Jimmy Tamborello, known as Dntel to most, has been making music for more than a decade. In 2001, he had the indie world buzzing when he released Life Is Full Of Possibilities, making him one of the most notable figures in the turn-of-the-century glitch scene. Commercial success hit Tamborello as one half of the Postal Service, the other half being Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie. The sole Postal Service album, Give Up, is Sub Pop’s second best-selling record to date, and the “Such Great Heights” single was used on TV shows and covered by Iron & Wine, whose version in turn made it onto the Garden State soundtrack. Tamborello has worked with artists from Conor Oberst to Grizzly Bear, and he still engineers electronic music and hosts an internet radio show. On Dntel’s latest album, Aimlessness (Pampa), he dialed back the guest vocals, focused on instrumentals and made an ethereal, spaced-out electro album. Tamborello will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Tamborello: I’m not always into all this new “enhanced viewing” stuff that came with the introduction of Blu-ray and iPads. A lot of it just distracts you from the actual show/movie. The one exception I make is the TV recaps on Vulture.com (the entertainment blog from New York magazine). I got turned onto them when Paul F. Tompkins was writing the weekly recaps for American Idol. I didn’t see one episode of the actual show, but I ended up reading every entry of the recap; it was really funny. Then somehow I started watching Gossip Girl and discovered that Vulture covered that show as well. The Gossip Girl recap, written by Jessica Pressler, is an obsessive, humorous cataloging every detail of every episode, split up into what’s realistic vs. what’s unrealistic.
At this point, a TV show barely seems worth watching if there’s not a recap to read the next morning. I don’t work where there’s a water cooler, and I watch way more TV than most of my friends, so this is sometimes the only way to get my TV feelings off my chest. They’re also really helpful for more complicated shows where you might have missed little details (or giant plot developments). There’s even one show right now that I’m only still watching because the recap writer’s frustrations with the show are so fun to read and empathize with.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57JDFlMz02o
