Ears with Eyes

Ears with Eyes doesn’t need a gimmick, but it’s probably a good thing it has one. Self-described as “electro-punk performance art,” this duo pumps out sophisticated pop that takes the piss out of modern society. It’s too good to be a lark, too funny to be self-serious. In the spirit of Andy Kaufman (one of their stated influences), Ears with Eyes keeps the audience guessing as to who’s in on the joke and who is the joke.

 

These songs wiggle and twist their way between multiple genres, from the sax-drenched schmaltz of “Throw it All Away” to the hard-hitting electro of “Forever Outta Pocket” to the mod-punk of “State Trooper” to the hyper-pop of “Reminders.” The music is punk in ethos more than the tropes it employs — there are few distorted power chords, yet angry dissolution is evident in project’s motivation. 

 

Much like the 90s film Office Space, Ears with Eyes uses the persona of a disassociated office drone to reveal the insanity of societal norms. Using conference calls, deliverables, and roll calls as touchstones, Ears With Eyes wants to snap you out of the imposed dream of efficient productivity and wake you to the reality of actual existence. “Just look around and shit,” as the narrator states at one point. What’s more art than that? What’s more punk that that?

 

While structures, progressions, and instrumentation provide the foundation for these tracks, the real balance here is between the consistently stellar production and the varyingly evocative vocals. Some lyrics are delivered with disarming authenticity, some with a distanced snarl, some with a cagey spoken word, some with a just-out-of-bed languor. However they come at you, they’re precisely attuned to the song’s needs, and each song fathers the overall impact of the album as a whole.

 

Influences abound, and certain parts of certain songs bring to mind specific genres or bands, but taken together this music is its own blend of sound and technique that explodes expectations. There are so many strange sounds and musical left turns that this shouldn’t work. With this amount of skill and clarity of vision, however, the project isn’t just cohesive — it’s an accomplishment, whether Ears with Eyes would ever admit it or not.