Bands that make me want to move to LA: HEALTH

"We gave the guy a cd to get a show and he scored it to his own homemade gay porn."
"It was like hipster soft-core gay porn so it was totally lame."
"It wasn't what we wanted to see, which was like, the action"
-HEALTH

I have been wanting to write about this band ever since their amazing industrial-noise track "Die Slow" leaked a couple months back. Now that the album Get Color has dropped, it seems like a good time to check out this band.

HEALTH emerged from the incredibly fertile scene centered around the L.A. DIY venue called The Smell, which has played home to acts like No Age, The Mae Shi, and Mika Miko. For more on that scene check this piece in Guardian). They have been around since 2005 and have toured with some pretty huge bands like NIN, Crystal Castles, and Of Montreal. So it seems like they have paid their dues, sleeping on couches and quitting their jobs to tour full time.

Get Color is not for everyone. Huge drums (tom-sorta like Fuck Buttons), screeching guitars, long, sometimes atonal lyrics at the back. But, like a lot of noisier music, the highpoints are visceral and transcendent. I think this band is serious about making art, which is one of the highest compliments I can give.

They will be playing at the Bowery Ballroom in New York on Sep. 24.
Tickets

Old-ish interview from Pitchfork

MP3 HEALTH Die Slow
Mp3 HEALTH Nice Girls-Daisy O'dell Remix (cool-but definitely more Daisy's aesthetic than HEALTH's)
NEW Video for Die Slow (Awesome)