Star FK Radium – call it ‘chamber rock’?

December 17, 2008

Or alterna-world-beat-classical? It’s tough to typecast Star FK Radium, the arty new pop acoustic instrumental band garnering a cult following in Washington DC.  Claiming influences from Hendrix to Radiohead, the trio explores undiscovered territory. Star FK Radium, whose name plays on the Mid-Atlantic venue RFK Stadium, merges guitar picking and strumming with violin and percussion. The acoustic guitar, usually a much more delicate instrument than its electric cousin, gets banged out at times, hard-rock style.  Star FK Radum’s tour through instrumental-land drives through tempo and mood changes, often with multiple complementary melodies per song. The band will also at times redundantly repeat a musical theme into a drone, only to launch a satisfying harmonic change, as in “Blue Siberia” (found on the MySpace page.) The fact that it’s all instrumental makes it even more unusual. Star FK Radium’s principle Bill Martien has been tapped to record his single “Travel” on a of Stone Temple Pilots tribute recording due out summer 2009. 

–Patrick Skelley