Hello Midlands is a band based in what they call “the landlocked middle of the United Kingdom,” - Nottingham UK. The band was formed by Iain Simons, who returned to music in his 40’s after starting museums, working in video games and directing festivals. “We don't have a lot of history to share yet, but we're busy writing new material all the time.” Their newest release is an EP titled Robots.
Simons says that these songs are about Alexa and Siri, the recent Google AI furor, seeing dead people captured on Street View and a bunch of other things. “We like writing to constraints, focusing both our ideas and our sound palette to themes and sounds that are liberating in how limiting they are. This new set of songs are all about computers and our relationship to them, figuring out how we negotiate those and hopefully finding some emotions and magic in doing so. Once locked in on a theme, we go through a really productive stage of writing and recording, before going into some pretty brutal editing. There's always more stuff than gets included, and we really like the focus that the theme brings.” Writing, recording, mixing and mastering took place in a Logic home studio in the UK with both digital and acoustic instruments. “We like to use found sounds too.” In all the band materials, Simons uses the Royal “We” but there’s no other names listed anywhere, so I’m going to assume this is a one-man band situation like the kind I created as a kid. Nothing wrong with that! “She’s Listening” starts the album with a song about the Siri’s and Alexa’s of our lives, very much like the movie “Her” about a sentient operating system. “First thing in the morning / It always goes the same / she always wakes up when I say her name… she’ll do anything I ask / but I’ve never ever once heard her complain / And she is listening… to me.” It’s just Simon’s hushed voice and very low keyboards, eventually joined by mellow acoustic guitar, piano and gentle harmonies. The song ends at about three minutes but is followed by another three minutes of silence. Computer glitch, or purposely added to make a point? Who knows? “Old Thing” posits the question: “You’ve got a shiny new thing to play with, but what happens to the old one?” Interesting that this song is based on a very retro-sounding drum sample, the sort of thing that might have been abandoned for something digitally shiny and new. The mix here is unusual, in that there’s not exactly a tonal center: vocals, guitars and even the piano are kind of spread out across the stereo field, like finding nice shady spots in the park. The song itself is intriguing, but the mix and arrangement act as a kind of built-in barrier against getting too cozy and familiar. Again, is that the point? “Sweet Kid” seems to harken back to the Spielberg-Kubrick movie “AI” as the track describes how a scientist “made a very special boy. But how can one scientist persuade the others that he has all the feelings of a real boy?” Simons takes this cold, futuristic concept and marries it to a loose, down home acoustic guitar and vocal harmony arrangement, with some wispy synths for background pads. I like the kind of haphazard feel but parts of the track feel like they’re in a losing battle with the compression. “Street View” is about losing a loved one, then unexpectedly seeing them captured on Google Street View. “My lovely ghost / I saw you on our street today.” That idea alone wins points, but the delivery here is folky and intimate, without the weird tricks the album has been using thus far. It’s a nice and welcome change. “Where You Are” continues to follow the computerized future theme, where you can track pretty much anyone (and especially your partner) as a “blue dot on a map.” Is this really a good thing, though? Or as Simons says: “Do you sometimes long to escape the endless hide and seek?” This is another traditional sounding tune, though with psychedelic echoes of the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour era. “More Like This” concludes the album with a song about one of my pet peeves: how the algorithms learn your preferences and then offer you “more like this” and thus denying you the opportunity to discover different things. “Give me only the songs I like / on repeat!” This song returns to the more wide open, experimental quality of the earlier tracks and is a perfect capper. Overall this is a thought provoking and entertaining batch of songs from a compelling artist!
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Critique/insightWe are dedicated to informing the public about the different types of independent music that is available for your listening pleasure as well as giving the artist a professional critique from a seasoned music geek. We critique a wide variety of niche genres like experimental, IDM, electronic, ambient, shoegaze and much more.
Are you one of our faithful visitors who enjoys our website? Like us on Facebook
Archives
May 2024
|