Food Pyramid: Mango Sunrise Review

Like a shark, Food Pyramid needs to consistently move and evolve. On each of their excellent Moon Glyph tape trilogy, they wove new colors and textures into their electronic tapestry—from zoned out sax solos to exploratory house music (and this ignores their celestial new age CD). With these outstanding releases as building blocks, their first full-length LP, Mango Sunrise, continues the forward-moving and –thinking trend—and might be the most fully realized document the band has produced.

The nine songs on Mango Sunrise show the band’s willingness to both expand and look within. Starting with the electric waves of the title track, the album is bursting with energy and leaves no stone unturned. Ranging from the mysterious groove of “The Thief” to the euphoric, almost-Primal-Scream acid house of “Oh Mercy,” the band stretch their sound in divergent and interest directions. The rumbling, dubbed-out bass of “Burger Night” and the fuzzy bounce of “I Know What I Saw” shows the band’s playful side. But they’re also tight, experimental, and never afraid of a melody or a groove.

Mostly forgoing the long and meandering tracks that have been present on their previous releases (only two of the nine tracks are over 5:30-long), the band seem content and confident. The music is “experimental” enough to get nerds like me on board, but the lush tracks on Mango Sunrise seem ripe (pun intended) for a larger audience. Echoing the best of their tape trilogy and outside releases, the group seems to have taken the logical next step with their evolving sound and created the best new local release this year.

Buy the record from Moon Glyph.

—Josh