British multi-intrumentalist Tom Vek seems to have a knack for showing up at the right time. He released his debut album We Have Sound in 2005, successfully latching on to a growing trend in darkly rhythmic and twitchy post-punk. After that album came out, Vek laid low for a while, quietly guest-appearing on The OC and contributing music to the Grand Theft Auto IV soundtrack in the meantime. Vek’s sophomore album Leisure Seizure did not come out until 2011, six years after the release of We Have Sound. A six year gap between first and second albums is usually a sufficiently long time frame for an artist to completely fall off. Yet, somehow it worked out in Vek’s favor as the music industry was once again in need of his particular brand of efficient rhythm. Now, Vek has returned again, this time teaming up with Olga Bell of Dirty Projectors to form Nothankyou. Fittingly, Nothankyou‘s debut single “Oyster” also seems to have come at the right time, further expanding upon the experimental pop tendencies of Bell’s other group, with the addition of undeniably crisp rhythms that have come to be expected from Vek. “Oyster” will be released as a 7″ on August 5, with a B-side track called “Know Yourself.”
