If grouping bands, albums, and songs into musical genres is shaky ground to begin with, naming said genres after literary movements is even more tenuous. So, I hesitate to call Pop. 1280 a cyberpunk band, especially considering their name is derived from a Jim Thompson novel. But now that “Do the Angerlfish” video director Scott Kiernan has gone ahead and bridged the gap between two of my favorite Johns, complementing the song’s Carpenter-esque opening synth line with John Shirley-esque (Shirleyan?) bondage aesthetics, I feel much more comfortable saying that Pop. 1280 has, with their recent Sacred Bones Records release Imps of Perversion (TMT Review), successfully picked up the cyberpunk music mantle.
Watch them wear it to a city near you during the second leg of their Damn the Fans 2013 tour, aptly titled Part II: Damn the West.
• Pop. 1280: http://pop1280.tumblr.com
• Sacred Bones: http://www.sacredbonesrecords.com
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