At a point where dark wave meets alternative rock, where gothic shade seeps into more cinematic soundscaping, where analog and digital technologies embrace, and where new life is breathed into the sounds of the past, you find Empty Machines. “Velvet Sky” might only be the band’s second single, but as a calling card and mission statement, it builds on the previous release, “Luna,” and speaks volumes about the band and where they fit into the musical landscape.
“Velvet Sky” speaks in anthemic tones; it wraps itself in dark, post-punk textures; it is widescreen and cinematic, moves with agility and grace that belies its weight, weight created by the cavernous guitars which drench the song, by pounding but largely unfussy drums which serve it brilliantly and by sonic washes and structural dynamics which allow it to ebb and flow between ambient lowlands and sonic peaks.
Empty Machines is a duo and a home studio project from Glasgow, Scotland and it is this self-contained format that allows Thomas Crawford and Jodie Helena to have complete control over the music that they produce. And the results speak for themselves.
The music found here is both a nod to the past and a vision of the future, it is the sound of those early ex-punks who sold their guitars and rewired old keyboards to do their bidding, aided and abetted by 50 years of constantly improving technology and an ever-broadening sonic vision of what music can be. And if this is what Empty Machines can do on their second single, imagine what they might have to offer a year, five years, or a decade from now.
The future is looking very bright indeed…in a dark and ominous sort of way.
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