Buddy studies

>> Being pals is the rationale for
Mixel Pixel’s impressive new record

AFFECTION REFLECTIONS: Mixel Pixel

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Due out in June, the latest album from Brooklyn’s Mixel Pixel, Let’s Be Friends, might surprise fans. It doesn’t upend so much as upgrade the trio’s mercurial mix of lefthanded folk, hazy-gazer indie rock and kitchen-table electro-pop, informed by an intimacy and eccentricity that carries over to the various complementary viz-arts efforts (singer/guitarist Rob Corradetti’s inexhaustible glee club of tiny cartoon kooks peppers the packaging again, for instance). Let’s Be Friends is tighter and more together, both technically and thematically. The Mirror reached Corradetti at home in NYC for the whys and wherefores.

Mirror: Is there a theme, a direction to Let’s Be Friends?

Rob Corradetti: Yeah. Kaia [Wong, vocals/keyboards] and I wrote it for each other, for our own friendship—trying to rediscover what we liked about each other, I think. It’s about friendship in general, and how people interact. When you’re looking for someone to love, someone to give all your attention to, versus just trying to maintain general friendships with people, and how it’s really important to not close yourself off to more relationships. I think it’s the Aquarian ideal, the Age of Aquarius.

M: You did most of the writing on earlier records, but this time, most was co-written with Kaia.

RC: Yeah, I feel like she’s always lent writing to my favourite songs in the past, so we just decided that we’re gonna write most of our stuff together now. It wasn’t a decision, really, it just kinda happened. We went on tour with Of Montreal last March, and we recorded half the album before that, and half after. I just remember that tour being a huge wedge in between recording. We came back and were like, “What are we doing?” We had to rethink the whole thing.

I’ve felt that some of our records in the past were kind of scatterbrained, intentionally all over the place. Maybe that’s just kind of how I did things—it was really fun to put out an album about 10 different things. But we wanted to start doing CDs about one thing, having general themes and also revisiting ourselves, having self-referential stuff in them. Nothing totally stupid—I want it to be subtle.

M: When I first started listening to you a few years ago, if a visitor from the future had told me, yeah, Mixel Pixel’s later albums will be more polished and pro, I would have been very worried. Thing is, you’ve actually gotten there without losing the quirky charm.

RC: I’m glad to hear you say that because that’s something I’ve always dealt with. You can’t help but feel what you get back from your friends, or what someone wrote about you. Mixel Pixel’s gotten some really good reviews, but also some really throwaway, what’s-this-crap reviews, people not really listening to our music. That stuff hurt my feelings a lot. I try not to listen to it, but at the same time, you have to progress, advance as a person and a musician. You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over. You’re going to lose some people’s attention if you change it up, but ultimately, we want to make records that feel good to ourselves. We want to be more honest and open in our writing, and if it ends up sounding better, then that’s good too.

With Lesbians on Ecstasy,
Thundrah!, Random Creature
Generator and DJ Mary Hell
at les Saints on Saturday,
April 19, 9 p.m., $7