No band from Minneapolis has been hyped and lauded in the indie blogosphere this year as much as Elite Gymnastics. Emailing with James Brooks, one half of the electronic duo, one gets the impression that they know this. This is not to say that Brooks is arrogant about Elite Gymnastics' buzz, he just seems like an honest guy; he's smart, aptly confident, and blunt. He's also the first to admit that two years ago, he and bandmate Josh Clancy had never written a song together.
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In fact, Clancy had never written a song, period. "Neither of us knew how to sing or had any idea how to approach the project lyrically. It was all new, it was all kind of gut-level, we were serious about what we were doing, but we were also sort of scared." It's hard to hear that fear come through when you listen to Real Friends, the four-track debut EP Elite Gymnastics released last year, or Ruin, the LP they recently released on Acéphale Records. It's sample-happy dreamy pop music, full of hooky dance synth and modulated vocals.
Elite Gymnastics' scene is the internet, and they attribute their success to it openly and credit it as a much more valuable "scene" than that of the Twin Cities. When questioned about this, Brooks responds bluntly: "At this point, people should stop being surprised when things happen like us getting written up online or in magazines, or Howler getting signed to Rough Trade after only existing for a few months, or Poliça getting booked to play a sold-out show at the Bowery Ballroom for their second show ever. This idea that paying your dues in the local scene gets you anywhere is a fake idea." It's a bleak notion, but maybe he's right, however depressing that is once it sinks in. And it's more than a little ironic that Elite Gymnastics are on our Picked to Click list this year, since Brooks calls this poll an exercise in futility midway through his interview: "Every year City Pages polls people who go to a lot of shows about what new local bands they are excited about for their Picked to Click issue. And pretty much every year the band that wins breaks up or fades into obscurity almost immediately thereafter." Well, now we don't really know what to say...except, SURPRISE! [CIty Pages, October 2011]
