One Hand Clapping Records
Flamingo Cigarette
The MADS twin of Stoned Flamingo — the kitchen inverted into a smoking section. Where the kitchen works in silence, the smoking section will not shut up, gorgeously, in whatever language the song demands. Seven aliases and no names, a multilingual retro-orchestral lounge that treats ridiculous subjects with the total seriousness of a string section in formalwear.
Multilingual retro-orchestral lounge crossed with crisp French indie-pop — nylon-string bossa, cocktail piano, one very human trombone, and an orchestra that arrives only when the song inhales deeply enough to need it.
The Matchbook
Seven albums in the arc, two of them lit. Each one is about something no reasonable orchestra would commission.
Seven Aliases, No Names
Nobody in the band has a name. They have aliases, printed on the matchbook — and the matchbook is the liner notes.
the Ember
The woman who sings. Owns the passport — whatever language the song demands is hers that night.
the Filter
The man who sings. The aside and the counter-line. He and the Ember alternate, and never sing together.
the Matchbook
Nylon-string bossa, surf twang, gypsy pompe, highlife filigree.
the Lighter
Cocktail piano, montuno, stride, chanson comping — and the click that opens every track.
the Chimney
The band’s most human horn.
the Ashtray
Congas, timbales, bongó, güiro, castanets, tabla, ravanne, cuíca — and the rim of whatever is nearest.
the Secondhand
The full orchestra, present only when the song inhales deeply enough to need it.
The Twin Law & the Lyric License
In one dimension there is a kitchen. You know the kitchen — Stoned Flamingo’s kitchen, the faceless collective folding genres into each other like butter into dough, never singing a word, because in that dimension the rule is that the food speaks for itself. In the dimension next door, the same building has no kitchen. It has a smoking section. Where the kitchen feeds you, the smoking section seduces you. Where Stoned Flamingo’s records smell of browned butter, Flamingo Cigarette’s smell of match sulfur and someone else’s perfume.
Two things make them what they are. The Lyric License is the one permitted crossover in the MADS catalog: Flamingo Cigarette may take a Stoned Flamingo instrumental and put words to it. The kitchen sends a dish through the wall; the smoking section tells you what it meant. A translation, not a graffito — and one direction only. No other bizarro pair is allowed this.
The Topic Law is the other. Their albums are about being on hold, the value menu at two in the morning, every kind of kiss. Each subject is ridiculous. Each is treated with total seriousness — because the joke, and the whole tenderness of the band, is that nothing is beneath the orchestra. A retired crayon deserves a torch song. And the Foley Law holds every track: a lighter clicks, the flame catches, someone exhales. Then the music starts.
Pull a Thread
Every band on the label is one room of the same house. A few doors out of this one:
The smoking section is open. Pull up a stool.
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