Warp Records have been the purveyors of plenty of great dance music through the years, and now they’ve got another offering. Brooklyn-based The Hundred in the Hands (otherwise a pair: Jason Friedman and Eleanore Everdell) recently signed to Warp for their debut EP, This Desert, out May 18. Only a few weeks ago (April 6), the duo released their first 12-inch single, “Dressed in Dresden” (also on Warp), accompanied by remixes from Kyle Hall, Various, and Maxime. The EP will admittedly display a moodier side to the dance pop exhibited on “Dressed in Dresden.” The latter was a “fast, heavy, raw stomper,” they say (decide for yourself: you can listen on their MySpace), whereas This Desert is “the more ethereal, gauzy side of our tastes; the Summertime-Gothic and dreamy tracks we made thinking they’d go well with open hydrants and looks that kill.”
THITH may seem death-obsessed for what is essentially a fun dance band — after all, their name was taken from the Battle of the Hundred in the Hands (as the Lakota called it — to Jason and Eleanore’s likely ancestors and most American history books, the Fetterman Battle/Massacre; see Frederick E. Hoxie’s Encyclopedia of North American Indians for more history). Yet there’s something more to them than destruction and fire-bombing. This Desert EP may, as they say, show another “side” to their sound, but the polyhedral duo hope to show even more with a full-length by the end of the year.
• The Hundred in the Hands: http://thehundredinthehands.com
• Warp: http://warp.net
[Photo: Sarah Wilmer]
