The Delta Mirror's debut album, Machines That Listen, works an unusual concept: Each of the Lefse Records release's nine tracks takes place in a different room of a hospital. The end result is a cataloging of the fear and morbidity-- as well as the strange peacefulness and hope-- that permeates the sterile air of waiting rooms and ICUs. Sometimes they accomplish it by delivering a hardline narrative; sometimes by allowing the sheer melodrama of these fractured takes on anthemic ambient and shoegaze to do the heavy lifting. Machines That Listen occasionally suffers at the hands of it's own theatricality, but there's also a great deal of rich, real-life drama to latch onto here.
Ex-hip-hoppers David Bolt and Craig Gordon (plus bassist Karrie K) clearly have a keen eye for the histrionic, offering vivid peeks into the lives of the characters that haunt the record, from a parting bedside moment between a husband and wife on "And the Radio Played On" to the disquieting experience of the waiting room on "A Room for Waiting". But where these little vignettes often falter, the Delta Mirror have the good sense to reinforce the storytelling with interesting soundscapes. Often taking a flood of lush melodies and dense tones and augmenting them with craggly electronics, undulating bass lines, and soft thuds and ticks, it's the music that shoulders most of the sentimental heft. Celestial opener "It Was Dark and I Welcome the Calm" and highlight "We Got It All" help better to conceptualize the hospital's blend of the ominous and the peaceful.
Despite its heart, the music is so mechanized (save for the occasional piano suite), right down to its title. Machines That Listen suggest that these stories are somehow being translated by the machines themselves (though thankfully never going so far as to insert, say, the sounds of an EKG machine), with each disconnected stutter or pained guitar yowl inching closer to something innately organic. Often fogging the human vocals, this android-like device also gives the album's stories a new shape. But whatever the read, Machines That Listen is a patient, layered piece that offers a deeply romantic-- and occasionally oddly reaffirming-- take on experiences often written off as purely antiseptic.
