PINKER TONES THINK PINK
Eclectic Spanish Duo Heads For Warped Tour

April 19, 2008
AYALA BEN-YEHUDA

Like some sort of hipster virus, the Pinker Tones' poppy electronica
has spread from the duo's hometown of Barcelona via quietly aggressive
means: public radio love, TV synchs, worldwide gigs and, particularly,
the digital space.

Now with 43 dates ahead of it on this summer's Vans Warped tour, the
pair of Mister Furia and Professor Manso is well-positioned to build
on its stateside buzz with its newest release, "Wild Animals," due
digitally May 6 and in physical format June 3.

DJ/producer/multi-instrumental ists Furia (Salvador Rey) and Manso
(Alex Llovet) have their own PinkerLand Records imprint, via U.K.
label Outstanding Records, and license to labels around the
world—including Nacional in the United States and Mexico. In Spain,
the Pinker Tones have sold 45,000 copies of their albums, according to
Nacional, and have performed at clubs and festivals worldwide.

Nacional president Tomas Cookman sees the Warped tour—where the Pinker
Tones will play extended sets in the Skull Candy electronic tent and
show off their own branded Skull Candy DJ headphones—as an extended
opportunity "to be in people's faces" in markets large and small.

The Pinker Tones have played "Las Vegas, Red Square, the Great Wall of
China and everywhere in between," Cookman says. "They've taken a
global approach to their music, and it works well."

That approach translates to "Wild Animals," which has just one song in
Spanish. It's mostly in English but also features songs in German and
French, reflecting the international schools that the Pinker Tones
attended growing up.

"Wild Animals" has touches of the Beach Boys and Air, cut-and-pasted
with kitschy retro samples, Kraftwerk-like electronica, pop and funk.
There's even a track, "On Se Promenait," that Furia describes as
"Charles Aznavour meets the Beatles."

"Sometimes people forget . . . that there are musicians behind the
music, not only DJs," says Furia, whose band will play Barcelona's
international electronic festival, Sonar, in addition to Warped this
summer. "We have a DJ [Niño] with us, but we are a band. We are
musicians and we sing songs. That is also why we wanted to develop the
acoustic format, which is something people don't expect from a
so-called electronic band."

Warped tour founder Kevin Lyman, who invited the group on the road
after seeing it at South by Southwest last year, put it this way on
his blog last month: "Punk to me is stretching the limits, and this
act today stretches the limits in my mind, just like the Beastie Boys
did many years ago."

In the States, the Pinker Tones have sold just 4,000 copies of their
previous albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan, but have had their
music heard in many other places, among them HBO's "Entourage," ABC's
"Ugly Betty," videogames and taste-making radio show "Morning Becomes
Eclectic" on noncommercial KCRW Santa Monica, Calif.

That stateside exposure is thanks to Nacional, which aggressively
courts independent retail, college radio and music supervisors, the
last of which via its publishing venture with Nettwerk. Already, four
songs from "Wild Animals" are being used in an online campaign from
beer maker Pacifico.

With 43% of the Pinker Tones' 2006 studio album, "The Million Colour
Revolution," sold digitally in the States, according to Nielsen
SoundScan, feature placements on MySpace and Rhapsody are in the works
to take advantage of the group's online audience.

NACIONAL RECORDS !