Lineup: 2010

Gobble Gobble

Edmonton, AB

Gobble Gobble is a vulture of the spirit, tearing away at the carrion of the soul. Gobble Gobble lives on the faultline between suits and destitutes, and it is from this isolated perch, impelled by the terror of a dayjob and utterly prostrate beneath the looming monolith of abstracted death, that he gathered his eggs together, prepared the nest that would become their home and began carving words into their sides. This nest, set gingerly on teetering high-rise stilts, encircles the flesh fruit that make up his debut album Neon Graveyard.

Neon Graveyard is pop music, no doubt, but it is also something else: an oddly visceral, flamboyantly eccentric treatise on death. Sunny funeral siestas, ecstatic Nintendo eulogies, and effervescent burial anthems all feature prominently here, cohering remarkably with more pensive moments where fuzz threatens to spill over into shoegazing, and melancholy solo piano is overwhelmed and enveloped in digital static. Drawing clear influence from the genres of freak folk, chiptune, garage, modern classical and weirdo electronic, Neon Graveyard nevertheless evinces a sound that cannot clearly be tied to any particular antecedent. In stark contrast with its buoyant, lilting and at times even danceable atmosphere, the record is lyrically fixated on what to do with the body when it is dead or dying. Although it was birthed in the stark cityscape of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Neon Graveyard sounds like it was recorded in a nameless city, the bizarre bastard son of Baltimore, Victoria, and Portland.

Cecil Frena screamed and played guitar in hardcore bands until he blew out his throat, at which point pop music became a more appealing proposition. In 2006, he founded Push Pins and since then has brought all-ages pop and experimental shows to Edmonton. In 2008, he founded The Hydeaway All Ages Art Space, a new gallery and venue in downtown E-town that lets the kiddies enjoy tunes without fake ID.bble