Machine Day - Review

Artist: Spacebirds
Title: Machine Day
Catnmbr: Siro476
Keywords: Sci-Fi Techno (Oh, brevity!)
Reviewer: Alex Spalding

I had some free time on my hands and figured, why not do some space travel today? Sirona-Records is a good place for that sort of thing, and I think I found my sonic accompaniment – though clearly, as pictured, I might have to work to avoid the anal probes.
Getting right to it, the first track begins with some excellent pads, a little piano work… but it quickly abandons these trappings, settling for some very wonky acid basslines that sound like they’re straight outta Mars, direct transmission feed. Little green men dance in my head. One of the things that makes this quirky acid track stand out is all the strange bleep-bloop sfx that seem to mark transitions as they happen. Really enjoyed everything, all the way through. It makes you want to pop ‘cid and wear a silver space suit around, maybe analyze the lifeforms or objects around your house… like your cat, who, if he or she is anything like mine, is probably analyzing you too, with a curious look on his face that says, “What the hell, human?” At 4:59/5:00, my favourite part of the track, some nice synthbass/horn sounds come in. Oh, and almost forgot to mention, the track is titled ‘Machine Day’, so it’s the titular track. Silly me, got caught up there.
‘Mars Attacks’ is next, just some killer acid and probably my favourite track here, very interesting retro sounds abound. The kind of retro that still rocks it. I love the grungy distortion that Spacebirds use to great effect on some of the sequences. Also the filter-work is really nice, keeping things shifting and changing in subtle ways. I can only guess that they’ve been doing this sort of thing for awhile. Again, as with the last track, the spacy sfx they use throughout are perfect, the icing on the spacecake. At the end of the track, we sort of blast off into…
… track 3, ‘Moonman’, and the last track on this unfairly short EP. Light breaks, growling basslines… this eventually gives way to almost electro terrain, with a lot of the sci-fi sound fx getting incorporated into the groove. At 2:04, you start to hear my favourite sounds on the whole album come in and out with different applied filters, deep, syncopated chord sequences that are reminiscent of Juan Atkins’ Infiniti project, or many of the old Tresor singles. After it’s out, things get silly and fun. Machines, machines! At 5:06, right back into the electro-breaks… oh, and the end of the track was really sweet sounding.
So, all in all, not the longest of Sirona’s releases, but very satisfying for any time you’re in the mood for some old-school acid with a sci-fi bent. This will not likely be the last I’ve heard of the Spacebirds either: their website makes it easy to access all of their output. But, for now, you might at least hear this one at the link

REVIEW LINK