Videos
Mi Ami – Hard Up
Mi Ami have announced their April European tour, where they will show-off their brand new sound as featured on their forthcoming limited edition EP Dolphins (out on Thrill Jockey on 14 March). Now a duo, Mi Ami dispense with guitars and replace them with samplers and a 707 drum machine, creating an intense, uplifting listening experience with dark synth sounds.
Here's a fantastic new video for the track “Hard Up” so you can hear for yourself how they've changed.
MI AMI EU DATES
12/04/2011 FR Lille Aeronef
14/04/2011 UK London Corsica Studios (Upset the Rhythm)
15/04/2011 UK Liverpool Mello Mello
16/04/2011 IE Dublin Button Factory
20/04/2011 UK Glasgow Arts School
22/04/2011 NL Den Haag Paard *
23/04/2011 NL Amsterdam OCCI *
24/04/2011 DE Koln Genau *
25/04/2011 DE Trier Exhaus *
26/04/2011 DE Leipzig Conne Island *
27/04/2011 DE Berlin Leevee *
* Awesome Tapes From Africa
Myspace: link
Thrill Jockey Artist page: link
Dolphins makes it hard to believe that Mi Ami used to be a rock band. Gone are the ferocious guitar, hypnotic bass-lines, and the thundering drums of Steal Your Face and Watersports, now replaced by an unrelenting electronic vibrancy. Bass player Jacob Long left the band earlier this year, creating an opportunity for founding members Damon Palermo and Daniel Martin-McCormick to dive headfirst into a new setup: Damon on the 707 drum machine and a sampler that uses floppy disks, Daniel on the mic and keys, riding the mix. Elements of this new approach can be heard on their Cut Men and Techno 12″s, but those were baby steps. Dolphins is the sound of a band diving head first into the musical fray. Listeners can feel Damon's command of the rhythm expressed through the drum machine, alchemizing the inorganic into the organic, while Daniel's trademark vocals remind you that this is Mi Ami. Psyched on their fresh palette as a duo, they went in the studio only three months later with Phil Manley (Watersports, Steal Your Face) performing these four tracks live.
Dolphins is the fruit of that labour. A melting, dystopian refraction of left-field new age, lush soundscapes and Italo daydreams overlapping with slaughtered dolphins and the heartbreak of “Hard Up.” Simultaneously ingesting and rejecting pop pleasure, wide-eyed optimism and modern despair, it is equal parts improvisatory winging it and forceful, fully-realized vision. Blurring the line between the tainted and the sublime, Dolphins is the sound of a band thrillingly re-imagining itself.
Mi Ami – Hard Up from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.