It is not that often that a band’s moniker gives any indication about the sound of the band, but Gothic Tropic just does this. The Los Angeles trio injects some sunny Africanized loud guitars into their psych pop, but it gets a lot more complicated than that.
Gothic Tropic was playing at Origami Vinyl for the release of their ‘Awesome Problems’ EP on vinyl via New Professor Music, and they seemed totally at ease up in the loft. Actually, the band may be new, but none of the three members is new on the LA scene, as frontgirl Cecilia Della Peruti, on vocals and guitar, was in the band Rumspringa, Daniel Denton, on bass, played for Never At Night and even early Metric, and Liv Marsico, on drums, also played for Cold War Kids, Hot Hot Heat and Stone Darling!
Their style was playful, wrapped by bright tropical rhythms mixed with distortion, cultivating a quite unique vibe, which was full of energy while taking dark and strange detours. Yes, when I say African or tropical, their music had nevertheless nothing to do with that of Vampire Weekend for example, rather their complicated and jolting songs were meandering around loops, were undulating with outbursts of punk energy and were growing into groovy extended jams.
Their bumpy music had drawn a large crowd at Origami Vinyl, and the trio was quite loud as their songs had often a moment when their unusual and shaky collages were wakened up by Della Peruti’s shrill guitar,… it was a strange marriage but it worked as some people had started dancing in the store, moving along Della Peruti’s distant vocals with an almost incantational nature,… but after all we almost were in a bizarre garage jungle.