Museum of Love combines synth, sadness on 'The Who's Who of Who Cares'

Like their DFA label mates, Museum of Love‘s Pat Mahoney and Dennis McNany make music that seems to come from an alternate universe where guitar-based rock ‘n’ roll died out in the late ’70s and was replaced by electronic musicians with analog gear and more delicately nuanced sensibilities who in the timeline we inhabit have been relegated to cult status. The first single from their brand new self-titled debut LP, the funky but vaguely bummed-out “The Who’s Who of Who Cares,” offers interlocking synthesizer patterns, an archly theatrical vocal melody, and plenty of horn and percussion embellishments.

Together, the combination sounds like a collaboration between Roxy Music, Arthur Russell, and the Salsoul Orchestra that was handed off to a Chicago house producer for remixing. For the video, Mahoney shows off the sculpting skills he developed in his pre-music career working for the toy industry to create a reproduction of McNany’s head which the then promptly destroys.