Machine Meets Land - "Forgot About The Whistle Industry" EP
Machine Meets Land hit you off with a dark ride into Lynch-ian psychotic death garage with chiming post-punk guitars and hardcore shout-a-long vocals. Sure to be a hit at your lunch table.
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Machine Meets Land masters indie music
By KELLY MINNIS
Machine Meets Land is an indie rock band. What does that mean, exactly?
Technically anyone who releases records outside the major label machinery can lay claim to that title. But when I say this to MML frontman Jeremy Vanacek, he whole-heartedly concurs.
"That is entirely what Machine Meets Land is about, bringing more of a '90s indie rock feel to [the Bryan-College Station] scene," he told me recently.
"I am so much into bands from that era, like Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr., that [are] classic indie rock," Vanacek concurred. And Machine Meets Land definitely has that arty, collegiate playfulness that defined indie rock as a genre in the 1990s.
Vanacek has played in many Bryan-College Station bands over the years and spent a good portion of the last decade in Austin playing in other bands as a sideman. Machine Meets Land is the first band he's fronted, and its members have been together in its current incarnation only since November.
"It's crazy that we all fit together but we do, almost magically," Vanacek said. "Everyone's really into such different things, but we bring that all together."
It is the sum of its parts that makes Machine Meets Land's update of 1970s Pere Ubu's fractured art-punk through '90s lo-fi indie pop stalwarts Pavement so crucial. The songs build from a murky base of steady, Krautrock bass and drums courtesy of B-CS scene veteran Gene Bullock and David Pate. The sound is punctuated by Michael Scarborough's angular '80s post-punk/darkwave guitar saturated in reverb and delay (think U2's The Edge but with an Ennio Morricone vibe) and Vanacek's performance poetry beating in short, repetitive phrases.
Machine Meets Land is very much an incestuous bunch musically, with everyone in the band doing double duty with other B-CS bands. Scarborough and Bullock moonlight in local punk outfit The Flak Jackets, while Vanacek plays with stoner metal enthusiasts Ride At Anchor and also releases whacked-out solo music under the Chexican moniker.
Vanacek said Machine Meets Land has not recorded yet, but members hope to begin recording their debut album with Hangouts guitarist Matt Shea within the month.
"We'd like to tour but we all have lives," Vanacek said.
Until that time, Machine Meets Land will remain our secret. Catch them at 11 p.m. Wednes day at La Bodega in Northgate with College Station twee-poppers Hand Me That Piano, and again on May 10 at La Bodega with Austin's insanely awesome electro-indie duo Transmography.
• Kelly Minnis is a freelance music writer, KEOS DJ, musician and father of two. His column appears in Spotlight every other week. Drop him a line at kellyminnis@gmail.com.
Our first single, Drunk Tonight EP, and our first DVD Drunk Rock Videos DVD is now available for pre-order from the store section of our website. Click the above images for info.
Thursday, Feb 5th, we'll be at Schotzi's (upstairs) with Bonnie Blue, Myth and Legend, and Novista.
$5
Doors open at 8 and we'll be partying all night!
Hope to see you there!
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