MAKE ROOM FOR TWO MORE IN CROWDED ELECTRO-POP PACK
What’s the deal?
So, this one time, at band camp . . . no, no. Let’s not go there. Let’s start again upon the high road.
So, yeah, Lexie Jay and Jon Fedorsen met four summers ago while they were both moulding young musical minds at the same Toronto music camp and, after discovering some common creative ground in the pop-ish songs classically trained vocalist Jay had been quietly tucking away in her back pocket since high school, decided they had a future as an acoustic folk duo.
At least until they realized they’d actually make a pretty crappy acoustic folk duo and that the nascent merger of Jay’s operatically inclined pipes and former Crash Parallel drummer Fedorsen’s command of rhythm might be better collectively suited to the dramatic potentialities afforded by a more electronic musical environment. And, hey, they were right. Featurette might not yet have found itself enough to stand decisively apart from the crowded, contemporary, retro-futurist synthpop pack when it released its twovolume set of Crave EPs online at this time last year, but the nine stylish songs contained therein — particularly the breathy lead single “Broken,” which has lately crept onto playlists at a few mainstream Canadian radio stations, including Toronto’s Indie 88 — have now stuck around long enough to warrant their “official” re-release on Oct. 14 as an “official” debut EP, also entitled Crave.
The possibilities are audible to all; it’s now up to Featurette to prove them endless.
Sum up what you do in a few simple sentences
Featurette emails: “Big, bombastic beats meet smooth dreamy vocals. We write heavy-hitting, emotionally charged electro-pop music with a new sound that we’re proud to call our own. We are storytellers and performers. We live and breathe to bring our music to journeyers with open ears.”
What’s a song I need to hear right now?
“Broken.” Nicks 31⁄ decades’ worth 2 of synth-pop tricks from everyone from the Pet Shop Boys to Purity Ring within the first 31⁄ of its nearly 2 four minutes, but the lingering effect is not unpleasant.
Where can I see them play?
At the Mod Club on Saturday, with Paper Lions, Raven Shields and Inventor.