Despite their heavy buzz around Los Angeles, there were a variety of reasons why I never got into Rainbow Arabia. For one, there is the above video. I’m not quite sure what’s going on, though I’m pretty sure that if I tried I could pick enough low-hanging hipster humor fruit to fill up a Carmen Miranda hat. I’m not going to try. Then there’s the name Rainbow Arabia, a nomenclature that seems swiped from an excised chapter of V, an outfit fronted by a Levantine midget, with a rhythm section consisting of a pair of itinerant quat peddlers playing Sahara hand drums. Besides, I’m already a Black Moth Super Rainbow fan and ostensibly that should be enough iridian indie for me (no homophobia).
But last Thursday, Rainbow Arabia won me over at the second Friends of Friends Show put on by budding label impresario Downtown Leeor Brown. The couple of Danny and Tiffany Preston hang their fedoras in Echo Park and are willing to commit in a monomaniacal manner more suggestive of Bedford Ave. Backhanded? Sure. But a compliment, nonetheless. After all, they buy the ticket and take the camel ride to the extent of importing Lebanese synthesizers–sublimating Sublime Frequencies so much that I wouldn’t be surprised if the Prestons can’t sleep at night without the susserations of a Syrian oud.
The picture sounds schtick but the melodies stick: guitars slice like sharpened scimitars, drum machines are beefed up with exotic hand drums, and the keyboards glide to cocaine crescendos. This is closest thing the 9-0 zip codes have to their former tour-mates Gang Gang Dance–an aesthetic somewhere between Bhangra and Benga, or The Kills if they drank Kombucha tea and channeled field recordings from the Sudan circa 1963. Their Manimal Vinyl EP, Kabukimono illustrates how impressive Rainbow Arabia’s act really is. I guess one more of these rainbow bands won’t hurt anyone.
Download:
MP3: Rainbow Arabia-“Harlem Sunrise”
MP3: Rainbow Arabia-“Omar K (Ghosts on Tape Remix)”
