I’m late getting the Saturday Morning Music Review off the ground today, because I had to change my plans halfway through. I was going to review Mumford & Sons’ latest LP, Babel, but two things happened. First, I recommended Mumford & Sons to a coworker, and he said it was good, but it was too “earthy”. Okay, that’s cool, earthy isn’t for everyone, but my last SMMR was about as earthy as it gets, and I wanted to change it up. Second, I listened to a couple tracks from Ch!nch!lla, and then I listened to everything else up on their website. Except for trying to type their name, I am really impressed.

Ch!nch!lla is a really weird mix of sounds. Weird in a good way, though. You can hear a lot of influences in their work, and the further you get through the eight tracks, the more you will hear.

They describe themselves as an “electronic/funk jam band”, and there is a lot of electronica-funk present (think The Gorillaz), but there is so much more here as well. There are tons of heavy and heavily distorted beats, with mellow, reverby vocals layered on top, but if you told me that this was a side project from Flea and John Frusciante, I wouldn’t even question it, because there are bass and guitar lines that sound like they were picked out of the dead space between By The Way and Stadium Arcadium.

I can’t really pin a genre on Ch!nch!lla. Maybe stoner music. I am guessing that they will get a popularity boost in Washington and Colorado. There is a little bit of dubstep happening, a little bit of the ambient, spacey sounds of Julian Neto, a lot of Ross Geller’s Casio, some of the incoherent lovability of Modest Mouse, the clever, hooky lovability of HelloGoodbye, and the infectious, poppy lovability of The Postal Service.

The industry of audio gear and the power of modern computers makes it easy for nearly anyone to start creating electronic music. It has given rise to a more electronic sound in pop music, and has given rise to a huge subculture of electronica that ignores the concept of listenability in its “music”. Ch!nch!lla manages to distort real instruments and use 8-bit synthesizers with more musicianship than most artists of today, electronic or otherwise. The eight songs on their site cover a huge spectrum of sounds, but still sound cohesive. I can’t wait for them to record a full album.

Together, I give Ch!nch!lla’s self-titled EP and their new EP, Providence, four heavily clipped beats out of five.

Ch!nch!lla is distributing both of their EPs via The Promo Bay, and you can support the band by purchasing their new EP, Providence, on iTunes, or a t-shirt.