DEAD CHANNEL / COMMUNITY FREQUENCY
Records, weird noises, last trains home.
hello, humans. ♡ Make yourself at home. Disagree about records, not each other. No private addresses, no dodgy ticket links, and please label speculation as speculation. I check in between repairs and rehearsals, so a slow reply usually means I am underneath a synthesizer.
A band forum with actual paragraphs. Nature is healing.
Can we still argue about the production on Perfect Reception?
Of course. The snare drum has declined to appoint legal representation. — Mika ♡
First listen I kept waiting for it to turn into something from Static Shockz. Came back to it tonight and realised the space between the parts IS the thing. Anyone else take a few listens with the reunion record?
Yes. Follow the bass instead of waiting for the guitars to take over. Vex is doing so much without crowding everyone else.
Saturday Morning was my way in. Never thought I would want a Dead Channel song that felt like opening the curtains but here we are.
Still prefer the debut, honestly. But I like that this sounds like five people choosing to be in a room instead of trying to prove they survived it.
That is exactly it. Played it again on the way home. No skips this time.
Went back to the hidden track after The Music Isn’t Over Yet. I can convince myself there is a voice in there, then I listen again and it is just noise. Please tell me someone else has done this.
I used to hear a station announcement. Now I think my brain is supplying one because I always listened on the train.
My theory: the actual hidden track is the sleep we lost along the way.
I am enjoying the diagrams, but “Mika confirmed it” is doing a lot of work in a few of these posts. I have confirmed nothing. Please keep your headphone volume sensible while investigating tiny ghosts. ♡
Noted. Downgrading my document from EVIDENCE to enthusiastic nonsense.
I know the story behind the sessions is rough, but Beautiful Machines and All Night City deserve better than being filed under “the label one”. It is the record that got me into them.
The songs are good. I just miss the sense that something might fall over at any second.
Fair, but the polish makes the uneasy bits stranger to me. Under the Floor would not land the same way on the debut.
Exactly. Also I reserve the right to enjoy an unreasonable amount of snare drum.
Wishlist, not a leaked setlist! Mine: Low Frequency, Different Frequencies, then Heartbreaker without the big electric arrangement. What would actually change when you take the volume away?
Low Frequency with the bass right up front. Please. And give Yumi room to sing.
The First Take. I think that song could survive almost anything being stripped out.
Keeping the wishlist label on this one. There is no confirmed venue, date or running order yet. Also, unplugged does not mean Ren has to sit in silence looking at a tambourine. He has already raised this concern. ♡
Please tell him we support the tasteful hitting of objects.
Bought into the whole thing for the old machines. Stayed for Someone at the Door. It is quietly becoming the one I go back to most.
Five Empty Channels. No clever explanation, it just gets me.
Closed on Mondays. As somebody who works weekends, I feel represented by the title alone.
Thank you for making room for the quieter songs. They were the ones I was most nervous about letting out of the shop. Pixel remains firmly in favour of Do Not Unplug, unless he is the one doing the unplugging. ♡
A friend pointed me towards Kai’s No Fixed Address and now there appear to be about twelve doors into this band. Where would you start if that is the sound you like?
Perfect Reception for the bigger new-wave side, then the reunion record. Save Static Shockz for when you want everything a bit more scraped up.
Better Apart if it is the guitar interplay you like. Rika and Kai sound great together without it having to be a reunion romance narrative.
Update: went with Perfect Reception. You were right about the choruses. I may be here a while.
Trying to add keys to our very loud little band. Everything is either too clean or a fog over the guitars. Not asking for Mika’s secret settings, just how you make the wobble sit somewhere useful.
Fewer notes helped us more than more pedals. I was basically playing another rhythm guitar part and wondering why it was mush.
That is a good answer. Start with one held note and listen to where the bass and guitars leave room. Give the sound one small unstable thing, not six. And record a rehearsal from across the room: a lovely patch on headphones can be an extremely rude bandmate. ♡
Tried leaving the low notes out tonight. Instant improvement. “Extremely rude bandmate” is now written on our keyboard case.
Still learning barre chords and feeling very bad at it. Hearing Rika’s false starts on those early tapes was oddly reassuring. It is easy to forget she had to learn to do this too.
That is why I like them as a companion to Heartbreaker. The retrospective tells the story; the tapes let you hear someone working it out.
Keep the messy recordings. In six months you will hear progress that you cannot hear day to day.
Recorded a whole song today. Three restarts, but a whole song. Keeping it.
I expected the acoustic record to be a softer greatest-hits set. Instead, some of the new piano parts make the old songs feel more exposed. Ghost in the Amplifier is worse in the best possible way.
Exactly. The lack of distortion leaves nowhere to hide. I love that they brought in No Fixed Address and Better Apart instead of pretending the solo records never happened.
The piano had lived in my flat long enough to earn a credit. It had a very small room and a very large personality. Please be nice about its tuning. ♡
Electric Saint stripped right back is the surprise for me. It still sounds dangerous, just closer.
I was at one of the Black Lantern nights. Hearing the audience on the record is strange because I can almost identify my chair. The room was so quiet between songs you could hear glasses being set down.
The small laugh before Kiss Me in Stereo makes it for me. It is not a stadium document. It feels like friends letting you listen in.
And Ren absolutely did not sit quietly with a tambourine. The percussion on Strike Like Lightning is tiny and perfect.
Ren would like this thread archived for legal reasons. He says the tambourine allegations have become defamatory. ♡
Case dismissed. The percussion has been heard.
Outside the Door. It has no business being tucked away on a collection when it sounds that complete.
Automatic Goodbye, but I understand why it never made the cut. It is too sad in a very quiet way.
9 O’clock Riot. Release the fast version of everything, coward band.
Some songs lose the argument about track order and then get a much better afterlife. Also, please do not call the band cowards. They are very brave around snacks. ♡
Amending my post: release the fast version of everything, courageous snack people.
Leave the signal on. Be good to each other. — Mika ♡