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Fake Mirror

by The Aerosols

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    Vinyl version of The Aerosols' Fake Mirror.

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1.
All Right 02:27
2.
Fake Mirror 03:19
3.
Mrs. Jinson 03:16
4.
Cold Jewelry 02:40
5.
Record City 03:55
6.
China 03:20
7.
8.
9.
10.
Icing 02:55
11.

about

There are people who insist not just on planting a garden from seed, but spend months simply preparing the soil before the first seed is even planted; who have not only the patience to see their vision through but the flexibility to let their vision evolve over time, adapting it to the elements they can not control but making sure it remains fiercely theirs.

The Aerosols have been around for about ten years, but Fake Mirror is only their second release (the first being a mostly solo home recording by singer/guitarist/"guy in charge" Joe Z. Armin). In that time they've slowly grown from what was basically a solo project with a revolving rhythm section into a capital-b Band, and even though it's still unquestionably Armin's vision, it has wound so tightly around the playing of each member that you hear only a seamless whole. Recorded by the band themselves on 8-track tape over four years, Fake Mirror is a basement psych-pop masterpiece – a delirious marriage of texture and melody that both offers immediate pleasures and rewards multiple listens. Songs like "Cold Jewelry," "All Right," and the title track sound like what might have happened if Brian Eno had tried to re-record Piper at the Gates of Dawn from memory in 1974. (Place your Oblique Strategies joke here.) Others ("She's So Far Gone," "Don't Make Me Run," "Mrs. Jinson") mix an Anglophilic swirl with a distinctly mid-western heaviness in a way that recalls the great Detroit psychedelic band SRC (which is appropriate given Armin's mid-western roots). The songs are memorable but never simply catchy, and Armin's soft tenor voice glides through the mix with ease.

For a record that took so long to complete, it never sounds labored over – the rhythm section of Josh Bevelacqua (bass) and Raul Sanchez (drums) make every song feel as immediate as tomorrow. Amy Fowler's buzzing keyboards and synths appear where you least expect them and dart around the melodies in a way that's unpredictable but never out of place. But the true stars of this record are the layers and layers of Armin's electric guitar. Whether he's arpeggiating unusually voiced chords, playing simple but effectively fuzzed out leads, using tremolo as a weapon, or (more often) doing all at once, Armin's mastery of tone is apparent in every note he plays.

Writing a song is easy. Recording an album is no big accomplishment – a dozen LPs have been recorded and released in the time it took you to read this sentence. Respecting your muse enough to follow it wherever and however long it leads you is much trickier. Fake Mirror is a record that could only have been recorded on its own schedule. That might be a concept as obsolete as the band's namesake, or maybe only as obsolete as the equipment they used to record it. But it goes to show that if you tinker in the basement long enough, you may yet emerge one day an artisan. Or at least a gardener.
-Josh Miller

credits

released September 20, 2014

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The Aerosols San Francisco, California

"...a little more jingle jangle, blissed-out sunshine pop that might go better with a nice cup of tea instead of a PBR..." - Brooklyn Vegan

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