Brainpan alley

>> Cracking open the cranium of
Pink Skull’s prime mover Julian Grefe

HEAD GAMES: Julian Grefe

by JACK OATMON

Pink Skull is a psychedelic, audiovisual art collective that has sprung forth from Philadelphia’s gallery scene. Or, well, maybe it’s a DJ/producer crew comprising some of the prime architects of the city’s independent dance music circuit. Then again, maybe Pink Skull is really a quirky krautrock quintet with a knack for noisy concoctions that toe the trippy line between dance-punk and minimal house. Whatever the hell Pink Skull is, it has a new album in the pipeline featuring collaboration with members of Man Man, An Albatross and White Whale, and it’s coming to Montreal.

“A lot of dance music is pretty insipid and vacuous. It exists as a soundtrack for people to go out and socialize,” reflects Julian Grefe, the primary, polyvalent personality behind Pink Skull, when asked about electronic music’s most recent wave of pop cultural recognition. “And some of it is not. Some of it is artistically very mature. I think a lot of what’s getting absorbed into the general pop culture is pretty entry-level as far as electronic music is concerned,” he says, though not with any detectable air of contempt.

“But on a positive note, the people going out to clubs to listen to that are going to have their tastes broadened. Take kids who have just been introduced to electronic music by things like when ‘Zdarlight’ came out by Digitalism. Now it’s been appropriated by the mass media, so maybe they’re going to feel a little jilted by that and search a bit more and go a bit deeper.”

Deeper into sonic experimentation is definitely the direction of Grefe’s music, which displays the refined eclecticism of someone who has run the gamut of hardcore punk, raving, indie and a handful of other subcultures. “Gonzo’s Cointreau,” a 12-inch single which serves as a preview of the album, is already available, and stands as evidence of the scope of the band’s influences. “The record is not a dance-music, track-after-track record. It goes from dance tempo stuff to ambient music to downtempo to some faster prog and krautrock.”

With guests at Zoobizarre
tonight, Thursday,
Jan. 24, 10 p.m.