"If you remember a while back we told you about Chicago's brothers Trumfio who had formed a much-hyped band called The Pulsars. After an intense bidding war they were signed to ALMO Sounds, (the same label as Garbage) which is headed by former A&M founders Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert. Now, a lot of bands (Weezer/Rentals, Imperial Drag) are ditching technology and diving into their closets to dig up those old analog keyboards and primitive synthesizers, but few have been able to formulate a retro sound as slavishly New New Wave and authentically pure pop fantasy as Dave and Harry Trumfio.
"The songs... although undoubtedly obsessed over by the methodical elder Trumfio, have an effortless feel to them, whether they're floating on a bed of bouncy New Order-like guitars and keyboards like "Submission Song" or cutting down the too-cool-for-words hipoise in "Chicago Swingers." Showing the touch of an experienced producer, (Number One Cup, Yum-Yum, Butterglory, Mekons), as well as unabashed early '80s music fan, Dave Trumfio crams songs like "Cast Iron Dog" and "Owed To a Devil" so full of carefully-arranged errant sounds and textures, electronic bleeps, acoustic guitars, computer burps and metronomic drums, you'd think they might fly apart from all the weight, but instead hold to the center and sound like New Wave symphonies from an obsessed teen with lots of good hardware in his bedroom."
The Pulsars' Home Page on Billions: I caught this page right before Billions was about to take this down because they are no longer legally connected to the Pulsars. It is a cool little band bio, and it was the only thing that wasn't deleted. (All the other stuff was pretty out-o-date anyway.) So here it is with a few cool anecdotes and some good info.
Machine Talk: John Frese's page steals some of this site's thunder. I'm convinced that mine was the first fan page ever made about the Pulsars, but his is certainly the most complete. He's got some updated news about some of the Pulsars' newer work, including some stuff only released in Japan. He's also got RealAudio clips and some naughty MP3's. Check it out.
The Official Pulsars Page: It used to be just weird, but now the Almosounds Pulsars page is pretty high quality. They've got some really fun background information, and even a section that explains all the songs. Very nice.
Addicted to Noise: One of the biggest music and entertainment news sites on the 'Net, Addicted to Noise ran an article about The Pulsars before the release of their full-length CD. Although I stole most of the article and pasted it onto my own page, thre's still some interesting info on the "Submission to the Master" single.
Out of the Loop: Here they've got a quick blurb on the Pulsars, with some links and a very high-resolution version of the picture at the top of this page.
Man... or Astroman? About two years ago, the Pulsars toured with one of the greatest surf/space rock bands around. Though the Astroman page doesn't have any specific Pulsars information, it's worth a look and the band is definitely worth listening to.
Space Rock: This emerging genre of music combines good old fashioned rock n' roll with digitized techno madness. When it works, it's some of the best stuff around. Check out this Yahoo link to a few small space rock band homepages. It's missing a few important ones (like Man or Astroman and Sabalon Glitz), but it's worth checking out.
A word on space rock, though: sometimes "ambient" music calls itself space rock. That is wrong. Ambient music isn't really music, and has nothing to do with space. Real space rock actually has science-fiction themes. It tends to incorporate electronica elements with alternative-rock melodies and lyrics about robots or aliens. There aren't really many space rock bands, but several groups have individual songs that would fit the category. If anyone ever wants to go out and make a real space rock band, you can be sure that I'd be the first to buy the album.
Pulsars suck