How a couple of musicians from South Dakota and a singer from Ecuador ever found each other, listeners might never know, but the outcome of their serendipitous encounter has inspired equally eclectic music.
Now residing in Minneapolis, Buffalo Moon first captured some attention with last year’s album, Wetsuit. A combination of bossa nova, tropicalia and pure pop, the band’s approach to songwriting might be varied, but the outcome of each effort has, so far, been nothing short of perfect.
From Wetsuit’s opening track “Rat Song,” which greets the listener with a harp and lead singer Karen Freire’s gorgeous vocals, it’s immediately apparent that despite the band’s place in the frigid Midwest their sound is warm and inviting.
Notably influenced by Latin and Central American music, some of the tracks on Wetsuit even have Freire embracing her native language, singing in Spanish. Buffalo Moon never feels disorienting though; despite the band’s trans-cultural, approach, one aspect of their music knows no geographical boundaries—sexiness.
There’s an undeniable attractiveness to a song like “Beach Boy,” a track that garnered Buffalo Moon plenty of attention last summer for its dreamy lyrics and sunny aesthetics. The first verse immediately transports listeners to an uncomfortably hot day as Freire’s soft voice sings “Thought all the waves were waving at me/Your wet hair, you were just by beach boy dream.”
Drummer Jon Wetzler crashes on the cymbals, guitarist Joel Schmitz riffs in time and member Preston Holm hammers on the piano keys, as the song builds to a crescendo at the end of the chorus that bursts into the next verse. “Beach Boy” is the best example of the band’s music. While the instrumentals drift from surf-pop to Brazilian, the lyrics are purely American in their wishful innocence. It’s simultaneously cute and endearing, like reading a well-written “Missed Connection.”
And while Wetsuit was a spectacular first effort, Buffalo Moon have continued to streamline their sound, evident on their Low Tide Moon 7-inch released fall of 2010. The title track is a slow drifting lounge piece (imagine a female Sinatra and a backing band playing late at night in a smoky bar). The xylophones are gently rattled and the maracas leisurely disturbed on “Low Tide Moon,” crafting a song better suited for purposefully dim lighting, instead of the sun’s magnetic rays. Although Buffalo Moon’s tone completely shifts on Low Tide Moon, shying away from the more tropical influences on Wetsuit and more toward a seductively dark pop sound, their unabated sexiness remains.
The maturation in their recordings have translated to their live shows as well. For a band that first came together in various pieces with different ideas of what a live performance should be, Buffalo Moon have focused on creating a more streamlined sound on stage.
And they’re bringing that improved live sound to the studio for their next full-length album. When asked about the next album, Schmitz noted that the band will be recording over a weekend in June, and that the process will be “recording each song as a live session hoping foremost to make this album more evocative of our stage performance than our early releases.” The songs themselves will take on a different tone than Wetsuit, aiming less for the cute and poppy and for a more serious tone.
Schmitz also says “the songs themselves—if we do our job—will feature a more intense, more collaborative, and more mature sound.”
Buffalo Moon might still be trying to find that pitch-perfect sound, but Wetsuit and Low Tide Moon show promise and excitement. With the band’s seductive and eclectic music, Buffalo Moon is the perfect sound for that hot day, lounging poolside with a cool drink.
