Introducing // Givers

Amidst all the sorrowful singers and the self-indulgence of listening to music solo and alone, it’s quite easy to forgot that at the base of it all music is a hobby; primarily for fun and enjoyment. Givers, an indie quintet from Lafayette, Louisiana, are one band that completely radiate enjoyment and fun; not only for fans through their highly-stimulated shows, not only for themselves (“developing a friendship was more important at the beginning than developing the music”), but also for those around them.

The city of Lafayette clearly has had a great impact on the band. The members, all still in their early-20s, moved back home from New Orleans to be with loved ones in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and their Southern hometown continues to penetrate them strongly. Cajun dance, Afrobeat, jazz, funk, country and soul are all grabbed at from the band’s upbringing and surrounding culture, fused to form something that would sit in between Vampire Weekend and The Dirty Projectors and yet still remaining no less organic. “Because of the heat in the South, people take their time in their day-to-day affairs”, says lead singer/guitarist Taylor Guarisco. “Being from the South, we have all learned how to slow down and appreciate life as it is here now–something that in most parts of the world is totally lost.” But if the Louisiana way of living is lost elsewhere then the sense of slowing things down has also been lost in their music.

Givers may enjoy things in the moment but their sound is not like that of idle Sundays sitting on the front porch, it is fleeting and entirely unrelenting. Meet the band in this beautifully shot mini-documentary below.

http://vimeo.com/26068134