The Stars Like Fleas are a New York-based musical collective centered around multi-instrumentalists Montgomery Knott and Shannon Field.
"The Ken Burns Effect," their third work from 2008 was a huge surprise. The duo, joined in this work by musicians from the circles of Mercury Rev, Fiery Furnaces, TV On The Radio, presents a modern experimental folk, a metropolitan folk born from the Big Apple and its thousand faces.
Pieces with a free structure that gently slide, without trauma, into experimental digressions that range from jazz to minimal electronics, to modern ambient psychedelia all the way to post-rock shores. A modern progressive folk.
Robert Wyatt, also due to Knott’s voice, is the first point of reference that comes to mind. The best Wyatt, who breathes the metropolitan air deeply, and plunges into experimentation as hasn’t been done in many years.
The gray and pink hues of Canterbury are seduced by the bright signs of New York.
A young Wyatt dances with the urban folk tribe of the early Animal Collective.
Music softly expanded, a soap bubble colored by unpredictable insertions of brass, piano, violins, field recordings. A soap bubble that flies to territories dear to the never-to-be-forgotten Talk Talk.
A great album that reveals new details with each listening.
Tracklist and Videos
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