Philadelphia Weekly

MUSIC

Critic’s Pick: Tobacco

By Bryan Bierman

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Apr. 17, 2012

Tobacco performs with Com Truise, Beacon + Selebrities.

As frontman for analog psychodelicates Black Moth Super Rainbow, Tom Fec knows some things about mucking around in ugliness, but his solo work as Tobacco takes an even darker turn. Throughout his warped releases, Fec takes the past’s low-culture trash that our generation seems to be obsessed with mocking, and sics it back upon us, finally getting its revenge. There are dance beats behind it, but when they’re dripping with such distorted discontent, the fun feels at least a little off—like a candy coating that’s been left out in the sun. Tobacco’s diablo-fi aesthetic doesn’t end with the music—the video for the 2010 single “Super Gum” features a Betamax-era porno where an alien that looks like a wretched E.T. knockoff lands on a farm in the 1800s, then proceeds to have sex with an Amish-looking family. It’s perhaps the most disturbing thing you’ll ever see, and that seems to be the intended reaction. Oddly enough, the music doesn’t sound out of place.

Wed., April 18. 8pm. $14-$15. With Com Truise, Beacon + Selebrities. First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St. 215.563.3980. r5productions.com