listening to my favorite song, when I came to the conclusion that I was the only one that could help her: I had to fly away to the U.S. as soon as I was old enough and promote her music. Now that I am finally here, I have to admit that the relevance of this goal has decreased to me a little over the years (and perhaps I had not thought about my mission at all, until this weekend).

I was camping at the Oregon coast, and while I was admiring the beauty of my surroundings, I suddenly realized that the moment wouldn’t be so perfect if I wasn’t accidently listening to “Anouk” on my iPod. A day later I am studying in the grass, extremely moody because of the lack of sleep I had this weekend, and it is again “Anouk’s” singing in my ears that is comforting me. For all those complicated puberty-moments that you were always there for me: Anouk, I now reward you with this free advertisement on The Linfield Review website, to reach millions of new potential fans. It’s the least I can do.

Dear co-students, with great pride I introduce to you the female love of my life: “Anouk” and her 1997’s “Nobody’s wife.”

Doris ter Horst
Columnist Doris ter Horst can be reached at linfieldreviewopinion@gmail.com

Video courtesy of Dino Music

Delorean‘s debut EP, “Ayrton Senna,” rises out of the sounds of synthesizers and bass beats before being overtaken by candy-coated pop vocals that are airy and floating, somewhere in between the style of the Dirty Projectors and Cults. The vocals are vague, perhaps antiquated, not lyrical – in that sense it is not pop music, but if you peel back the many layers of sound to be heard in this album what you have is, essentially, pop music. It’s that retrofitting of a genre that is representative of the status quo with an avant-garde sheen that gives Delorean its sound, and the “Ayrton Senna” EP its appeal.

It sounds like music for a summer drive, to the coast perhaps, the speakers blasting, eardrums pounding with the spine-tingling joy of loud music, music for friends, for lovers, for people who can sit in a car and not talk, just enjoy music and the comfort needed for an absence of conversation to be pleasurable.

This album is danceable, but you don’t have to dance to it. It’s not especially singable, but that lyrics aren’t hard to learn. The music is beat-driven, catchy, like the sound of Ratatat, Air and Phoenix crushed together and strained for any seeds or pulpy bits, the smooth, upbeat sound that remains is the kind that is sophisticated and adventurous enough to attract indie elitists and fun enough to woo MTVers. It’s music for a party, and partying, but whether its in the background or the foreground is up to you.

Delorean is a Spanish dance-pop band that formed in 2000, though their early EPs earned them little fame; they started out as a punk band before transitioning to electronic music. They created their own scene at a Barcelona club, playing live music there weekly, giving their sound the space to expand, evolve, mature.

I just discovered the “Ayrton Senna” EP this week, though it was released last summer to generally positive reviews, though the album didn’t gain them much exposure outside of the electronic genre.

Delorean’s first full-length album, “Subiza,” was released on April 19, and it picks up where Ayrton Senna left off, a mix of epic, spawling, layered tracks full of danceable music and pop vocals, though their sound has picked up more obvious “Merriweather Post Pavilion” nuances. All for the better, I say. Delorean is an interesting up-and-coming band that hasn’t quite hit the spotlight of stardorm yet, content for now to say in the realm of obscurity and quasi-fame among niche groups. However, “Subiza” definitely shows that this band has the potential to become a huge hit, particularly because of their ability to transcend genres and create a sound palitable to a wide array of tastes.

Jordan Jacobo
Columnist Jordan Jacobo can be reached at linfieldreviewopinion@gmail.com

Since coming to college, my musical tastes have exploded into dozens of different directions, fragmented into a variety of genres, some with everything in common, some with little in common. I think there are several causes: going to college and being exposed to new music, being a part of the digital music revolution’s first decade, my tastes maturing, the Internet’s amazing ability to take the wide scope of music and hone in on what moves you, what interests you.

In short, the music listener is now in control. We don’t have to listen to what’s on the radio, or what’s popular, or who’s on tour, or who is from your region: On the Internet, we have access to almost every band that has ever produced an album and many that have yet to release a full EP or an official single. Myspace, YouTube, Pandora, Last FM, you name it; music is everywhere.

Each seems like each few weeks I stumble across a new band that few people at Linfield have ever heard of. In March, it was Cults and The Ruby Suns. So far in April, it’s been Dom and, thanks to my roommate Brian, Big Spider’s Back.

I guess what I’m saying is it’s easy to be a part of the underground music scene now; or maybe the underground is coming above ground, into the open, on the Internet for anyone who has a passion for music to find. Like treasure sticking out of the earth rather than buried deep below your feet.

If you’re a fan of music, a close listener, a critic, a connoisseur, I have two Web sites you need to check out:

The first is www.Daytrotter.com. This site has hundreds of live recordings available for download – all of them for free, although you can pay a few dollars to download them in the highest audio quality available. It seems like all of the bands that play are comprised of bearded, Beat, plaid-wearing, indie musicians. Basically, Daytrotter invites bands on tour to stop by their recording studio for a few hours to record a four- or five-song set.

What results is often acoustic, very raw, with imperfect vocals and little screw-ups that make the music sound real, alive, with feeling and soul. This makes for a powerful listening experience, especially when you take a band whose songs you know and love (like Vampire Weekend, for example) and then you get to listen to them in an entirely new way, re-imaged, or like they once sounded, before the studio started mixing and editing, adding effects to make the music sound more clean and crisp, polished. If you’re looking for somewhere to start, check out the sets by Andrew Bird, Beach House, The Dodos, Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, Mason Jennings, The Morning Benders, and White Rabbit.

If you consider yourself an avid critic of music, someone who’s hard to please and eager to praise a band’s roots, contemporaries, and influences, www.Pitchfork.com may just be your new best friend. The Web site posts harsh (but well-reasoned) record reviews and offers interviews with indie (and some pop, dance, rap, and noise) music’s biggest stars and up-and-comers. It also features music videos, essays on music culture, and expansively annotated lists of “the greatest” (albums, songs, by decade or by year). It might be an overwhelming place to start, but give this sight some time; it will grow on you. Be sure to check out Pitchfork’s “Best New Music” updates. They’re definitely worthwhile.

Hope I haven’t overwhelmed you. Discovering new music should be anything but overwhelming. It’s exciting and fun to share with your musically like-minded friends. It’s an exploration into the way genre is evolving (or devolving, or ridding itself of such imperious labels as “genre”). But you’ve heard enough from me. There’s too much music out there to waste your precious time with idle banter.

Happy listening.

Jordan Jacobo
Columnist Jordan Jacobo can be reached at linfieldreviewopinion@gmail.com