If my love for their newest album, These Promises Are Being Videotaped, didn't resonate that much, I have to start by saying that El Ten Eleven has provided the soundtrack to the past 12 months of my life. They've shattered the barriers that I assumed existed between virtuosity and melody and released a followed two records of ambient beauty with catchy electronic.

I had a chance to mention all this to Kristian Dunn before his set, and he was extremely gracious. He emphasizes that he's more a bassist then a guitarist, but I would put him in a much more complex role. Dunn creates and sequences all his loops on the fly with his feet while handling either a fretless bass or a doubleneck. He also makes heavy use of tapping and harmonics (which I'm sure are more easily executed with some compression). Backed by Fogarty's blindingly fast drumming, the band produces sounds that sneak through different genres and would be impossible for many dj's to recreate with a laptop.

Dunn and Fogarty played mostly tracks from their newest album--including that killer cover of Paranoid Android--and didn't get the crowd dancing wholeheartedly. Still, that's was expected given the kind of crowd they draw. I love dancing (see here), but it's hard to get moving when you come expecting something akin to a two-man Explosions in the Sky. El Ten Eleven's evolved sound can also be seen as inconsistent in a time when most bands stay within a style. However, I maintain that they're already better than most dance/rock acts out there and could destroy given the right atmosphere.

All said, El Ten Eleven are unique, amazing, and brilliant, and Dunn's use of pedals is beyond anything I have ever seen.

album here
El Ten Eleven - Jumping Frenchmen of Maine