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Stone Machine Electric Revisit Origins on New 7″ Single out March 27

It’ll be a decade later this year since Stone Machine Electric first came to my attention with their debut demo, Awash in Feedback (review here), and going back to that release now, it seems oddly prescient toward the band they’d become. I don’t just mean in the two-piece’s penchant for playing weirdo jammy nuance and heavy crunch off each other in fluid-until-it’s-meant-to-be-jarring fashion as the demo did and they’re still wont to do, but in establishing the sonic bond between William “Dub” Irvin on guitar and Mark Kitchens on drums. With vocals from both or neither, periodic keys from Irvin and an ongoing creative development that’s taken place over the course of four full-lengths — the latest of them, Darkness Dimensions Disillusion (review here), came out last year on Sludgelord Records — the duo have built a dynamic that is entirely their own even among the jammier sphere of heavy rock and psychedelia and even among their many Texan cohorts.

They would bring in players off and on to handle bass alongside the guitar and drums, but none stuck, and I think eventually the band decided that they didn’t need a third. Time has only proven them correct on the issue.

Dub and Kitchens mark 10 years since the first time they played live as Stone Machine Electric by revisiting two of the cuts that originally appeared on Awash in Feedback. With “Walking Among the Blind” and “Mushroom Cloud,” the band take an opportunity to show how far they’ve come even as they recast some of their earliest work. But the most important factor to remember about Stone Machine Electric is that they’re never really at rest. Not just in the sense of working on new material or doing shows or whatever, but creatively and developmentally speaking. One hopes that, perhaps in another decade, they might reinterpret these tracks again, if only to make the point again of the ongoing journey they’ve undertaken together.

No audio yet — it’s two songs and more than a month away; hold your horses — but you can and should stream the most recent album under the release info below.

To the PR wire:

Stone Machine Electric Stone Machine Electric

Stone Machine Electric – Stone Machine Electric – 27 March 2020

It’s no secret that Texas does a good line in the psychedelic stoner trend, and one of the state’s finest exports are Stone Machine Electric. Coming off the back of their Sludgelord Records-backed fourth full-length in April 2019, the duo have wasted no time in plying their self-styled “doom jazz” both within and across state borders, with luminaries such as fellow Texans Wo Fat, Jucifer and Mothership, and a whole host of festivals.

In commemoration of the band’s first ever performance ten whole years ago, Mark Kitchens and Dub Irvin have selected two of the first tracks they ever wrote – take from their original demo Awash in Feedback – to be collated into a 7”, allowing vinyl enthusiasts to experience (or wax lyrical over) the crunch n’ thump of Stone Machine Electric’s wheels.

When the dark and woozy riffs slide in, there’s nowhere else they could be from than the Lone Star State. “Mushroom Cloud” has an instantly infectious rhythm going for it, aided by Kitchens smooth vocals and a swirl of freak-out jamming effects that give a perfect mental picture of their scorching live shows. “Walking Among the Blind”, meanwhile, is a more somber, grittier affair with a wailing blues-inspired solo over the dirty grooves.

Tracklisting:
1. Walking Among the Blind
2: Mushroom Cloud

Stone Machine Electric are:
Dub – Guitar/Vocals
Kitchens – Drums/Vocals/Keyboard

https://www.facebook.com/StoneMachineElectric/
https://www.instagram.com/stonemachineelectric/
http://stonemachineelectric.bandcamp.com/
http://www.stonemachineelectric.net/

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