fluxblog.org – 11/27/06
“Velella Velella was pitched to me by my friend as an “indie Funkadelic,” but that’s not quite right—their slick grooves actually sound more like a live band hell bent on simulating the polyglot funk compositions of artists such as DJ Shadow, Luke Vibert, Daft Punk, and Prefuse 73. “Brass Ass” leans heavily on the after-midnight mood of DJ Shadow’s Entroducing, but as with all of the tracks on Velella Vellela’s MySpace page, it’s not so much a direct homage as much as the product of musicians who very likely came to funk indirectly via sample-based music, which is the case for a vast majority of people under the age of 30. Rather than get hung up on untangling the knot of infinite quotation and recycling of their genre in the post-sampling age, the band embrace impurity to tap into something deep by proxy. The vocals can be a bit candy-assed, but thankfully they err on the side of the extremely white soul of Phoenix more often than they drift into the imperialistic tweeness of the Go Team.”

Minneapolis City Pages – 10/28/06 >
Between the dive-bar disco of !!! and Wham!’s falsetto “Everything She Wants,” you’ll find plenty of wiggle room for Velella Velella’s subtle (but no less exclamatory) funk-pop. The Seattle band—whose name is a species of jellyfish—come to town in support of Bay of Biscay, a self-released record full of compositions built on non-sequitur shout-outs (“You’re your hands!” “Move your feet!”) and a swathe of dreamy flute, vibraphone, and guitar. When synthesized, it all qualifies for a Dust Brothers remix. It’s a sound that’s as iridescent as a jellyfish, with just as much sting. —Kate Silver”