Search - Ifihadahifi :: Fame By Proxy (Dig)

"They find the previously nonexistent common ground in your CD collection between Big Black and Bis, crafting a perfect radio-ready hook and then burying it in screeching noise that ensures the song will come nowhere near an actual radio, coming off like Fountains of Wayne Kramer. These days, music this fun is usually made by assholes in cheerleader costumes--find it with four guys who look like IT dudes instead." -- Paper Thin Walls "Post-punk fractures and rhythms plus frantic enthusiasm label this music as very `modern' indeed. Layers of fuzz ride out on rapid waves from feedbackheavy guitars, landing in the lap of percussion so violent that they blend with it, softening edges but creating new shapes and suggestions of edge in the spaces between the guitars, the synths, the drums, and the singer's frantic, feverishly earnest voice." -- Splendid Put Brainiac, Orson Welles, Pere Ubu, Prince, Mick "Cactus Jack" Foley, and Nikola Tesla into a wrestling ring for a battle royale. Who'd win? Well, Mick Foley, because he actually has the training. But the real answer is "the listening public," because the gigantic universe-defending robot that would rise from the sum of these parts like the vehicle-based Voltron would be IfIHadAHiFi, a wall of noise hiding instantly infectious hooks, dance beats, and broken bones. Things never come easy for an antagonistic lot trying to write pop songs about weird science, roadside Wisconsin, and true crime. But since 2000, HiFi have slowly built a loyal core following via two full-length CDs, a split LP with Modern Machines, five national tours, gobs of college radio play and positive press--including a spot in Alternative Press' 100 Bands You Need To Hear In 2005--as well as an always-captivating and combustible live show. If IfIHadAHiFi were a recently canceled Joss Whedon TV series, the letter-writing campaign to bring them back on the air would be fervent, long-sustaining, and a bit vulgar. But that's the HiFi all over--too annoying and stubborn to go away. 2008 brings the release of the band's third full-length, Fame By Proxy, which ups the pop-noise ante as far as it's ever been upped in the group's eight-year history. Recorded by Shane Olivo in Milwaukee, mixed by John Congleton (The Paper Chase) in Texas, and mastered at Silver Sonya in DC, the disc brings more hooks, more obtusely nerdy subject material, and more tinnitus. More touring is in the works, too, and it's sure to bring more chaos, and more cacophony. Just another year in the life of IfIHadAHiFi.