SOUND OF THE KAPITAL

by: Laura Crestohl

All little children want to grow up to be rock stars. Not only do you get unlimited street cred, screaming fans, and that elusive aura of cool, but you get paid to travel the world, one show at a time. One band that has definitely taken advantage of this perk is Canada’s the Handsome Furs, a duo made of Wolf Parade co-frontman Dan Boeckner and wife Alexei Perry. The self-professed ‘travel nerds’ have used their rock star status to bring their synth-tinged rock tunes all over the world.

To promote the release of their second album, Face Control (itself inspired by previous travels to Eastern Europe), the band participated in a Sub-Pop/CNN.com webseries titled Indie Asia, which followed them through their tour of Asia, hitting cities such as Beijing, Bangkok,Hong Kong and Ho Chi Minh City. Unlike typical travel logs, the 7 short episodes show the band worrying about customs, connecting with new audiences and being influenced by their new locales.

Further inspired by their travels, is the Handsome Furs’ third album, Sound Kapital, released this past June via Sub Pop. Inspired by a recent trip to Burma, where the pair played with underground bands, the resulting album discusses themes of repatriation, nationalism, and the uncertainty of the future. The band’s uniqueness, however, lies in their talent to lay these important and timely themes to electronic beats that sound as if they could be heard in any club existing within Blade Runner’s Los Angeles. So the next time you’re feeling the wanderlust and the dance beat, no worries, all you need to do is hit the play button.

See Boeckner and Perry do their thing, as the Handsome Furs play the Bowery Ballroom August 18th. Tickets available here.