Dead Man’s Bones

Their influences include Disney’s Haunted Mansion, doo wop, and 60′s girl bands. Their first album released this past October on ANTI sounds like the dark blueprint for Karen O and the Kids Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack. Their CD has a heavy emphasis on their collaboration with the Silver Lake Conservatory Children’s Choir. Oh, and the front man happens to be actor Ryan Gosling.

Complemented by drummer Zach Shields, Gosling creates an original, haunting (some, though little, pun intended) sound that is as much lo-fi ambient Halloween time -esque music, as it is a fix only found in seeing them in a sultry, smoke stained club. After a listening sesh one hopes to walk outside and step straight onto the set of an 80′s horror classic a la Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street.

Maybe one of LA’s best buried secrets, Dead Man’s Bones are more than just another celebrity powered band that generates plays from star power. They have legitimate creative value and artistic merit and rank high with their predecessors like Coconut Records (Jason Schwartzman) and  She & Him (Zooey Deschanel). Gosling and Shields though, take a less public approach to their music and seem legitimately interested in the process involved rather than generating Myspace hits and CD sales, as a back up, back up in case the acting boat fails.

Listen here:Dead Man’s Bones on Myspace

(photos by Hama Sanders)

• The Sonorus