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In a world of wonky tumblr-wave nonsense and no-talent bedroom synth acts, sometimes you need to pick up a guitar. Ayad Al Adhamy started Team Spirit in Brooklyn without much of a plan in mind: In his mid-twenties, he’d already logged time on the road with Passion Pit, and his indie label Black Bell Records was picking up steam. But his guitar was gathering dust.

Ayad needed a band, quickly, so he pulled in his old roommate Roman Tobias Pettigrew, who’d just returned from LA after leaving a real-life cult called The People’s Church of Animal Town (Google it, it’s for real).

The pair recruited Mike Addesso and Cosmo Kilburn DiGiulio, and by the time they played their first show the quartet already had a five-track EP of splashy, crunchy power-pop, plus a bizarre video for “F*ck The Beach,” put together by the fantastically talented Swedish animators Hannes and Johannes.

“When they sent me the treatment for the ‘F*ck The Beach’ video,” Ayad recalls, “Hannes and Johannes’ script started off with us entering a vagina and exiting through a penis. Obviously we told them to do whatever they wanted.”

The band began to make a name for itself, touring In October 2012, Team Spirit upped the ante and signed to VICE Records to release a five-song self-titled ten-inch. Inspired by Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, the band linked back up with Hannes and Johannes to produce a handful of animated videos to accompany each track on the record.

Team Spirit’ EP Tracklisting

01 Jesus He’s Alright!
02 MRDR It’s Ok
03 F*ck The Beach
04 Teenage Love
05 Phenomenon