>>PREVIEW
IMMACULATE MACHINE
Thursday, November 17
Broken City
In the last couple of months, Immaculate Machine’s Kathryn Calder (keyboards, vocals) has received a crash course in navigating the music business. Eight years ago, she found out that Carl "A.C." Newman (New Pornographers) was her long-lost uncle. Still, she never got a taste of his world – and what may be in store for her promising trio – until this year.
Immaculate Machine just left a tour with Mint Record labelmates the New Pornographers and Destroyer, during which they had an opportunity to perform nightly at sold-out concerts. It also gave 23-year-old Calder – who recently became the newest New Pornographer, too – a sudden introduction to major media.
All of this has been a thorough learning experience and lovely whirlwind for the members of Victoria’s Immaculate Machine. Calder and bandmates Brooke Gallupe (guitar, vocals) and Luke Kozlowski (drums, vocals) are delaying their university studies to compose the followup to their immensely likable new album, Ones and Zeroes. Their third release, it’s a brisk and fully confident pop album that marches along with the assuredness of a pack of well-bred indie-rock soldiers. At times, it sounds as though their patron saint was Novillero’s Rob Slaughter more than their New Pornographers cohorts.
"I think it’s been kind of interesting because we’ve gotten a lot of ‘you sound like, uh, we don’t know what you sound like.’ Like there’s a whole bunch of influences that are at play, but people can’t really pinpoint one in particular… which is always kind of nice to hear," remarks Calder humbly.
"I think David Bowie was kind of a big influence on me when I was younger, well, I mean even now. The Clash, obviously. The Smiths and the Talking Heads -– I’m a big, big fan of the Talking Heads. John (Collins), our producer, thinks we sound pretty new wave and he’s the king of knowing what new wave influences are."
Fellow New Pornographer Collins and Dave Carswell (of JC/DC Studio) decided to produce the band after seeing a Vancouver performance last fall. Immaculate Machine was ending an exhausting six-month tour and still managed to pull off a spotless set. A twice-rewarding show, Mint Record’s Randy Iwata was in attendance and decided to sign them with a multiple-album deal.
"Yeah, it’s a three-album deal. We’re really lucky because we’ve got three songwriters. So it’s not like the pressure is on one person to come up with an album’s worth of songs within the next year or two. We’ve got three songwriters, who are pretty good." |
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