Photo by Siena DeCampoMinimalism and disaffected cool go hand-in-hand in music, so you could say Toronto duo Ice Cream are just improving on a winning formula. The songs on their debut album Love, Ice Cream consist of little more than hissy, clattering drum machines, warbling synth leads and one very pissed-off sounding bass guitar. Members Carlyn Bezic and Amanda Crist weave catchy, insidious hooks in their vocal lines, preventing the atmosphere from becoming too oppressive, but Love, Ice Cream creates its own blacklit world. Highlights like the industrial rattle of "Receiver" and the bouncy, intricate bassline of "Fired Up" make clever use of Ice Cream's simple ingredients, and the album as a whole is a strong intro to the duo's monochrome disco, neither new wave or no wave, but something else entirely."Love, Ice Cream is the product of collaborative, open-ended songwriting between Amanda and I," Bezic explains. "In its infancy, the majority of the album was a series of jams in the studio with no pre-meditated sound or attitude. Thematically, the music informed the lyrics, and vice versa, and things became colder and more imagistic. Live shows rounded out ideas and vibes, and then finally, recording with producers Young Guv and Tony Price polished them into the final product, something that—despite having no idea what Ice Cream was in the first place—feels like quintessential Ice Cream." Stream Love, Ice Cream in full below.
Phil Witmer never thinks he's too cool to dance. Follow him on Twitter.