Princeton is a Los Angeles-based trio that are releasing their second recording, the Bloomsbury EP, this summer. The group lives in an aging green house on a hillside in the Eagle Rock district of LA where they hermetically pieced together the songs for Bloomsbury.
Each composition on the EP is lyrically focused upon a member of the influential Bloomsbury intellectual collective that existed in London during the early 20th century. Lyrical portraits of Leonard Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf and John Maynard Keynes are each presented in a different musical framework with lush orchestral arrangements that draw from a collage of influences — Serge Gainsbourg's Gainsbourg Percussions, The Kinks' Something Else, Jorge Ben's Forca Bruta and Jean Claude Vannier's L'enfant La Mouche Et Les Allumettes to name a few. The record was mixed by Pete Weiss (Moe Tucker, Lee Ranaldo, Aimee Mann) and mastered by Jeff Lipton (The Magnetic Fields, Spoon, Jeff Tweedy/Wilco).
The band is comprised of twin brothers Jesse (Vocals, Guitar, Ukulele, Drums, Keyboards) and Matt Kivel (Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Keyboards), and Ben Usen (Piano, Harpsichord, Organ, Fender Rhodes). The Kivels met Ben at the age of five while attending elementary school in Los Angeles. Six years later they formed a tentative musical partnership after watching the 1996 Tom Hanks film "That Thing You Do!" A wide array of home recordings, live concerts and music video projects would follow with a constantly shifting cast of local collaborators.
Princeton was officially formed in 2005, during a year long academic stay in London that found the three young men reunited for the first time since parting ways for college. Due to the steep costs of shipping their instruments overseas, the group was forced to perform live with a very limited musical setup, but the often-harrowing conditions of their London shows forced them to mature and develop into a finely tuned live act. Each member reacted differently to the change in culture: Jesse found Virginia Woolf, Matt discovered John Cale's Paris 1919, while Ben pursued a short lived career in international finance. Despite their sparse musical resources, the band recorded and self-released a limited edition mini album entitled A Case of the Emperor's Clothes, which received high praise from a number of outlets including The Tripwire and My Old Kentucky Blog.
Graduation from college and a move back to Los Angeles in the summer of 2007 allowed Princeton to resume recording and performing full time.
Recently, Princeton has provided live support for The Fiery Furnaces, The Ruby Suns, Au Revoir Simone, Vampire Weekend, The Little Ones, Saturday Looks Good to Me, Le Loup, Ra Ra Riot, My Brightest Diamond, Grand Ole' Party, Joan As Policewoman, Cryptacize and many others.
This is Princeton.
MERCHANDISE:
DIGITAL:
itunes
amazon
PHYSICAL:
A Case of the Emperor's Clothes 500 CD-R (Out of Print)
buy digital copy here!!!
oh my goodness... i am so glad that yall asked to be my friend...not that im lonely or anything....just that your music is the best thing that has touched my ears :D
Hey. Saw you guys last night at Silverlake Lounge and it was great. Thank you for signing my "A Case of the Emperor's Clothes" EP! Maybe next time Ben can sign it too. Congrats on your residency and keep up the good work!
Had a great time and it was a pleasure meeting you guys. More pics are in my album, but here's the ones w/the group. Take care and keep in touch! -Bianca
Playing a show with you guys was dreamy. It's a shame you weren't there to jump off the pier or eat zucchini muffins, but maybe we can do those things when we're both back in Los Angeles. love, Sara (and Kevin)
luff the tuneage!... simply rad... I've actally been listening non-stop since a few days ago, all thanks to the nogoodforme.com interview!... thanks to those wise & fine ladies i've discovered that good music is still alive.... keep it up!...
hi dudes, im sooooooo happy for you!! i saw you play live once by chance at a lil ol place in long beach before you moved to la and i knew then that you held magic! thanks for making rad music!!
thanks for accepting, I realy like your songs and hope you come here someday, summer every day, and all that stuff people use to think about Brazil... and many important things besides it...
New tracks sound great -- wish we could have gone up the coast with you but, well, stuff happened. I'm having my first practice with my new project next week. If all goes well, I'd love to play a show in '08 sometime. Nice work.
hey! i wanna see you guys at pomona with ra ra riot. i think it'll be a good show, but when i click on it, there's no detail or anything about where or how to get tickets and the name of the place. i mean, isn't pomona a city?
