Fol Chen

Fol Chen
Fol Chen at the Granada Theater in 2010.
Background information
Origin	Los Angeles, California, United States
Genres	Electronic, experimental
Years active	2009 - present
Labels	Asthmatic Kitty Records
Website	cargocollective.com/folchen
Members	Adam Samuel Goldman (credited as Samuel Bing) The Booksman Garrett Henritz Sinosa Loa Patrik-Ian Polk

Fol Chen is an American electronic band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 2009. The band is signed to Asthmatic Kitty Records and has released three full-length albums.

The band "maintained utmost secrecy from the start", working under aliases and disguising their faces during recorded shows, including KCRW radio's Morning Becomes Eclectic program and the 2009 South by Southwest festival.

The cover art for their first album, Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made, release in 2009, features silhouettes, and music videos replace band members with actors and animation, such as the video of the song "No Wedding Cake" where band members appear as animals.

In 2010, the band released Part II: The New December, described by the Los Angeles Times as "screwball pastiche pop [that] sounds like an algebra problem but feels like a come-on." Sinosa Loa joined the group at this time as keyboardist and vocalist, although the band favored group vocals and shared lead duties among most members. They toured throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe with other American bands, including Liars, !!!, and The Apples in Stereo.

The band's third album was released March 19, 2013, on the Asthmatic Kitty label. The music is in a style the band calls "Opera-House", which they describe as "beat-driven electronica with grand, operatic gestures and lyrically-dense storytelling." In a departure from their previous use of multiple lead singers, Loa performs all ten tracks.

During a month-long residency at The Echo nightclub in Los Angeles, the band featured different shows each night – one show invited guest singers found via Craigslist to perform with the band as a sort of live karaoke; another night saw metal band Viscera playing exclusively Fol Chen covers.