Honestly, these HOTT MT kids were plain weird, trying to be too weird or having a genuine taste for weirdness? I can’t tell but they performed at the Echoplex on Thursday night in front of a very enthusiastic crowd. Since their cross country trip (a 22-hour drive!) to stalk Wayne Coyne, give him their last record and persuade him to record a song with them, they have put their name on the Pitchfork-Spin-Rolling-Stone map, so this was obviously a bold but very good move! Coyne tweeted ‘Some weirdos showed up on my porch … They drove all the way from LA to bring me a birthday gift!!’ but far from freaking out – something inconceivable for the Flaming Lips’ frontman – he collaborated on their track ‘Never Hate Again’ and even appeared during the band’s last appearance at SXSW last March. Also, HOTT MT are featured on the leading track of The Flaming Lips' last album, 'The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends', meaning that everything seems to work their way, Lips-wise.
HOTT MT was playing the Red Bull Sound Select, a series curated by Filter magazine, and they gave us one of their strange performances. Ashi Dala, the female singer appeared wrapped in a sleeping bag, which she threw away on the crowd at the first song. Rainbow messy hair, daft punk t-shirt, thrift-shop funky clothes and funky beats, they were very colorful and made music heavy on synth, electronic, noise and distortion with the theatrical presence of their purple-hair singer, who was screaming, doing lots of arm gestures or even rolling her back on the ground. I understood why Coyne found them interesting, they looked out-of-space-weirdos enough and certainly eccentric and experimental enough.
Their set was entertaining and surprising, going slowly then fast, sprinkled with happy bouncy-dance-y beats, giving a sort of exotic vibe in the mix – hey, they describe their music as Thai Gaze, whatever this means – and a lot of talking and finger pointing from the frontgirl who looked like a cross between a cute cartoon character and Karen O. She had a whole adventure on stage, although I am not sure I followed every detail of it. Gothic Tropic’s Cecilia Della Peruti joined her on stage for a duo on a song, but next time,… bring up Wayne! I know that a 22-hour drive is kind of long, but the power of Hour of the Time Majesty Twelve (this is actually what their acronym means!) seem to be unlimited in this area.