Product Description

Opening a debut album with a sprawling, nine-minute song may not seem like a good idea for most bands, but most bands aren't the Secret Machines. As their initial opus, "First Wave Intact", reveals, the trio--consisting of Josh Garza and brothers Brandon and Benjamin Curtis--deals largely in spacious guitar riffs, atmospheric keyboard lines, and precise rhythms, making lengthy tunes an ideal setting for their sound.Clearly, the group has a fondness for both early and latter-day Pink Floyd, but this is merely one musical touchstone for their sonic amalgam. "Sad and Lonely" moves to a dirty stomp that Marc Bolan would approve, while "The Leaves Are Gone" floats along on gentle vocals and dreamy melodies that recall Slowdive. With an expansive sound that incorporates everything from Beatlesque pop to avant-rock, the Secret Machines stand out among the bands of 2004 with NOW HERE IS NOWHERE.

Track Listing

1. First Wave Intact
2. Sad And Lonely
3. Leaves Are Gone
4. Nowhere Again
5. Road Leads Where It's Led
6. Pharaoh's Daughter
7. You Are Chains
8. Light's On
9. Now Here Is Nowhere Again

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60637 in Music
• Released on: 2004-06-28
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Now Here Is Nowhere comes a full three years after Secret Machines first made waves in the music scene with their mini-LP September 000, and the progression they've made in that time is enormous. On this, their full-length debut, this three-piece (brothers Brandon and Benjamin Curtis and drummer Josh Garza) work to an epic scale--album opener "First Wave Intact" is a full nine-minute psychedelic prog wig-out--conveying a sense of space that could only come from America. It's this expansiveness that defines their sound, placing them comfortably alongside bands like the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev.

"Nowhere Again" has a driving rhythm that propels the song with a frantic energy, while guitar feedback squalls loop behind Brandon Curtis's cracked, Neil Young-esque vocals, the whole thing building towards a crescendo that's ready made for an outdoor festival. It's a highlight, sure, but Now Here Is Nowhere is an album full of them: from the singalong chorus of "The Road Leads Where It's Led" to the keyboard and drum-led "Sad and Lonely". Occasionally, as on "The Leaves Are Gone", they get too blissed-out, so that the song ends before anything has actually happened, while "You Are Chains" takes a full three minutes to get started. Generally, though, Now Here Is Nowhere hits the mark. And you can't help but admire a band confident enough to include a reprise at the end of their album. --Robert Burrow

Customer Reviews

A fine record.
Psychedelia is ill-served in the modern age. Oasis' spiralling conclusion to 'Rock 'n' Roll Star' and the Coral both make their cases for psychedelia, but other than that there isn't a great deal of music of note in that vein. Secret Machines change that.

Opener 'First Wave Intact' isn't exactly putting the band's best foot forward. A nine minute song of little value (despite being a fan favourite, so anyone else may well like it too) it opens the album by taking its entire length to reach a crescendo that never comes.

However, from then on things get much, much better. Single 'Sad And Lonely' has a constant, stomping beat that doesn't let up; it just keeps going, and it's fantastic. The tandem title tracks, 'Nowhere Again' and 'Now Here Is Nowhere' (tracks three and nine respectively) with their overlapping melodies and theme compliment each other perfectly, while 'The Road Leads Where It's Led' boasted one of the most bemusing lyrics of 2004.

This album is a wonderful throwback to the 70s, when songs were long, albums didn't have many tracks, and Pink Floyd were the biggest band on the planet. What a fine time to revisit with this great record.

A promising debut album...
Following the mini-LP/EP 'September 000', Secret Machines' debut-proper 'Now Here is Nowhere' advances on the promise there. While some of the songs remind you of The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, the debts to those great bands are less apparent than on 'September 000.' Alongside that influence, it's possible to make comparisons to Led Zeppelin, Neu!, The God Machine, Interpol, early Pink Floyd, Can, Soft Machine, 'Jehovahkill'-Julian Cope, Ultrasound, The Soundtrack of Our Lives,Faust & Those Bastard Souls (...just the names that popped into my head as I listened...)A blend of alternative-rock, prog, Krautrock, ambient, shoegazing and psychedelia?

'Now Here is Nowhere' feels like a cohesive album sequence - which is suggested by the reprise of 'Nowhere Again' at the end, the more often these songs are played together, the more effective the album feels. The singles 'Sad and Lonely' and 'The Road Leads Where It's Lead' are great introductions to the album - though epic opener 'First Wave Intact', the palatial 'You Are Chains', and 'Nowhere Again/Now Here is Nowhere' are as great. 'Now Here is Nowhere' should probably have been raved over more than it was at the time - new LP 'Ten Silver Drops' seems to be a bit of a dilution on the approach here, heck a few songs were tame enough to be Coldplay or U2! A zeroes-classic and an example of great American psychedelic influenced rock alongside releases by The Animal Collective, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Warlocks, Beachwood Sparks, & The Kingsbury Manx.

Krautrock!
Very much in the spirit of bands such as Can and Faust and Neu!. Hypnotic, drone-like sounds with thunderous drones and cryptic lyrics...laid the foundation for many subsequent movements including ambience, electro, chill-out, trance, techno etc. A very specialised form of prog.

In the full-length debut, The Secret Machines take the foundations of Krautrock and infuse it with a sense of homegrown Americana - frail vocals, clarity, songs that stop after four minutes...the end result is a sound not too dissimilar to Mercury Rev and Spiritualized, and it's absolutely brilliant.

Ladies and gentlemen we're floating in space. Take this atmospheric, stratospheric recording with you to a warm place and let it envelop you like an aural womb.