Singer/bassist Guylaine Vivarat (aka Lola G.) sings in her native French throughout DTCV’s latest full-length album, Confusion Moderne, a decision that lends an extra layer of mystery to a band whose origins and rapid evolution have already been sources of curiosity.
The chiming guitars and shifting tempos of the album’s 10 songs channel any number of ’80s Post Punk staples, touchstones about which the band is kind of touchy —Vivarat’s partner in crime is singer/guitarist Jim Greer, a Rock critic-turned-novelist who doesn’t suffer fools lightly, and whose onetime membership in Guided by Voices and relatively brief marriage to Kim Deal are often brought up when discussing DTCV, almost always in ways he finds irritating.
Yet can it be a coincidence that Vivarat’s Deal-esque voice provides a pleasing counterpoint to DTCV’s noisy, fuzzed-out guitar swirls? Greer’s history can’t help but inform listeners’ response to DTCV, just as the band’s affiliation with Garage Pop label Burger Records tells us a lot about the duo’s intentions as lovers of simple, catchy, well-crafted songs.
“Unlike Jim, I haven’t been in bands all my life, although I did play the piano when I was little,” Vivarat told The Hoya last year about DTCV’s formation some five years ago. “I come from a village in the Alps and moved to Los Angeles after my Californian roommates in Spain told me it was the perfect city for me. I played in a couple bands before DTCV, but wanted to have my own. Jim agreed to play a show while drunk one night in Chicago, then realized he didn’t have a band. I was starting a band, he had a show; it was a perfect match.”
That rather uncomplicated origin story tells you a lot about DTCV’s reason for being, an unfolding union that’s both purposeful and offhand.
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This article appears in Apr 6-13, 2016.
