Minka (aka Ari Rubin) has teamed up with Beard-o-Bees (aka Jesse Miller of Lotus and Octave Cat) for a collaborative EP, Paella, due out July 9. "I started seeing Minka shows weekly at a small club a few years ago," Jesse says. " The music pulled me in immediately when I heard influences of 80s minimal rock-n-roll like Television, Talking Heads and Prince. About a year later our bands did a show together and we joined forces to perform Depeche Mode's 'Policy of Truth,' which was a fitting start."
The first taste of the EP is "Out For Blood," a very catchy, danceable song in the vein of indie-synthpop stuff like Hot Chip and Cut Copy, and as Jesse explains, it "flips the script on a typical dance beat. It is built around a distorted synth bass and a funky Clavinet riff in groups of 6 beats instead of the usual 4."