{"product_id":"under-the-weight-of-water-vinyl","title":"Under the Weight of Water - Vinyl Album","description":"\u003cp\u003eI have released a number of albums over the last decade, but this one will always hold a special place in my heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI was lucky enough to have run \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/thesoundofmachines\/lets-press-the-album-under-the-weight-of-water-onto-vinyl\"\u003ea successful kickstarter\u003c\/a\u003e and pressed a run of 200 onto vinyl.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plan was to perform the album around the east cost and hopefully sell the remaining records at merch tables. This was 2019. The world took a nap for a while. Quarantine time. No public shows.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo here I am years later with a new online shop and a way to finally offer these for sale in a way that makes sense. I am very excited to get the rest of these out into the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe album was mastered by \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.thisismetropolis.com\/engineers\/matt-colton\/\"\u003eMatt Colton out of Metropolis studios\u003c\/a\u003e. He's worked on some incredible albums by Boards of Canada, The Cure, Tame Impala, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave...crazy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd the artwork was created by \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/juliasobolevaillustration\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eJulia Soboleva\u003c\/a\u003e who has provided artwork for a few of my albums, as well as for a little up-and-coming musician named David Gilmour. Crazy\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you want to preview the album before you buy, it's available on (most) streaming platforms \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thesoundofmachines.bandcamp.com\/album\/under-the-weight-of-water\"\u003eincluding Bandcamp\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThanks for stopping by! I'll leave you with this great writeup by \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/trexstasy\/\"\u003eDavid Ferguson\u003c\/a\u003e back in 2020. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"PDq2pG_selectionAnchorContainer\"\u003eFear of Dark Water\u003cspan class=\"PDq2pG_selectionAnchor\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI had a friend who used to be a Merchant Marine. He spent a lot of time on a ship that patrolled the edges of U.S. and Russian territory up around the Arctic Circle. He told me about how sometimes late at night, when the ship’s engines would idle down to a nearly inaudible throb and he laid in his bunk deep in the ship’s echoing hold, he would hear a cacophony of unidentifiable sounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The ocean’s loud, man,” he told me. “And you don’t know what the hell is making those noises. It’s, like, interplanetary-sounding shit. You could drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what kind of messed-up, alien-looking monsters would make those sounds.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eUnder The Weight of Water\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e – the fourth album by Virginia-based antimusic ensemble The Sound of Machines – seems almost to be coming from a similar place, somewhere deep under thousands of leagues of water where the dark is only broken by pinpricks of bioluminescent light from creatures we’d probably rather not see in their entirety.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first single and album opener, “High Water,” begins with Rich Bernett, the band’s nucleus and sole constant member, inviting the listener to join him in floating aimlessly away on the ocean and letting go of everything.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“High water\/low expectations,” he sings over an ethereal, nearly asymmetric groove awash in languid, almost drunken 60s harmonies like someone drowned The Zombies. “And why don’t we just quit and take the long way down?” he asks. “And how is it that we split from head to toe?”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhether this abandonment of the comfort of shore is suicidal or symbolic, \u003cem\u003eWeight\u003c\/em\u003e leaves up to the listener, content to keep its secrets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe song sets the stage for a slow-motion, ever-flowing parade of songs that drift like sea anemones on a current – “For the Sake of Living” – or boil along like a river on fire (“Blood for Sale”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the darkness of its undersea trench, \u003cem\u003eWeight\u003c\/em\u003e is a musical universe where some songs sting the face like delicate ocean mist and others remind us that an inch of moving water on a road is enough to send a car spinning and sliding downstream and ultimately drown everyone inside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStill others – “The Dance” -- convey at first a dreamy optimism that seems to belie the darkness of the album’s undersea-cavern sound...until the characters are trapped and swept away by circumstances beyond their control.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe men and women in \u003cem\u003eWeight’s\u003c\/em\u003e songs struggle under burdens of all kinds. A woman in “Infinite Line Around the Earth” tells the narrator, “I heard that scream a year ago\/and it still lives inside my head.” The letter-writing narrator in “I Will Too” who maybe loves you a little \u003cem\u003etoo\u003c\/em\u003e much promises\/threatens, “Find a ledge to jump from, and I will too.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s hard not to wonder at points if Sound of Machines has a kind of oracular gift-slash-curse regarding lyrics. Many of the album’s songs grapple with a kind of suffocating dread that may feel all too familiar to listeners in the age of SARS-CoVid-19. Bernett has said, however, that all of the lyrics were written prior to the beginning of the pandemic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUltimately, Under \u003cem\u003eThe Weight of Water\u003c\/em\u003e could not be a more aptly named record. It’s almost as if the songs, while distinct from each other, all arrive wet and shining like mysterious things hauled up in fishing nets. Through artful use of echo effects, lyrics like dialogue from dreams, mysterious buried noises, and actual samples of water sounds, Bernett has created a wildly immersive suite of songs. Jump in. Let it close over your head. Who cares about getting back to shore?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e-David Ferguson, 2020\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Sound of Machines","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54357081522489,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/6249\/3753\/files\/Vinyl-Record-cover-mockup.jpg?v=1787435729","url":"https:\/\/thesoundofmachines.com\/products\/under-the-weight-of-water-vinyl","provider":"The Sound of Machines","version":"1.0","type":"link"}