1000 gecs

There are times—dozens, probably—during the course of the first album by the extremely online duo of LA-based Dylan Brady and Chicago’s Laura Les when you might feel inspired to stop and ask, why? It’s a fair question: Almost nothing about 1000 gecs feels made in the spirit of reason or good taste. If anything, the group’s sound—a post-"ringtone" Frankenstein of pop, trap, EDM, and dubstep—plays like an experiment in taking the pleasure of pop to absurd extremes, bashing together sounds with a millennial irreverence that will make them seem like visionaries to some and horsepeople of the apocalypse to others. No, the Eurodance of “xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_ÜXXx” probably won’t convince you of their intelligence, nor will “stupid horse,” a robotic ska-punk song about—well, guess. But they just might convince you of the integrity that lies in the pursuit of dumb fun, of making a space where guilty pleasures are just pleasures, where one can be earnest and goofy at the same time. Or, in the parlance of the band, 🙃.