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Her voice floats in like a dream... instantly familiar but unrecognizable. The warm, passionate sound fills yours ears as it meanders through genres. This isn't simple trip hop, isn't sterile downtempo, it isn't even orchestral or lo-fi. It breathes in the space in-between as the perfect amalgam of devastating desire and beat. Seemingly contradictory with it's layers of organic thought and electronic expression... The Atomica Project returns with a stunning sophomore record, "Grayscale". Taking nearly three years to complete after their debut album "Metropolitan", "Grayscale" is lush with elaborate narratives of failure and recovery that will convince any listener that The Atomica Project stands apart from their contemporaries like Portishead or Lamb.
Thanks to Music For Humans for the very nice review. And to Casper of Corporate X for the photo.
The show was without incident. The lighting guys (who offered to help out free of charge) were very professional and did an excellent job. When someone offers to do your lights for free – you expect some kids to roll up with a couple American DJ lights and do what they can. What you don’t expect is to have 2 absolute professionals pull up with a truck full of Martin moving head lights and a control board. They had the entire set already programmed; they didn’t ask a single thing of me. It was one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for one of my bands and from what I’ve heard, it really enhanced our performance.
As far as our sound, we had a couple people fall out due to other obligations. We were originally scheduled to go with the guy doing sound for Corporate X. Now, no offense to anyone, but being a hired, paid, and proven sound man myself – I got a weird vibe from this guy. Mostly because he didn’t ask me what we sounded like and didn’t really seem to care either way. Apathy is an all too common trait of engineers, which is probably why I get a decent amount of work. Anyway, long story short, we decided to go with the house guy. And then the house guy called in sick. So we ended up with a really easy to work with, very professional guy who usually works at the Empty Bottle. It was yet another positive twist of fate. It wasn’t absolutely ideal, but it could have been so much worse.
The bands we played with were both great, both very professional, and both very easy to work with. The turnout, with guest list included, qualified as a capacity show. We had, I think, 198 people paid. I worried all night that people would start leaving when we got up there – but that was not at all the case. I guess we have a sizeable Chicago fan base, or at least we do now.
Everyone in the band was great, I couldn’t be happier with Corey – his drumming fits the project so well. I couldn’t be more amazed with Dean – I’ve done a lot of demanding things in my career. However, teaching myself keyboard in 4 weeks and performing in a packed nightclub is not among them. He did a great job and the live turntables are something Lauren and I are already unwilling to live without. Lauren was great, she always is. I think we’ve crossed a line from her being a girl that sings on my project – to her being the irreplaceable voice and presence of our band. And even I didn’t fuck up (much.)
Nick, you guys know Nick, drove down all the way from somewhere in Minnesota to see the show and brought his friend and amazing photographer friend – Peter Boysen. Peter has done photos for us before and is the only photographer I know that “gets” us and fully captures us live. We’re very excited to see what he did this time around and coming all that way to shoot us live was a rather amazing gesture.
That’s it. I’m still kind of picking up the ruins of my life – I’ve been very focused on this show and neglecting so many other things. We didn’t quite make the site redesign by the 23rd, but it is coming soon. My little girl will be turning 2 in a few days here so my new priority is getting ready for her Birthday. Thank you again to everyone who helped create a very memorable night.
The first shipment of Grayscale CD's arrived this afternoon, so let me update the terms of my previous blog. If you order today/this evening we'll ship your CD out to you tomorrow afternoon. You can get it right here. And one last encouraging word regarding Paypal - you don't need to setup an account, they have some Express Checkout deal that simply needs a credit card number. Easy as cake. Or pie, whichever you prefer.
The Cd's came out very well. The packaging feels especially responsible, not a fleck of plastic, but sturdy enough to last. We got a low UV coating which has more of a book feeling and less of a "ooops, I just left my fingerprints all over this shiny black stuff" feeling. It's all very, very nice.
