Butterfly Bones
San Francisco, California, United States | INDIE
Music
Press
Butterfly Bones has been skipping around sprinkling their magic mix of colorful space blips and hip pop rock all over this fair country. The boys' catchy electro tunes are comparable to Cut Copy, Passion Pit, and Starfucker but with a west coast laid back twist of lime mixed in. Their gleeful synth hooks and shimmer smooth melodies remind us northern folk it really is always sunny in California, which just isn't fair. This past tour marked the band's east coast debut, and their throw down in Brooklyn earlier this month was a revved up vision of crowd surfing shoulder to shoulder dance party good times. So grab a beer, turn up the heat, and give these boys a few spins. - Baeble
This is the sound of sunshine: gleeful synths, featherlight melodies, no-fuss rhythms, and laidback tempos for dancing when it's too hot to dance. More specifically, it's all about the attitude of those ubiquitous electronics - smooth, smiling, just happy to be there. In five songs and 22 minutes, Bay Area newcomers Butterfly Bones drop the soundtrack to your Indian summer. - East Bay Express
For those eager to break out the jelly sandals, side ponytails and neon of yore, the perfect opportunity has presented itself: jamming to SF’s Butterfly Bones will bring you back to the Cyndi Laupers and the Bananaramas of your youth. Performing at Bottom of the Hill tomorrow to celebrate the release of their Pretty Feelings EP, the band can be expected to lay down some extra-synthy jams over spare, uncomplicated bass and drums. Many tracks feature simple sing-along lyrics, making for awesome late-summer road trip tunes. - The Bay Bridged
Butterfly Bones sent over their new ep which is getting a lot of love from my stereo. The band crafts synth heavy indie pop songs that are so easy to fall for. Lyrically they remind me a bit of Magnetic Fields but do not sound quite as heavy as a Stephin Merritt project… Bones is of a much lighter fare. And while they don’t have much in common with MGMT, Butterfly Bones leaves you with a similar feel good feeling. - Big Stereo
More delicious synthpop today. This time via fellow Californian's Butterfly Bones. It's light summer music for poolside parties where everyone ends up in the pool. Are you noticing a trend yet? Thanks to bigstereo for the heads up on this one. The tune we have today is great, and you should definitely check out the rest of their stuff, its all quality. 'xoxo' is like a that first beer on a hot, sticky summer's day. Its a blast of cool energy urging you to get your ass outside and do something fun. The song sounds like those older CocaCola commercials looked. Hundreds of overly good looking kids with huge smiles on their faces, just running around in the streets, not a care in the world. Nostalgia is out in full force here. How can this song not make you think about 1994, running around the streets with absolutely nothing to do and not a care in the world. I love the use of the guitar here. People shy away from mimicking vocal lines with instruments too much. Remember how pretty much all of Nirvana's guitar solos were just the vocal melodies from the verse? Its because it works. Anyway, I like how they use the it here. It really helps to bring out the fun in the melody.
The closest touchstone for me with this group is Passion Pit, but without the screeching vocals and kiddie choirs. I really like Butterfly Bones and their songs. I'd love to hear what a full length would sound like. - Binary Entertainment Los Angeles
Fancy them a bit like New Order and The Cure. Or without comparisons just know they are electrical and 80s lovely.
Butterfly Bones, if their music had a texture it would be velour. If it had a taste it would be pop rock candy, complete with the fantastic crackle.
Oh giddy smile! - Bring Me Up
don’t want to say that the play-list at today’s pool party was bad, because that would be a lie. It was truly great (as well as the burger! Thanks Ryan!) However, it could have used some Butterfly Bones. If I had to put a label on their vibe I would call it feel-good chill-out drink-up sun-shine pop. “XOXO” comes correct in many ways but it’s the back to back synth and guitar solos that pops my bottle. Throw that and a lime in your beer and you are set. Butterfly Bones come out of San Fransisco and are old friends with TBE alums Givers, all having gone to school together at the Summer Jam Academy or something. Their Pretty Feelings EP is out now and packs 4 more sparkling ear-nuggets. Get on it people, they only have 535 listens on Last.fm but with recent props from Silence-Killer and Hot Biscuits, as well as a house-party tour ahead of them, their local gem status is about to bust out. - The Burning Ear
Butterfly Bones is a new name to me, but after listening to this track they will be on my watch list. XOXO is a perfectly loveable, danceable, light-hearted jam that will bring you back to life after listening. A lot of songs that i've been posting are very synth heavy, however in XOXO the synths are prominent but not overpowering, which is refreshing. I don't have anything bad to say about this song, its pretty much as perfect as it can be. - Cute Girls Dance!
In San Francisco, summer wears you.
All the hot new indie pop is coming from Cali this week. Butterfly Bones are on the verge of releasing their debut Pretty Feelings EP, a synthlicious selection of summery songs to be your sonic serenade whilst you sweat, swim or sit back and sip a strawberry margarita. Whatever your sunshine activities are, by now you know that I love to add to my neverending summer soundtrack. - Silence Killer
If your band plays at a pub in a residential neighborhood and about 20 girls and a few guys dance their heads off for 40 minutes, you must be doing something right.
Butterfly Bones, from Berkeley, turned the Starry Plough into a dance party with bright, bouncy, tightly-structured songs Friday night.
They had that modern indie style - you know, skinny jeans, skinny bikes, all the hair going in one direction - and added some well-placed digital sounds and a vocalist with an uncommon delivery who knows how to fit his voice into the right places.
They reminded me a bit, just a bit, of the '70s/'80s avant-garde rock band Talking Heads. They're billed for March 13 at the Butterball Music Festival in Santa Clara. - Spartan Daily Press
Discography
Pretty Feelings EP (8/09)
All tracks have received streaming and FM radio airplay in over 15 major US cities, as well as Paris, Madrid, and Berlin. The EP as a whole hit #5 on UC Berkeley's KALX 90.7FM most-played albums list for the week of 9/20/09, up from #16 the week before.
Photos
Bio
Most often, in the early predawn hours, the boys of Butterfly Bones can be found buried under a maze of wires and blinking lights manipulating the various sequencers, randomizers, synthesizers, samplers, and effects loops that have eaten their way to the forefront of their sound. The final product of their midnight machinations takes the form of a full live band backed by laptops, loop machines, and sequenced beats.
Butterfly Bones' roots reach into the deep South, where guitarist / vocalist Reese Donohue and drummer Joe Gray attended school amidst the sugarcane fields of Louisiana. Although Gray had been playing drums since the days of elementary school, music came to Donohue in a roundabout way. While tubing behind a jet-ski in the Bayou Teche, Donohue swung too close to the banks and collided with a floating dock. After two weeks in the hospital, Donohue found himself bedridden for the entire summer. To help while away the hours, family friend and Louisiana swamp pop legend CC Adcock offered to bring by a guitar and teach Donohue a few chords.
Years later, Donohue and Gray found themselves relocated to the Bay Area, where they met Los Angeles native Austin Fraser playing bass in the basement music room of their UC Berkeley Student Co-Op. The trio formed an instant bond, but the formula for Butterfly Bones solidified with keyboardist Steve Lance. Lance, fresh off of a national tour opening for INXS with his former band, decided to enroll at Berkeley, where he met Donohue, Fraser, and Gray.
One year later, Butterfly Bones is releasing their debut EP Pretty Feelings (Secret Sauce Records). What began as a lofty, guitar-heavy shoegazey full-length, Pretty Feelings evolved during the recording process, and was eventually parsed from 14 tracks to 5. All the songs on the EP were written during the recording process, and not one track from the original album remains. Inspired by the heat of the dance floor and memories of carefree summers, Pretty Feelings is the first of many releases from up-and-comers Butterfly Bones.
Links
