aaamusic | On 26, Feb 2011

MI AMI

DOLPHINS

12″ EP

14 March 2011

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 Faceand 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.

NEW TOUR DATES:

Sat     Apr 9   Rome, Italy             Init Roma

Sun     Apr 10  Paris, France           La Java

Tue     Apr 12  Lille, France           Aeronef w/Battles

Wed     Apr 13  Brighton, UK            The Green Door Store

Thu     Apr 14  London, UK              Corsica Studios

Fri     Apr 15  Liverpool, UK           Mello Mello

Sat     Apr 16  Dublin, Ireland         Button Factory

Sun     Apr 17  Cork, Ireland           Crane Lane

Tue     Apr 19  Manchester, UK          Islington Mill

Wed     Apr  20 Glasgow, UK             Arts School

Thru    Apr 21  Nottingham, UK          Spanky Van Dykes

Fri     Apr 22  Den Haag, Netherlands   Paard

Sat     Apr 23  Amsterdam, Netherlands  OCCII

Sun     Apr 24  Koln, Germany           Genau

Mon     Apr 25  Trier, Germany          Exhaus

Tue     Apr 26  Leipzig, Germany                Conne Island

Wed     Apr 27  Berlin, Germany         Levee