Search - Light FM :: Black Magic Marker (Dig)

"Don't let the name fool you ... there is nothing light about Light FM. Their debut album is loaded with enough catchy hooks to sink a battleship." -- RockInsider.com "Light FM is a huff of cosmic dust from a planet far, far away. Led by Josiah Mazzaschi, the crackpot mastermind behind the legendary Chicago unit Motorhome, this hypnotic array of perky zingers are fueled by maddening keyboards and gooey electro-pop that combines for a sizzling salvo like The Cars crashing a surprise party for Devo. Light FM is the quintessential fuse of '80s synth-pop, disassembled and rearranged in the 2008 digital age with all of the glamour and celebrity of the smoking hot stars in Los Angeles as its supernatural backdrop." -- TheTripWire.com "Mazzaschi has long been a talent worth watching--a sharp songwriter with memorable melodies and a distinctive guitarist." -- Chicago Sun Times Light FM is trying to play a trick on you. In fact, there is absolutely nothing light about this band. Buried underneath the hooks that refuse to leave your head and singer Josiah Mazzaschi's perfect pop songwriting lurks a monster--a dark, amplified, fuzzed-out monster who can sing just as easily about depression and suicide as he can about love and California sunshine. But what sets Light FM's music apart is that there's no hipster sarcasm in Mazzaschi's voice when he sings about death and body bags while surf rock guitar riffs shimmer over three-part Beach Boys harmonies. In fact, if you're paying attention, it's so earnest that it's downright disturbing. And that's Light FM's secret weapon: in an era awash with brain-numbing irony and I-don't-give-a-fuck music personas, here comes a band who is unafraid of sincere emotion, even if it swings back and forth from a chemically imbalanced preoccupation with death to a fragile romantic idealism so tender it makes your heart hurt. Light FM is a band devoid of hipster self-awareness, either by nature or by design; a band that proudly wears its heart on its sleeve. It's a credit to Mazzaschi's talent that his combination of dark humor and tenderness blends so effortlessly to evoke bands like The Pixies, The Kinks, and The Cars--bands who wrote pop songs but who never shied away from noise or unconventional instrumentation.