A brief hum of feedback echo then a scuzzy crash of drums, a squall of guitar; “First Wave Intact” is crunching the gravel of my neural driveway with a heavy, insistent tread.
the open way’s too dangerous
listen close, they’re watching us
Welcome to the opening song on “Now Here is Nowhere”, the 2004 album by Secret Machines. The trio formed in Dallas at the opening of the millennium, their sound displaying a number of influences pleasing to these ears: Neu!, nineties Flaming Lips, smears of psychedelia and a pervasive mournfulness.
There is a fine attention to sonic detail that at first seems slightly at odds with some of the distortion and waves of sound. But nothing is haphazard; these lads love the aural world and invite you to paddle your way into their ocean of beautiful noise. I would have appreciated a little more detail on the synth and keyboard parts: they add texture, colour and variety to the classic trio format.
A sense of post-modern, post-insurgency, post-rock paranoia permeates this arresting debut. At times it is as wintery as the artic band-room on the cover. Leaves fall, love fails, lives fade.
right before my eyes
erased, our lives erased
Yet somehow the overall feeling is not one of desperation or despair. Is it the stomping Zepplin drum sound? The VROOM guitars that inject energy at chest-height? The lyrics that gesture without pointing?
The second record opens with “The Road Leads Where It’s Led”, a powerful guitar-laden song with a slightly disturbing lyric that evokes “I Don’t Like Mondays” in its refrain…
they’re blowing all the other kids away
Here is a confident young band who give themselves space to expand, explore and drill into the possibilities of their songs. And some of the songs are really strong. “The Road Leads Where It’s Led” evokes – in a positive way – “Be Here Now” period Oasis (with less swaggering bombast) while the drifting eddies of “Pharaoh’s Daughter” had me picturing John Paul Jones adding mellotron colours to “The Rain Song”.
Sequencing a 50 minute album for vinyl presents something of a challenge. Secret Machines opt for a bookends approach: the opening and closing songs are both around nine minutes and comprise sides A and D respectively. It works partly because it focuses listener attention, one of the things I’m enjoying about vinyl compared with set-and-forget CDs. [And just don’t start me on in-house streaming].
Disclaimer: Listening to music in the mp3 format is like drinking champagne through a thin plastic straw. Yet as folk may not know this music, I have added a song. If you can use headphones, it may sound a little less crap. This surliness in no way diminishes my gratitude to GlitcHead for posting the clip on youtube.
The above cover – a ‘negative’ of the album – caught my eye a few months after acquiring “Now Here Is Nowhere”. It also posed the question, when is an EP not an EP? “The Road Leads Where It’s Led” comprises a single of sorts (the CD title track and one of the strongest on the original album), a sub-standard B-side and four cover versions. It clocks in at over 37 minutes. Perhaps it is simply a very generous single.
The cover versions are the interesting part. Given my fully paid-up membership of the Krautrock Klub, a cover of Harmonia’s “(De Luxe) Immer Wieder” was quite a lure. And it does not disappoint, revealing both the melodic core and Teutonic chug of the original with some added guitar crunch to boot.
Charging Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” with dirty electricity sort of works; it is certainly interesting to hear the metaphysical lyric painted oil-slick grey, but you gotta wonder whether you would want to be “born again in another world” if this was the alternate world. Slowing “Money” to a funereal pace is, frankly, a bit boring. But their re-interpretation Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country” is startling. It’s slow unfolding is like sitting in an ancient thrumming power station dreaming of green hills and reminds you that the real value of covering songs is how a good version re-invigorates the original. New light through old windows, for sure.
So, let’s say you liked the first Secret Machines album. Where would you go? What would you reach for next? What might a non-linear listening map radiating out from Now Here Is Nowhere look like?
Here is where I went.
Mew “No More Stories Are Told Today I’m Sorry They Washed Away” ^
[Columbia, 2009]
The Flaming Lips “Transmissions from the Satellite Heart”
[Warner Brothers, 1993]
Oasis “Be Here Now”
[Creation, 1997]
Led Zepplin “Houses of the Holy”
[Atlantic, 1973]
Secret Machines “Now Here Is Nowhere”
[Reprise, 2004]
Secret Machines “The Road Leads Where It’s Led”
[Reprise, 2005]
^ The actual title is twice this long, but I’m not prepared to countenance such wankery. Yes, it is another grumpy moment.
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If you have just stumbled across Vinyl Connection, feel free to wander back through the previous articles. Comments are always welcome.
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Copyright
© Bruce Jenkins / Vinyl Connection 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bruce Jenkins/Vinyl Connection with appropriate and specific links back to the original content. Copyright is not claimed for images of album covers / LPs.
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Never heard of Secret Machines; I’ll have to check them out! On a side note, I’m betting that Fiona Apple’s album titles must lead to many a grumpy moment….
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Don’t know her. Does she sing about fruit? Or neat computers?
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No fruit, no neat computers, but don’t hold that against her. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/fiona-apple-unveils-23-word-album-title-20120307
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Yes, I see what you mean. “The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do” is a triumph of prolixity. Wonder if the title track was released as a single.
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I’ve never heard of them either, but I liked the song you linked. Very interesting sound and lyrics – “our lives erased”. Wow. Good post. 🙂
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Thanks Marie. With endless music and finite listening time, it’s easy to stay with what’s known and loved. I no longer try to ‘keep up’ but occasionally stumble upon something from more recent times that strikes a chord. 2004 = Recent Times! Ha!
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2004 sounds recent to me. The most recent band (also from the early 2000’s) that I truly like (instead of just half-heartedly fake-liking so my teenager will think I’m hip) is the White Stripes. Love that raw, garage band blues sound.
I know every generation thinks this, but our generation had the best music. 😉
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Your final comment is really very interesting. I do some visual stuff on Tumblr (called vinylconnexion – my proper moniker was not available) and that is frequented by your younger music fan, all of whom say much the same things as their (er-hem) elders. Perhaps it’s the period when music really bites that becomes and remains our favourite ever after?
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Great post. I loved the SM first LP – there’s a great B-side out there too called ‘Solar Bloodlines’ which is brilliant.
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Thanks, I’ll watch out for it. Liked the second album too.
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[…] to keep things honest. Don’t take my word for it, better write-ups are yours for the taking here and here. So I was really excited when I stumbled across Alone, Jealous & Stoned, like […]
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[…] If you like Splinter, you might well enjoy Secret Machines […]
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[…] Original post: August 2013 […]
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[…] NOWHERE AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME […]
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Great post, Bruce. I revisited this one a while back, as I didn’t give it the same attention as Ten Silver Drops (which I’m awfy fond of). A very fine album. Very fine indeed. Certainly wouldn’t mind a copy of this in the record collection.
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And I need more time with ‘Ten Silver Drops’!
Thanks for dropping backwards through time, J.
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I reckon that makes me a time traveller… ?
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[…] love the guitar squall that evokes the wonderful debut by Secret Machines but is somehow airier, more […]
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I missed this the first time around (the Beaches take sent me here). I really like it.
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Good strong stuff, isn’t it? Glad you enjoyed it CB.
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Just had my first Secret Machines listening experience thanks to this post. Actually sat for the whole album. Fell asleep a couple of times, but I am not sure that is a bad thing. It did mean I had to go back to find the “powerful” in “The Road Leads Where It’s Led” via a second listen. An enjoyable break, thanks. Not sure this will make the physical stacks, but I did add it to the Spotify holdings.
Speaking of in-house streaming, as a teetotaler I’m having trouble with the drinking champagne through a thin plastic straw mp3 analogy. Maybe, plastic straws choke the oceans and you’d also view compressed digital music as less buoyant? (wink)
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Perhaps “powerful” means different things in different listener contexts. For example, one person’s power might be embodied by Deep Purple while another doesn’t notice their VU meters hitting the red for anything less than, say, Carcass.
Sound emanates forever, we’re told; so MP3 pollute the universe. Case closed.
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