Discovery: Antena

One of my dorky music-related hobbies is looking into the past to try to figure out where some of my favorite bands came from. I spend a lot of time browsing on allmusic.com and surfing Wikipedia or last.fm to try to piece the whole puzzle together. Every so often it pays dividends and I find something cool that I may not have ever heard otherwise.

In this case I stumbled across Antena, a band named for French singer/songwriter Isabel Antena. A couple of my favorite bands are Broadcast and Stereolab, who played sophisticated electronic pop with some experimental tendencies, and it’s easy to see Antena as an early influence on both of them. The most obvious comparison to Isabel Antena is Stereolab frontwoman Laetitia Sadier, who was also French and had an elegant way of singing, but she also reminds me of Broadcast’s Trish Keenan whose voice had similarly detached, airy qualities that hovered above the music.

Musically, Antena reminds me a lot of Young Marble Giants, whose album Colossal Youth was released around the same time the band formed. Their sound is similarly austere, with electronic synths and drum machine rhythms. What makes Antena sound different from all these other groups is that they infused samba rhythms into the music, giving them a more tropical, summery feel. It’s an interesting combination that I hadn’t really heard before and is part of what has gotten me instantly hooked on the band.

So far I’ve only listened to the band’s 1982 compilation Camino Del Sol, which comprises nearly all of their early music. It’s full of some really cool songs, but so far my favorite is the title track which shows off most of the band’s strengths. You can listen to that song below, or the full album on Spotify here. If you’re into this brand of sophisticated electro-pop, they’re definitely worth a listen.

Author: joshe24

I'm a wannabe writer aspiring to be an aspiring writer. View all posts by joshe24