LISTEN LIKE THIEVES: Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado



Law & Order
, the solo debut from Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado comes out September 3rd on Woodist.

RELATED: Jonathan Rado is a songwriter, a staid performer, an evangelical producer – the 23-year-old California native’s solo project, fashioned on brief sabbatical from his main project, Foxygen, is a deliciously self-conscious piece of esoteric apocrypha. Like character games, or symphonies of nonsense imitation-language, his records are cathartic, designed only to liberate the body and break the awkwardness of obsessive, existential silence. Alone in a bedroom, the holy land where he’s been experimenting with recording since junior high, Rado laughs nervously and eats his fingernails, awestruck by the sublimity of the aural world. The smallness of his own anemic voice confounds the babe agape, and only by adopting the task of genre does he transcend his own limitations to stand comfortably at the precipice of sound. MORE

PREVIOUSLY: Foxygen‘s irresistible We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors Of Peace And Magic – think The Royal Tenenbaums as a twee, technicolor indie-rock album — is hands down the catchiest album of 2013. No one else need apply. In fact, nobody needs to release another album this year. Not even kidding. When I listen to it, I feel like one of the Magi following the star that will lead us all to the manger. Go tell it on the mountain. Bring frankincense and myrrh. We got Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado on the horn to share with us some tidings of comfort and joy. Comfort and joy. MORE