Rocket Recordings are excited to reveal the self-titled debut album by MIEN, the new four piece band comprised of The Black Angels’ Alex Maas, The Horrors’ Tom Furse, Elephant Stone’s Rishi Dhir and The Earlies’ John-Mark Lapham.
Watch video to Black Habit – the first track revealed from MIEN above
See what Loud and Quiet say about it here: Loud and Quiet
The seeds were sown for this collaboration as long ago as 2004, when Rishi Dhir (Elephant Stone) found himself in a chance encounter with Black Angels frontman Alex Maas whilst performing sitar with his former band on a bill at SXSW in Austin with The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Not long afterwards, he would also stumble across electronics guru and producer John Mark Lapham from Anglo-American band The Earlies, via a shared love for one song - the ‘classic sitar banger’ by The Association, ‘Wantin’ Ain’t Gettin’.
Some years later, another piece of the puzzle came into place, when Dhir was now playing bass with The Black Angels in 2012, and found the band sharing several bills with The Horrors. Thus he made the acquaintance of Tom Furse, and yet another pact was made to work together.
Several traversals of the globe by both plane and audio-file later, the result is an album that sees this quartet transcending their origins whilst maintaining a cohesive unity borne of a desire for outward exploration. John Mark’s vision, as he puts it, was “imagine the Black Angels as Nico in her 80’s industrial phase mixed with George Harrison and Conny Plank.” - true to form, it’s an album that finds equal room for radiant groove-based propulsion and ambient dreamscapes alike - as comfortable with murky hallucinogenic voyages, yet with songwriting acumen as potent as the production values are expansive and exploratory.
The band are debuting live at this years Levitation Festival in Austin on 28 April. With US and European tours soon to be announced.
You can preorder the 'Wayward MIEN' (50/50 split red/orange) vinyl ltd to only 300 copies and CD via here: Bandcamp
The amazing MIEN artwork was created by the very talented team of Rosey Trickett & Marc Spicer
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