College Times

Issue date: 3/27/08 Section: Music

Media Credit: Allentown Morning Call

Sam Simkoff, the alpha male of D.C.-based indie-pop collective Le Loup, almost snorts when asked about the most accessible song his band has recorded, "We Are Gods! We Are Wolves!"

"It's one of my least favorite musically," says the 23-year-old experimentalist somewhat dismissively of the tantalizing patchwork of percolating synth beats, hand claps and breathy vocals. "It's built around a very easy pop-chord progression."

However, Simkoff almost salivates when the talk turns to the message behind the music, which is replete with Old Testament references, including the near-death experience inflicted by Abraham on his son Isaac and airy choruses that ask, "Have you ever loved enough to destroy?" then counsel, "Give your soul to us, give your heart to us."

"This is told from the viewpoint of a pack of wolves who after a destructive storm mock the values we expound in the Old Testament and religion in general, and how religion can be used," explains Simkoff, who is riding in a van headed from Austin to Atlanta.

"It's about nature versus the man-made, which is one of the themes of the album. Most of (the song) is tongue-in-cheek, but if this were another age, I'd be burned at the stake for it," he adds with a laugh leavened by pride.

Simkoff's art may be idiosyncratic, but therein lies its allure. He recorded Le Loup's first CD, "The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly," on his home computer during the latter half of 2006. The disc's name was appropriated from a 9-foot-high work built from trash over 14 years by Washington, D.C., janitor/outsider artist James Hampton, which is now housed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Some of Simkoff's lyrics are inspired by Dante's "Inferno" - "I was supposed to read it in high school but neglected it because I was lazy," he says. "Days after I graduated from college, I picked up a copy. I wanted to challenge myself."

And Le Loup's music is dominated by the plinks and plunks of Simkoff's banjo and vaporous vocals as well as his band mates' layered guitars, unearthly synth rumblings and spare-but-supple rhythms.

Simkoff's choice of the banjo as a main instrument was serendipitous. "The banjo was given to me as a gift two months before I started recording," he notes. "And though I am extremely limited in my ability to play, those limitations came out in very different, interesting ways. I would play a simple part, and then overdub another simple part. My technical limitations created part of (the CD's) sound."

Continued...

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