Best of the Decade - The Top 10: #5

Menomena was one of the first bands to make it onto the hallowed pages of eLarceny. All of their music is made through the use of a computer program based around the collaborative process. Basically, each member records something into the computer and then passes the mic. Democracy at its best. After creating the songs in the computer they would then have figure out how to play them live, which could prove to be tricky considering how dense and intricate some of their songs can be.

Menomena's first album, The Fun Blame Monster, caught the attention of the indie rock press as much for the way it was recorded as for the loop-laden, noise filled pop songs. Their second album, Under An Hour, got even weirder - it consisted of three tracks, each in excess of fifteen minutes and was recorded as a soundtrack to some sort of interpretive dance project. Menomena's third album, 2007's Friend And Foe, sounded much more organic, compared to the first two records, as the band transitioned from using the computer to create loop-based songs to using it to produce conventional (in the loosest sense of the word) and structured material. The resulting songs are dark, lush, layered and beat-heavy taking the band's unorthodox pop aesthetic to a whole new level. Friend And Foe also has the best cover art I have every seen, as beautiful and intricate and noisy as the group's music, it features die-cut shapes that can be moved to change the cover in revealing way