Foxygen’s Kevin Basko & Star Moles team upwith lo-fi duo Hot Machine, shares “The Lizard”
Foxygen’s Kevin Basko and Star Moles’ Emily Moales join forces as Hot Machine, sharing 70s-inspired single “The Lizard”
Kevin Basko of Foxygen and Jackie Cohen teams up with Star Moles’ Emily Moales to share their tape-recorded 70s-inspired debut album as Hot Machine with Hot Lizard (Historic New Jersey Recordings, 10/19).
Kevin Basko has worn many hats before. As a live member of Foxygen from the …And Star Power and Hang era as well as accompanying Jackie Cohen, the Berklee College of Music graduate has dove deeper into his own recording studio venture over the years and, now, he began a record label too. As one of the first releases of his new label, Historic New Jersey Recordings (the same name of his studio), he’s brought on his longtime friend and close collaborator, Emily Moales of Star Moles, to debut their homebrewed lo-fi funk called Hot Machine.
The duo is releasing their debut album Hot Lizard next week on Thursday, October 19. Hot Lizard is a loose concept album revolving around a virtual band of humanoid creatures in a dystopian swamp world. The band aimed to make alternative dance music outside of the computer, combining Moales’ ability to blend in like a chameleon on vocals and songwriting with Basko’s expertise in analog and tape recording as a studio owner and with his years of releasing music as the retro-pop project Rubber Band Gun.
Sharing the off-kilter, 70s-inspired single “The Lizard,” Basko said this last single off of the upcoming debut album is their attempt to “reptilify” the period’s soft rock sound.
You can listen to the single here on Spotify, here on Apple, and here on YouTube with a visualizer. You can find the advance album stream here via this link.
Basko continued, “‘The Lizard’ is musically inspired by late-70s soft rock and is our attempt at futurizing and reptilifying that sound. Lyrically, we were building this character of the Lizard, who features as the protagonist of the album’s quasi-narrative. We imagined him as the hotshot singer of a hotel band, and this song captures his signature strut.”
The duo began releasing a few of their minimalist, post-punk songs in 2019 on Bandcamp. Since then, they’ve expanded their sound with Hot Lizard, and they’re currently working on a follow-up record that will deviate into different sounds as well.
Using mainly multitrack tape, the band found inspiration in trying to push the boundaries of older recording equipment into the 2020’s. The record combines sounds of post-punk, 70s rock, dub, disco, and world music to create a singular style of American art-pop. They’re kind of like a lo-fi, all-analog Gorillaz, but channeling more of the likes of Talking Heads or Scary Monsters-era Bowie along with the overall retro and off-kilter execution like their friends in Foxygen or The Lemon Twigs.
Basko and Moales said the record was helped brought to life by the gritty hand-drawn animations of Jake Elijah. You can see some of the animations by Jake Elijah here with the new music video for the single “Angelina.”
Under his studio name, Basko has worked with The Lemon Twigs, several Earth Libraries‘ releases (Jake Elijah, Essential Forever and Pansy), and more. As Rubber Band Gun, he’s previously released his music off of labels like Winspear and Earth Libraries, and he shares most of it on Bandcamp.
Hot Machine will be sharing their debut album Hot Lizard on 10/19 as one of the very first releases of Historical New Jersey Recordings. You can listen to the upcoming album advance here this link.
Biography:
Hot Machine is a duo formed by Kevin Basko (aka Rubber Band Gun) and Emily Moales (aka Star Moles). What started as a side project to their respective main recording acts in 2019 has grown into a band with its own vibrant identity and bold sound.
Based in Philadelphia, the duo combines elements of post-punk, 70s rock, dub, disco, and world music to build high concept art-pop albums. Led by Basko’s experiments in analog and tape recording and Moales’ chameleon-like vocals and songwriting, their 2023 album Hot Lizard is the duo’s most exciting collaboration yet.
Brought to life by the gritty hand-drawn animations of Jake Elijah, Hot Lizard exudes dance-heavy tropic sleaze through a cast of peculiar characters in a dystopian swampland setting. This album is released through the new label that bears Basko’s studio’s name, Historic New Jersey Recordings.