The Aislers Set

The Aislers Set occupy an enviable place in the pop pantheon. Brimming with drunken romanticism, sharp pop sensibilities and timeless melodies, The Aislers reveled in the history of great POP, spiking their classicist 60s-tinged tunes with pure post-punk energy and originality of bands like the Fire Engines and The June Brides. Every song is a meticulously constructed sound world, where the arrangement and instrumentation sublimely, uncannily bring each tune to completeness.

The Aislers Set began in 1998 as a vehicle for the songs of Linton, who had most recently co-led San Francisco's legendary Henry's Dress and drummed in Go Sailor with her pal Rose Melberg. With Henry's Dress she had helped guide the band from it's noise/drone beginnings to the explosive mod/punk fusion that made them such a force to be reckoned with. With The Aislers Set the original goal was just to write, record and document.

The result was the first Aislers Set album, 1998's Terrible Things Happen. Not content to merely (!) write some of the most sublime pop tunes this side of Ray Davies, Linton got busy in her garage studio and recorded and produced almost the whole record by herself. It's a remarkable feat, and a love for such producers as Phil Spector and Brian Wilson shines from each and every groove. This is no shameless 60's pastiche, though, with the echoes of classic pop past filtered through a totally 90's aesthetic. It's a beautiful, multi-layered record and a genuinely great achievement of home recording.

During the course of recording Terrible Things Happen, Linton was joined by some friends who became the full-band Aislers Set line-up: Alicia Vanden Heuvel on bass, Yoshi Nakamoto on drums, Wyatt Cusick on guitar and Jen Cohen on keyboards. The full band gives extra weight to tunes like "Long Division" and "Falling Buildings," and It's this fantastic line-up that toured the US and Japan in 1999 and cemented The Aislers Set's reputation as one of the world's top indie pop bands.