Fridays always hold a special place in people’s hearts. It’s the gateway to brief freedom to do the things the weekday grind won’t allow you to pursue (e.g. getting drunk, getting high, getting laid, or any other fun exploits). For Alberto Hernandez and Sean Moore, Fridays meant music. They’d leave their 9 to 5s and meet up at Moore’s mom’s house and make sounds together, creativity born out of this sacred day. So why not title your passion project Viernes?
Through Viernes, the two fellas from Florida have concocted an experimental/ambient outlet to engage their post-work ambitions. Hernandez, a highly Americanized boricua, works at a dental lab (“We make teeth,” he tells us). Moore, “a white boy,” is an orchestra director at a school. What they’ve created together is Sinister Devices, a 12-track astro-cloud of pianos and harmonies and loops, morphing Hernandez’s Latin roots with a more abstract sonic form. Hernandez copped his father’s old cuatro, plugged it into his pedals one day and dug the noise emanating from it. Now it’s a key staple in the duo’s style, lending them a more subtle strum than a regular guitar.
All the songs on their debut Sinister Devices, which was their intended band moniker from the get-go until Hernandez’s wife suggested Viernes, have a somewhat hollow mood to them. In “Sinister Love,” their voices chime like a disenchanted choir, while the piano runs manically.
It’ll be interesting to see how these self-proclaimed “settled-down cats” translate their highly-tweaked recordings on stage when they hit up New York next week for six shows in three days (see below for schedule). For now you can enjoy some Viernes vids (the Animal Collective-style jammer “Swimmer’s Ear,” which looks like a Windows Media Player visualizer app) and download the haunting “Sinister Love” GRATIS below.
Download Sinister Devices at 
Viernes “Swimmer’s Ear” by Nathan Schroeder
SCHEDULE
June 24th, 8pm Union Hall – Park Slope, Brooklyn
June 25th, 8pm Northside Festival – Williamsburg, Brooklyn
June 26th
12pm – Newtown Radio
4pm – Coop 87/Mexican Summer
7pm – Northside Festival/RSTB Party
11:30pm – Pianos
photo by Wheat Wurtzburger