Little Joy

iTunes Review

If the sauntering melodies on Little Joy's eponymous debut sound somewhat reminiscent of those by The Strokes, it's because Strokes' drummer Fabrizio Moretti co-wrote the crux of these breezy ditties. Moretti provides rhythms, leaving singing duties to Los Angelino multi-instrumentalist Binki Shapiro and Rodrigo Amarante from Brazilian rock band Los Hermanos. The concept for Little Joy arose after the latter two bonded while performing in their other respective bands at a music festival in Lisbon, Portugal. After Shapiro finished work on Devendra Banhart's Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, he brought along Banhart's musical partner Noah Georgeson to give these recordings a warm, vintage-sounding production. Named after a hip L.A. bar, Little Joy use standard gear as well as tinges of melodica, glockenspiel, ukulele, Mellotron, and Hammond organ to create exotic but peripheral textures that flesh out tunes like the skip-along love song "Brand New Start" or the slightly erratic "No One's Better Sake." Binki Shapiro provides a Feist-like vox on the flirty "Unattainable" and a more Karen Dalton-inspired inflection on "Don't Watch Me Dancing." Her husband Adam Green of the Moldy Peaches also makes a vocal cameo here, as does Banhart and The Strokes' Nick Valensi.