A Crude Mechanical Releases New Single ‘When’
A Crude Mechanical Releases New Single ‘When’
February 1st, 2024
Guitar-wielding instrumentalist A Crude Mechanical releases a new single, simply titled ‘When‘.
However, things aren’t quite as simple as they might seem, as A Crude Mechanical (aka Shane Warbrooke) explains.
‘When‘ is the sixth song on A Crude Mechanical’s debut album Discourse, “and it marks the transition out of the digital chaos that informs the first five tracks.
It’s a propulsive gallop forging a way through the dark forest of electronic stochastic terrorism we are all constantly drowning in, driving towards an open, bright future where beauty can be appreciated for its own sake again.
Musically it’s a math rock take on early trip hop, built from a base of bowed and heavily manipulated guitar.”
Shane Warbrooke is the debut child of Glenda Warbrooke, and his solo project A Crude Mechanical’s debut album Discourse was released in November last year.
Warbrooke has previously been in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau bands The Bemsha Swing, 1000, and Climate Change. (*The first Climate Change single has just been recovered from obscurity; you can listen to it here: ‘Hold My Shares‘).
“An active proponent of the Tāmaki Makaurau musical underground for the past two decades, Shane Warbrooke has always pushed back against the order of the day.
“Now he’s delivering the ultimate mic drop by quite literally dropping the mic from his music. A Crude Mechanical is Warbrooke’s one-man-band for the apocalypse era, a lone wolf instrumental orchestra-for-one inspired by watching the co-opting of revolutionary messaging by alt-right chumps, and realising – in his own words – “there’s no point in having lyrics anymore”.” – Flying Out
Graham Reid at Elsewhere describes A Crude Mechanical’s soundscape as “melodic music more than accumulated noise and much of it…is dialed right down… ‘And Now The Artifice Is The Art’ is a glorious prog epic.”
Roger Bowie, Muzic.Net.NZ: “the guitars are eloquent, they are the voice in a voiceless word. Overall, the mood is sombre and threatening, despite pleasing to the ear…”
The song titles on the album join together to make a statement.
It’s a reference to Oppenheimer’s speech, where he quoted Hindu scripture: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. (This is before the Oppenheimer movie came out).
Discourse is available via Bandcamp and on vinyl from Flying Out and Relics Music.
Check out all things A Crude Mechanical below:
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