Butterthief Riding The Radiowaves CD

Tandon grew up surfing and skateboarding on a healthy dose of post-punk, straight-edge hardcore and classic rock on the beaches and cul de sacs of Southern California. After graduating from UCLA he spent a year in San Francisco, then onto New York City, bound for Columbia University. Having half a brain and the good sense of embracing eastern philosophy rather than a drug habit, he took his easygoing attitude and focused manner with him.

And so by the time he pulled together what would soon become Butterthief, there was a clear sense of how it would sound. It would sound Big, like his ideas. Vast, like the ocean, yet it would reach out and draw you in, rather than hold you down. It would harness energy rather than express aggression, and that alone would set Butterthief apart from many of its contemporaries.

The band is now a thriving entity on the New York scene and it is the conduit for Tandon's vision. His co-conspirators drummer Joey Repice, and guitarist Aram Bajakian share it without a doubt. There is the expected and healthy push and pull of moods and tones--Manish, for example, more often leaning towards the metaphorical major key, wanting to keep it upbeat and positive, while Aram, a protégé of legendary Jazz musician Yusef Lateef, looks to his darker avant garde influences. The expected tension creates magic moments on the band's first full-length debut, Riding the Radiowaves. Listen to the diversity from songs like the guitar-dense, spy punk "Intercept" to the jangly shoegazing "Breathe" and the hypnotic, Beatles-esque lullaby "Central Park". The alluring thing about this band and their music is that the listener can feel the ebb and flow of influences and interests--a consistent philosophical commitment to non-violence and peace resonating with an aesthetic west coast/east coast push and pull. The musical mood swings are seamless and organic--from Death Cab For Cutie and Shins style indie-pop to shades of garage punk to the shoegazing shimmer of bands like the Stills, and so on. Butterthief pull all of these seemingly disparate aspects together and somehow, still make it work. A rare thing for all of us to witness and experience.

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