Spotlight On: Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos

In this piece (and subsequent ones like it), I'm going to try and expose an artist that far too few people know about. It's sort of like a "Best Music You've Never Heard" type of thing. Just for your own personal edification and betterment.

Today, I want to bring a band by the name of Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos into the spotlight. Despite an awkward mouthful of a name, they put out one of the finest records of 2006 (a good year for music, one which saw the releases of The Crane Wife, The Loon, and other records of that calibre), entitled The Dust of Retreat. In a recent conversation with RJR, he said it the best: never in recent memory has genre-hopping been executed so well, so seamlessly, and most importantly, so genuinely and convincingly. This 8-piece from Illinois are not just writing all different sorts of songs because they have short attention spans, it's because they have a variety of different things to say, and use genre as a malleable means of expression. From the psych-folk of "A Sea Chanty of Sorts," to the harder grind of "Quiet as a Mouse," to the bouncing indie-splashed-with-country "Vampires in Blue Dresses," the record boasts a diversity of sound that is unparalleled in recent memory. For a debut it is undeniably magnificent, it shows a band with enormous potential to travel brilliantly in a variety of different directions. Seriously, jump on this bandwagon before it becomes a bandwagon.


-PTC