EP Review: On & On / This Place Was Meant For Me - This Soft Machine

http://soundcloud.com/thissoftmachine makes his debut on Eskimo Recordings with a double-sided release including instrumentation from Dave Harrington of DARKSIDE contributing electric guitar, alluring vocals by Lorraine Nicholson for ‘On & On’ and Dan Whitford of Cut Copy fame, who helped record the synths. ‘On & On’ will also appear on ‘The Orange Collection’, the latest installment in a new compilation series on Eskimo based around colours. “This Soft Machine is a band at heart. Recorded live at Linear Studios in Sydney in January 2015, everything you hear on the record was recorded by human hands, played by some of my oldest, dearest friends and some hired musicians.” Tim Sullivan AKA This Soft Machine www.eskimorecordings.com www.facebook.com/eskimorecordings www.twitter.com/eskimorecords www.youtube.com/eskimorecordings https://play.spotify.com/user/eskimorecordings www.thissoftmachine.com www.facebook.com/thissoftmachine www.twitter.com/thissoftmachine

This Soft Machine cites both Yellow Magic Orchestra and the Ramones as influences, and they made their debut via a two hour mix for Nicholas Jaar's Other People label. On this double a-side debut release for Eskimo we have Nicholas Jaar's Darkside band mate Dave Harrington handling guitar work and Cut Copy's Dan Whitford providing synths.

With those influences and collaborations it would be difficult to know what to expect, but the resulting record is actually a relatively straight forward combination of the atmospherics and experimentation of an Other People release, the big pads of a Cut Copy track and a little bit of LCD Soundsystem style percussion. Throw in some deadpan Nancy Wang like vocals from Lorraine Nicholson for opening track On & On and it feels like you could be listening to a super group formed from some of the best bands of the past ten years.

Whether it borrows from contemporaries or just draws from the same inspiration is up for debate... What isn't is that the two tracks here provide a solid introduction to this Australian-born producer, now based in Berlin via Japan.

Check out On & On above, the full release will be available from Monday on Eskimo Recordings.