Tag: Indie

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Secret Machines “Ten silver drops”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Secret Machines
Album Title: Ten silver drops
Year released: 2006
Year reissued: 2019
Details: gatefold, 2 x 180 gram, expanded deluxe, limited to 1227 copies, numbered 970

The skinny: Last week, I posted about “Now here is nowhere“, the very excellent debut album by Secret Machines, and the pressing by Run Out Groove vinyl that I couldn’t help but purchase for my collection when it was announced. As I mentioned there, Run Out Groove is a label that solicits votes from music fans on its website for three options each month and the potential reissue with the most votes gets a limited run based on the amount of advanced orders. Well, Secret Machines’ fans must be a rabid bunch because Run Out Groove has already done three pressings from the band in the label’s short history: the aforementioned debut, a rare live record, and this sophomore record, “Ten silver drops”. I’ve read the complaints about the low volume levels on the mastering for this pressing but that doesn’t bother me at all. It just needs to be cranked and it sounds amazing. And yeah, “Ten silver drops” is an album that demands to be cranked.

Standout track: “Lightning blue eyes”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2012: #23 Miike Snow “The wave”

<< #24    |    #22 >>

It was the music video for this song that first caught my attention. It was just so weird.

This was back during that brief period where I managed to catch music videos again on television. I had discovered AUX TV on cable and figured out that they often played some great music videos early in the AM, right around the time I was making and enjoying my morning coffee. I was only half watching it the first time and was quite confused about the svelte, large-nosed, half-naked man with a jet black pageboy and what he had to do with an apparent catastrophe that mortally injured a number of children, and how he managed to get the investigating police officers to dance. Then, I caught the video again a few days later, stopped what I was doing to watch, and it still didn’t make much more sense. Though I did find myself really enjoying the tune.

And based upon on this track, I sought out the album, “Happy to you”, the second by indie dance pop trio, Miike Snow, and began searching out their other videos on YouTube. As it turned out, the video for “The wave” was a continuation of the video for “Paddling out”, the previous single released from the album. Watching the two videos back to back, both directed by Andreas Nilsson, things started to make sense, but really only by a little bit. I learned from “Paddling out” that the ‘catastrophe’ was the result of the crash landing of a space ship piloted by psychotic twin girls who go around kidnapping innocents and transforming them in “perfect” beings, of which the large nosed man was one.

Right. Let’s not thinking too much on it.

“The wave” is my favourite tune from “Happy to you” but it is by no means the only great track on it. Miike Snow, made up of Swedish producers Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg (who also operate as Bloodshy and Avant) and American vocalist/songwriter, Andrew Wyatt, create super danceable indie pop, very much in the same vein as Peter Bjorn and John. It’s all very catchy and fun stuff, a little bit weird and surprising at times, but always well crafted. “The wave”, for instance, employs the use of an autoharp and the staccato, marching band rhythm is actually performed by the Swedish army drum corps. The digital effects mix finely with the organic elements, giving it all a very tribal alien groove. Yes, I said it, tribal alien groove.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2012 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Secret Machines “Now here is nowhere”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Secret Machines
Album Title: Now here is nowhere
Year released: 2004
Year reissued: 2017
Details: gatefold, 2 x 180 gram, clear with silver swirl, clear with red swirl, limited 1625 copies, numbered 1239

The skinny: Just over a week ago, Brandon Curtis’s Secret Machines came out with a new album, their first in 12 years and first since the death of the frontman’s brother and ex-bandmate Benjamin. I had only heard news of this release a few weeks before, just enough time to get suitably excited. I had loved the neo-space/prog rock of the band’s first two albums and was only slightly disappointed by the sole release (up to now) after Benjamin’s departure. “Awake in the brain chamber” is an excellent new album and immediately got me thinking about their other work. So I dug out “Now here is nowhere”, the band’s very excellent debut, to take for a spin. This pressing was done by Run Out Groove Vinyl, a label that releases special edition vinyl reissues as voted by fans. ROGV-008 is pressed to two 180-gram slabs, clear with swirls, both a different colour, numbered, and artwork lovingly redone on a gatefold sleeve. It sounds just awesome, rocking and droning for days.

Standout track: “The road leads where it’s led”