CMJ ’09: Fool's Gold

Bowery Poetry Club; Wed 21

Fool's Gold

Photograph: Emily Shur

Many Western listeners will automatically associate the African beats and high-pitched vocals of L.A.’s Fool’s Gold with selections from the Talking Heads catalog. While that’s an apt comparison, Fool’s Gold is a (large) group with its own identity. On its self-titled debut, vocalist and bassist Luke Top layers polyrhythms and Slavic-tinged with lyrics in both English and Hebrew for a true cross-continental sampling. (Take that, David Byrne.) To complete its huge sound, Top and Fool’s Gold’s cofounder, guitarist Lewis Pesacov, enlist as many as ten other players on everything from chekeres to saxophones for its raucous world anthems. You’d be a fool to miss it.—Colin St. John

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