Wave Machines//Keep The Lights On

You know what they say about a picture: Monday Mail
What is Monday Mail?

Austin from Eyes and Ears Entertainment didn’t send me anything except an mp3 and an album cover, but here’s what I could glean from the interwebs:

A mercurial Merseyside four piece, Wave Machines create instinctive art-pop; rhythms built of melodic ticks and bleeps, polka dots of sound drawn together beneath Tim Bruzon’s falsetto vocal, part Beck Hansen part Barry Gibb. With their English melancholia pricked by impudent promise… Wave Machines join that eccentric lineage of home grown musical adventurers; XTC, The Beta Band, Hot Chip.

Recorded in the bowels of the old organ room at St Brides Church in Liverpool, England, Wave Machines’ debut album Wave If You’re Really There owes much to the character of that formative space. The removal of old religious gowns from a small disused cupboard gave the band a vocal booth; the roof – or rather its view between Liverpool’s Cathedrals and out across the river – allowed the band a space to work things through; and at night the Nave became the bands live space, hosting the poetry, art, comedy and invited musical ‘competitors’ at the bands own night.

Although a remix was officially sent my way, I went and tracked down the original of this song, which I liked even more. This track sounds something like a macabre Hall and Oates song, with hints of electronic sounds that bring to mind that fantastic Erland Oye solo album, Unrest.

The song also appears to be about having trouble sleeping, which is something I can definitely relate to.

Stream the whole album from Wave Machines here.



Keep The Lights On.mp3

The night’s too long,
So when we sleep,
I keep the lights on.