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Bodies of Water

Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink

(US: 24 Jul 2007; UK: Unavailable)

Bodies of Water are a Los Angeles quartet—equal parts girl and boy—who take on as many as seven extra members when they play. This enables the band to inflate their tunes into full-bodied kumbayas that make big nods to the Polyphonic Spree and Arcade Fire. In their quieter moments, though, Bodies of Water’s songs reveal themselves to be rooted in indie folk pop, somewhere in between the tight harmonies of the Mamas and the Papas and the otherworldly tones of Animal Collective. Bodies of Water are seldom content to remain contained, however. Sooner or later, every song on Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink gains momentum, takes off, and soars. Sometimes they come back to earth; other times, they burst into bright lights. This glorious grandiosity is their aim, and the band hits the mark more often than not. These California dreamers are definitely on the right track.

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Michael Keefe is a freelance music journalist, an independent bookstore publicist, and a singer/guitarist/songwriter in a band. Raised on a record collection of The Beatles, Coltrane, Mozart, and Ravi Shankar, Michael has been a slave to music his whole life. At age 16, he got a drum set and a job at a record store, and he's been playing and peddling music ever since. Today, he lives in Oregon with his wife (also a writer, but not about music), two cats, and a whole lot of instruments and CDs.


Tagged as: bodies of water
Related Articles
8 Jul 2011
On its third album, the husband/wife team of Bodies of Water continues its pursuit of highly orchestrated, indie savant craftwork.
22 Jul 2008
This is outside music, music to be set on a porch and blasted into the expanse of land around it, music that cannot be contained.
25 Apr 2008
As a musical entity, Bodies of Water don’t sound like anyone else. They are known to mine Ennio Morricone’s western riffs, tip a hat to Tropicalia, and borrow as much from old gospel groups as they do from today’s current music scene.
8 Aug 2007
A love of gospel, Tropicalia, and exuberant vocal choruses unites the four members of Bodies of Water, an L.A.-based quartet whose debut full-length is like a musical comedy soundtrack exposed to radiation.
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