Before a week ago, I only distinguished White Williams as the guy who was touring for a while with Girl Talk / Dan Deacon. One would assume that his sound would naturally be along the same lines as those two artists, right? After listening to a few tracks off his upcoming debut Smoke, due out November 6, I was proved to be very much wrong in that assessment. The only similarity between them is the fact that each uses a laptop. That’s pretty much it. White Williams (real name Joe Williams) has his own brand of new wave-ish sound that blends the usual samples, synthesizers and drum machines – but also uses real fucking instruments like guitars and bass that can be heard prominently throughout each song.
After digging around some more, I found out that Joe actually has a long standing history with Girl Talk (Greg Gillis). According to his bio, well, actually we’ll just let you read the damn thing:
Williams’ first electronic music project was called So Red — it was part of a tiny scene of Greg Gillis (Girl Talk), Andrew Strasser, Frank Musarra (Hearts of Darknesses) and Luke Venezia (Drop the Lime). Together they played and booked shows and parties. After two tours with Girl Talk when Williams solo project started coming into its own, Williams started gravitating toward pop music. He wanted to learn about the studio situations of his favorite albums of the 70’s and 80’s and was fascinated by the idea of re-contextualizing how music could be made with the tools given.
I think he just wrapped up his tour with Girl Talk / Dan Deacon, but will be back on the road on November 7 with Battles. His debut Smoke, bad cover art included, will be released Nov. 6 via TigerBeat6.
myspace | website
“The Shadow” | White Williams
“Violator” | White Williams
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