Avi Buffalo :: "What's It In For?"

My first real challenge at my first real job out of college was teaching fourth graders how to tell the difference between declarative and interrogative statements. On the surface, for native English speakers, this is not difficult. These students were not native English speakers. But eventually, something clicked; it sort of made sense. It was one of the few successes in a year that I filed somewhere between "flaming disaster" and "moral victory."

Of course, learning how to ask a question accounts nothing for slang. This is where things break down. For instance, "what's up?" or "what's good?" or "how's it hangin'?" are all effective in practice but, when taken literally, are confusing as hell. Language is a wonderfully organized city, but Slang is a talented graffiti artist with no job and a healthy issue with authority. Whatever the structure, we decorate it for better and worse.

So Los Angeles' Avi Buffalo can be excused for their mournful epic, "What's It In For?" and its mild nonsense. Sitting somewhere between first album Shins and last EP Fleet Foxes, Avi Buffalo have something a little crunchy, a little glistening and completely infectious. But that's just the frame. You fill in the rest.

Listen :: Avi Buffalo - "What's It In For?"