I like extremities in my music, emotional extremities. If you make me laugh or smile widely, I will be appreciative, if you make me cry or think about lost loves and dead friends I may not be appreciative but I’ll remember to put you on the next time someone croaks it or dumps my ass. Mains Ignition is the former: it makes me laugh and giggle and fiddle about in my seat all the way through. Anyone who does such a fucking wonderful cover of Papa Oo Mau Mau is nothing but a genius in my books.
Their new album Mainstropolis: The Lifestyle, their 3rd so far, is a coquettish, but not unmanly, embrace of synth pop and psychedelia, damning bass guitars and pretty boy vocals. If Fozzy Bear got himself involved in a three-way with Gomez and Money Mark and then recorded it we’d be closer to understanding the glee this record can and should invoke in you.
Although it starts off a little pretentiously with “Power Operator” it minces forward with striking poses and intimidating keyboard work. Their pianissimos (I’m sorry, but it’s the only word I could muster at such short notice) are beautiful and tickling and their intricate instrumentals are complex and gorgeous. The guitars are uncommonly sweet but never saccharine and the drums are tight and orchestrated to within an inch of masochism.
But the shining light throughout this album has to go to the keys. I imagine a man amidst hundreds of tiers of Keyboards stroking the ivories (plastic, alright, alright) with demented focus and pulling such wonderful tendrils of chords out of those bulks of plastic and metal you would think him twisted.
I can give only Kudos to these sometimes sleepy (read: stoned), sometimes bizarre (read: on acid) but always temperamental and talented musicians. I think I’d rather listen to them the next time someone died, they easily make me smile.
Mains Ignition official website
Mains Ignition on myspace
