Premiere: Keepaway’s “Family of the Son”

The JM.com office just got Keepaway’s debut EP, Baby Style — in case you didn’t know (which we didn’t up until now), the band formerly known as IN has changed their name to Keepaway). A short history: a friend of JM.com stumbled on IN, was absolutely blown away, and we wound up booking them for our September feature show, which subsequently wound up blowing all of us away. Then they wrote a “Musicians on Music” for us…about pizza.

IN was a hilariously cavalier band name. It is an unsearchable term in google, as it appears on nearly every website at least once. Even if you add “band,” you mostly get results about in-band signaling, which sure, is interesting in its own right, but not the obscure Brooklyn psych-band that loves pizza. So IN set themselves up to be relatively undiscoverable, recording demos and melting faces, but leaving people struggling to remember a name. It was their choice, making anyone who wanted to hear them ostensibly unable to.

So why change the name now? Who knows (these guys are fairly goofy, and probably have a reason way over my head…most likely having to do with pizza). But, if I had to take a guess, I’d say the trio realizes that they are sitting on one of the better 2009 Brooklyn rock releases in Baby Style, and probably desperately want people to hear it. Firmly in line with other modern psych bands, like Suckers and Yeasayer, Baby Style moves from a wide range of styles, from flowery pop to industrial electro. It’s got some seriously stunning moments, and you all should buy it immediately.

Here’s highlight “Family of the Son.” It’s a solid introduction to Keepaway: two layered percussion, both electronic and live, pounding through four-minutes of dense vocal harmonies and plucked guitars. It is obviously and possibly obliquely complicated, a technical jam. Somewhere in there, though, there’s a simple saccharine pop tune. It never gets completely unburied, and that’s fine. The emotion stays relatively elusive; the quality of the song doesn’t.

Stream “Family of the Son”

by Max Sebela