Sep. 06, 2006 - Issue #568: Sex in the City

With Toy Singers, you get a dense sound that lingers

During a casual listen to local group Toy Singers, one might be struck by the density of their sound. For a group consisting of five people, Toy Singers manage to create Belle & Sebastian-esque tonal layers in their music. This ability would be a challenge, one would think, and also difficult to recreate live. Not so explains singer and guitarist Aaron Parker, who says the group’s sound stems from their unique collection of instruments.

“We have two keyboard players, which is unusual,” he says and mentions various percussion instruments and a trumpet along with a myriad of others. “I think that sound is mostly from the keyboards and having a bunch of different instruments instead of just guitar and bass.”

As far as recreating live what the band has set down on tape, Parker claims that it is very important to him that the band be able to do so.

“We have a lot of instruments onstage,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to have a studio project with stuff we couldn’t recreate live.” That being said, the studio is an exciting place for the band to be. Toy Singers record all their own stuff in their practice space, which gives them the ability to tinker at leisure, but also presents its own set of challenges.

“We record as quickly as we can,” Parker laughs, “so that we don’t get sick of the songs.”

Parker probably has the most opportunity to become sick of the songs because he functions as one of the group’s two primary songwriters (alongside keyboard/guitar player Mike Janzen). He admits that most of the songs that he writes are about relationships of the romantic variety, but insists this isn’t some boring LiveJournal-esque catharsis.

“I find the songs I like by other people that are about relationships have a certain amount of distance,” he says. “I try to change the perspective, keep some distance, be specific but still have a universal appeal. I try not to have my heart on my sleeve. V

Sat, Sep 9 (8 pm)
Toy Singers
With Amy Seeley, Nickelas Johnson
Powerplant, $8

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