The lonesome plight of inventors: weeks spent turning dials, tweaking switchboards; adjusting the signal so that the constant buzzing stream hits a pocket, and, as if for the first time, you hear a voice. It is faint and speaking another language, but it is a voice, and for now that is enough. Amateur Radio Operator's album Sirens of Titan exemplifies the soft moments inside a mind otherwise troubled with creations. Part folk, part indie, the songs in this album could be described as the quiet wave of thoughts slipping away from a genius at work. For as anyone who's written or painted or created anything knows, the thinking mind is a pressure cooker, and the steam can be just as wonderful as what's boiling beneath the lid. But isn't that just the sort of talent we expect out of a Seattle band these days? Yes, actually, it is. And ARO does not disappoint. Mark Johnson's vocals seem to exist inside their own echo. They're at once brazen and furtive: flirting with...
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A blog about music, pop culture, and the stuff in between