We’re excited by every new music project involving members of Chicago’s The Poison Arrows, and the Japanese / American band Forever Era is the latest band to join that list. Forever Era consists of guitarist/vocalist Justin Sinkovich (The Poison Arrows, Acquaintances, Atombombpocketknife, Thumbnail) and drummer Adam Reach (The Poison Arrows, Pink Avalanche) of The Poison Arrows collaborating with Tokyo musician Yukio Murata (My Way My Love, Inoran, The Mortal) and delivering a mind-melting array of music that morphs between post-punk, noise rock, experimental electronic, and mathy indie rock.
There is a lot to love from the use of classic 80’s sounding drum machines to constant noisy post-punk rumblings that float underneath the album to a layered and lush production that encapsulates a lot of electronic music production.
We’re glad we can share the exclusive album stream – the debut S/T album from Forever Era is one not to sleep on.
Here’s what the band had to say about the album:
“The debut self-titled LP from Forever Era is a unique and frenetic one. The opening track “Patterns Per Partition” starts with a frantic array of dueling guitars, keyboards, and vocals from both Yukio and Justin on top of a Suicide-inspired sequencer and multiple drum kits from Adam. Track 2 “Subject Fell” follows suit with more of a reliance on the live drum kits and samplers. The record meanders into a more drum machine-driven affair for the remainder of side A. Keyboards drip with space echo and distortion on “Bluetooth Séance” and “Medieval Path” striking a symbiotic between chaos, darkness, and melody to provide a platform for Justin’s swaggered spoken word. And then “ADAT Hit” could almost end up at a retro IDM night, but not quite. Its title references the antiquated Alesis Digital Audio Tape (ADAT) tech that chained recorders that recorded on VHS tapes and were quite prevalent in studios in the 90’s if you can imagine such barbaric technology. From there, side B of the album toggles from more analog elements back to more electronics, and from instrumentals to intermittent vocals.
The production of the album was very fluid as it was transferred from member-to-member usually ignoring traditional practices by ditching the multi-track individual instrument manipulation ability by sending a stereo mix of a track to another member so that they can quickly and easily layer their contribution on top of it as another stereo mix and send it back. This process something a traditional audio engineer would likely never consider. All together the album is complex to digest but is fun to figure out what the hell is going on and we think it came together quite nicely as a volume of experimentation balancing cohesion and chaos.”
Forever Era’s debut album comes out on Friday, May 13th. Let’s just hope Friday the 13th doesn’t start any new forever eras for Jason Vorhees! You can find the album on bandcamp and follow the band on Facebook.