SANTA MONICA, California – It was only a matter of time before someone dropped a sample from The Prisoner.
During a secret show here last week, Dhani Harrison managed to lead his trip-pop collective thenewno2 through a whole song – the opening stomper "Station" from the band's new full-length thefearofmissingout – before working in a nod to Patrick McGoohan's surreally influential spy-fi TV series. A sample of the late actor's inimitable growl – "I am not a number" – played before "Wide Awake," another track from thenewno2's sophomore album.
The penchant for geeky in-jokes comes naturally for Harrison (a quote from Time Bandits found its way into the mix on the opening number). The musician's late, great father George Harrison was in a band you may have heard of. Yet Harrison has emerged from the shadow of The Beatles by latching onto his own generation's cross-genre outliers, like DJ Shadow and Radiohead.
The frenetic beats and deceptions of "Staring Out to Sea" would've fit right in with DJ Shadow and James Lavelle's UNKLE collaboration Psyence Fiction. The album version of that song features guitarist Ben Harper, but the track was better live during the secret show, one of Los Angeles radio station KCRW's Berkeley Street Sessions, which take place at veteran engineer Bob Clearmountain's intimate Santa Monica studio.
During the KCRW set, thenewno2's powerhouse drummer Frank Zummo emerged from behind the album's technical polish. Guest vocalist Thorunn Antonia shimmered alongside Harrison, who leapt from guitars to synths to samplers during the show.
All the tracks on thefearofmissingout, which will be released Tuesday, mirror Harrison's jumpy technopathy. And they're more forcefully delivered in the flesh, where Harrison's "gang" – keyboardist Paul Hicks, keyboardist Jon Sadoff, bassist Aaron Older and guitarist Jeremy Faccone – jam out the album's digital textures and organic soul.
Thenewno2's Berkeley Street Studios show debuts Tuesday on KCRW's website; fans in Los Angeles can check out the band for themselves that evening at the hallowed Amoeba Records in Hollywood. From there, the band heads to Lollapalooza in Chicago and Bumbershoot in Seattle.
At KCRW's Berkeley Street Studios show, the crowd seemed to walk away impressed. Fed a sentient dose of sci-fi samples and sleek sonics from a humble artist trying to make his own name, attendees appeared surprised by the chops and ambition displayed by Harrison and his band of brothers from other mothers. Even KCRW DJ and host Jason Bentley opened his intermission interview with an admission of surprise. (To his credit, he didn't ask about the Beatles once.)
However, Bentley did not attempt to geek out with the band over The Prisoner. And, as Harrison would probably agree, that's just criminal.
