Unlike most bands named after seaside apparel and/or accessories (i.e. Swimshorts, Sunglasses, Sandals), bicoastal digi-pop duo Bikini doesn't spin hazy, wavy sounds designed specifically for sunny, sandy days at the beach. Dark, distorted, and dance-y, this stuff is more like the soundtrack for a drugged-out midnight trip into deep waters.
A long-distance collaboration between New York City-based Nigel Diamond and Oak Bay, British Columbia resident Olivier Olivier, Bikini dropped its first EP, RIPJDS, last November via Lefse Records.
And with track titles like "American Mourning" and "R.I.P.," these 20 minutes and 15 seconds could be a burial at sea for one fried synth, two obsolete laptops, a drum machine, a pair of good-looking corpses, and 10,000 tabs of MDMA.
Surprisingly, it all ends in a moment of relative peacefulness. Driven by submerged piano and weakly pinging echoes like an underwater EKG machine, RIPJDS's untitled closing track is the slow, transcendent descent to the black bottom of the ocean. And then when Bikini's ragged, dreamy vocal harmonies rise up out of nowhere, you can finally see that this is the afterlife.
Bikini with Danny Daze. Thursday, February 24. Bardot, 3456 N. Miami Ave., Miami. The show starts at 10 p.m. and tickets cost $10 via showclix.com. Call 305-576-7750 or visit bardotmiami.com.
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