It is with a lot of pride that we can announce the debut recording from San Francisco artist Group Rhoda. What began with a desire to learn the machinations of pop music and the environment in which it is produced, has culminated in this, Group Rhoda’s (aka San Franciscan, Mara Barenbaum) debut album, Out Of Time, Out of Touch – a journey into sublime pop music.
With grounding in the minimal and the post-industrial landscape, Group Rhoda take classic west coast psychedelia, Suicide’s mechanical simplicity, and the industrial rhythms of Throbbing Gristle through surprising detours. Tropical rhythms, dubbed-out bass, hypnotic Wurlitzer flourishes and, Barrenbaum’s distinctive, plaintive vocal drench this debut with a a technicolour, sun-blanched imagination.
Barenbaum’s voice evokes a dislocation from reality – a loneliness. Virtual Dancer rides a bass-heavy wave to comment on the fleeting nature of human contact in the modern age, while At The Dark is steeped in hypnotic psychedelia. Hi Rise continues the theme of isolation on the back of metallic tropical rhythm pattern. Fire closes the album with a pulsing, linearity recalling Autobahn era Kraftwerk – a single riff repeating and modulating around Barenbaum’s synthesis.
