Toronto trio Absolutely Free were not on my radar before I caught them playing last month with fellow canucks Alvvays at the Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta.
Absolutely Free formed after the breakup of MM/DD/YYYY by core members, Matt King, Moshe Rozenberg, and Mike Claxton in 2011. The trio trickled out a couple of singles over the past few years and has recently released their self-titled full-length debut on Lefse Records in the U.S. and through the Arts and Crafts label in Canada.
I've never been a huge fan of prog, math-rock, or most electronic music but there is something in the way that Absolutely Free approaches their songs that really has me mesmerized. There's an abstract approach that you would expect from a band like this but the African polyrhythms mixed with nicely grounded pop sensibilities is what really sets the hooks in.
