The Postal Service makes the rounds with Such Great Heights (playing now). Click the  button to hear The District Sleeps Alone. |
This is disturbing and embarrassing. I spend a considerable amount of time pursuing new music. I troll Internet, satellite and cable radio for that next great act. I sift through message boards and talk with young folks about what’s new. After all that, I find a band I really like, and it turns out that their lone album is older than Wikipedia.
In the case of The Postal Service, later really is better than never. The group consists of otherwise well-established indie musicians who hail from, among other acts, Death Cab for Cutie and Dntel.
I find their debut effort, Give Up, to be a bit oxymoronic. There is the dark, mysterious, almost Scandinavian mood that I always appreciate. At the same time, the music can seem light, airy and poppy. This juxtaposition is found on the most commercially popular track, Such Great Heights. The District Sleeps Alone also stands out as a unique cut with a mellow groove and down-tempo mastery.
The Postal Service also appears on one of my most-treasured albums, Verve Remixed, with a remixed version of Nina Simone’s Little Girl Blue. Based on my love of that album, I should have been aware of The Postal Service earlier. But, honestly, there are an awful lot of remixers out there.
There’s an interesting factoid about The Postal Service name. The United States Postal Service, unhappy that a band would try to capitalize on the “hipness” of government bureaucracy, slapped them with a cease and desist letter. The negotiation that followed produced a performance by the band at the government agency’s annual conference. Apparently, letter carriers really enjoyed the show, as the USPS now sells The Postal Service CDs on its Web site. Watch out iTunes, there’s a new force in online music sales!
2007 promises the release of a new Postal Service album, tentatively entitled, Autumn, My Love, due out in November. I have very high hopes for this sophomore effort…but I have higher hopes that I will not wait until 2011 to hear it.
postalservicemusic.net
