Silver Gleaming Sound Machine
All tomorrow's gardens
self-released
I live in Micronesia, a land of pay-per-KB dial-up internet and no Myspace or Youtube. Imagine, then, I'm running down Silver Gleaming Sound Machine's impressive array of e-accolades, barely able to control my excitement as I wait for "All tomorrow's gardens" to arrive by media mail. SGSM it seems, could be the knighted future of Copenhagen, the heir to the last great Danes of pop (I'll admit it), Alphabeat. A Krautrock bent and 60s psychedelia, in my mind, could prove a darker, more rewarding palette than "This is Alphabeat"'s overtly sugary appeal.
In theory. Imagine when I get the album and it plays more as a spiritual sister to Asteroids Galaxy Tour (one more band and it's officially a movement), a faulty electro-Motown update that I can't even dignify with the term pastiche, as the internet connotation of that word is moving ever so slightly towards "encomium" in our nostalgia-driven society. The sprightly percussion and electro-punk lean of album opener "Hawk" -- maybe the only redeemable song on this mini-album -- can't save SGSM from an overall lack of catchy choruses or cohesive arrangements. Typical of a crop of rising pop outfits in Scandinavia, SGSM tries to look in too many directions at once. Here's a nod to Pink Floyd, here's Le Tigre, and let's steep that all in the tinny pulse of turn-of-the-80s Krautrock! Overly smitten critics use buzzwords like "ELO" and "Kraftwerk", and in the process they forgive them for a dearth of palatable songs.
I don't know. Maybe the iPod commercialistas who find these bands great in 15 second snippets will continue to force feed us downmarket ethereals like SGSM in order to heighten the pop-futuristic appeal of tablet-based products. Maybe it's what we deserve. Whatever the case, I'm not nearly satisfied with Denmark's recent pop output. The country of Roskilde and indie greats The Raveonettes, Efterklang and Under Byen, to me, is of late lagging behind its Northern cousins in the pop arena. Whatever. Maybe we'll get lucky and the new Alphabeat album will become the Danish pop savior of 2010. Hah.
- Nathan Keegan
