Princeton

Los Angeles-based Princeton is releasing their debut record, Cocoon of Love, September 29th on Kanine Records. Growing up on Princeton Street in Santa Monica, twin brothers Jesse & Matt Kivel and childhood friend Ben Usen started playing together as a group in the late 90’s, but officially formed Princeton during a year long stay in London in 2005. With the addition of drummer David Kitz, the band first gained attention in 2008 with the conceptual four-song Bloomsbury EP, a breezy dance-pop confection about the imaginative group of British intellectuals. The band now lives in the Eagle Rock district of LA where their album was recorded. Among the many detrimental effects that love has on the mind, one of the more subtle is the way it litters the memory with a batch of misplaced associations - places, figures, products and (especially) music that, through chance, become invested with deep personal significance. This detritus of love is scattered all over Princeton's, Cocoon of Love, right down to its title, taken from a long-ago-cancelled children's show. Stacks of herbal tea, a glow-in-the-dark monument, paperback writers, the Wall Street Journal, a departing Mercedes, The Metamorphosis, video arcades, graffiti, and a cyclist on the Autobahn all figure prominently into Princeton's musical sketches. Fittingly for such a broad range of lyrical touchstones, the band's musical influences stretch just as wide, taking in everything from Something Else-era Kinks to Serge Gainsbourg, New Order, Arthur Russell, Scott Walker, Yo La Tengo and Gilberto Gil. While still rooted in the Baroque pop of their past work, Cocoon of Love sees the band explore new moods and styles, from the seductive, synth-driven Martina and Clive Krantz to the straight-up Stax-style soul of Show Some Love, When Your Man Gets Home.