Editorial Reviews
Music Review:
Music Review
Take Good Care of My Baby//Bobby Vee Recording Session [Import]
Music: Lambadas of Brazil [Import]
Soul Source Remixed Fevers [Import]
Southern Rock: Gold [Original recording remastered]
Shchedrin: Carmen Suite; Concerto for Orchestra "Naughty Limericks"
Ear Pollution, June 1999
Chris Randall is a crooner. I've always suspected as such and, with [R]evolution, he's finally come clean. [R]evolution plays like a concept album, each song running into the next with funky breakdown bridges between the tracks and a self-contained cycle of the repetitive snap of the empty record groove. After the pirate radio sound of the opening "Libertad," we're thrown into a trio of songs which reward us with the recognizable SMG sound (the radio friendly hits, if I can be so crass). The verses are built around a spotlit emphasis on the vocalist bent over his microphone and then the choruses explode, heat and light thrown off by the burst of sonic sound which rises out of the disc. And then, something amazing happens. We're transported from a starkly lit industrial warehouse to the back lounge of Viva La Velvet on the Las Vegas strip. "Transient One" opens with a quirky synthetic melody, an electronic pop song which wouldn't be entirely out of place at your sister's wedding. Then the voice snakes its way into your ear, that breathy curl of a man wrapped around his microphone, seducing you from the half-lit stage. And he even coaxes that mournful David Gilmourian lament from the guitar for the break. You check the CD sleeve as "Transient Two" begins, flush with that electric pulse which speaks of the Micronaut project, wondering if there's been a mastering problem and you've got something else thrown into the middle here. But Randall's masterful ability to weave a hook through your shoulder blades has already ensnared you and the lazy locomotive pace of this track rushes you away. We're working our way back to the dark waters of Lake Michigan, as the '40s jazz feel of "Closer to Me" breaks down into a funky guitar/percussion wrestling match until "Wrong," "Vibrator," and "Autoloader" show us the commingling of the separate styles heard earlier. Randall the lounge lizard comes attached to the snarling guitar funk, both riding a bouncy bed of electronic beats. Chris Randall is recrafting the shape of the musical landscape with the independent direction of Sister Machine Gun. More power to him. The world needs more crooners.
Album Description
Sister Machine Gun was started in 1990 by Chris Randall. He made one record for Wax Trax!, three for Wax Trax!/TVT, and one for himself. They're all pretty good, if you like that sort of thing. All of his records would certainly go under the heading of "critically acclaimed", but other than that, it's hard to pin a style on the music, which sounds like a strange cross between The The, Nine Inch Nails, and the Rockit-era Herbie Hancock. We prefer to call it "neo-industrial-dada-funk", but you're free to call it whatever you like. Sister Machine Gun's fifth album, [R]evolution, is independent recording at it's finest - everything a band can be when it has full control over it's own destiny. Recorded over most of 1998, the record was released to the SMG fan club in April of 1999, and to the general public in May of 1999.