SPC ECO - Dark Matter

  by Dave Goodwin

published: 25 / 11 / 2015

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Has anybody actually discovered the content of dark matter yet? Former Curve member Dean Garcia has written a whole album about it here and released it under the moniker of SPC ECO. The main player here looking for it is obviously Garcia who plays bass, drums, guitar and programming, and Rose Berlin who accompanies Garcia on vocals. But they aren't the only collaborators here. The album features a long list of friends including his former Curve bandmates Debbie Smith and Steve Monti. The first track on the album is 'Creep in the Shadows', which would be a fantastic tune apart from the one thing which I really have reservations about in today's music which is is the voice synthesiser, this time used on Berlin’s vocals. Do you remember that time in in the late 1990s when Cher with 'Do You Believe' and a lot of other similar atrocities were around? Well, that's what I mean by the voice synth. Or is it autotune as some folk call it? Anyway it continues down that sticky path with 'Different Kind', before 'Let it Be Always', which starts out sounding upbeat and slow but then becomes more upbeat, chippers things up a bit. 'Playing Games' is one of the highlights on here, providing a mix of different sounds for Berlin's sumptuous vocals, while 'I Won’t Be Heard', the track whih follows it, is another winner. There is a darker moment shortly afterwards when 'Meteor' drifts over and goes on a kind of melancholic dream pop trip. The electronic early 80's-sounding 'Down Low' is up next and, following that on the back end of the album, 'Breathe' simplifies matters and brings a more basic line to proceedings, before 'Under My Skin' finishes the album in true dream-pop style. The other thing about this, and it covers the whole album, is a stop-start muffled sound thing going off all the way through. It really messed with my head. Still, each to their own. All in all, it's a good album full of different takes on what makes SPC ECO tick if I could only get that voice synth and sound in a tin can out of my head. As you will be able to tell, it has struck a nerve. The CD is neatly packaged with a can of dark matter on the front and a plain backside with tracklist and credits. There is a heavy card inner inside with all the lyrics, but if your eyes are as bad as mine these days the type makes it hard to understand. The good thing about it all though is that the words and all the imagery are all done by Berlin herself. Nice.

Track Listing:-

1 Creep In The Shadows
2 Different Kind
3 Let It Be Always
4 Playing Games
5 I Won't Be Heard
6 Meteor
7 Down Low
8 . Breathe
9 The Whole World Shines
10 Under My Skin

Band Links:-

http://spceco.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/spc.eco
http://spceco.tumblr.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/SPCECO
https://twitter.com/spceco
http://www.spceco.com/

Label Links:-

http://saintmarierecords.limitedrun.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Saint-Marie-Records-164080190305178
https://twitter.com/StMarieRecords
https://www.youtube.com/user/stmarierecords/videos
https://instagram.com/saintmarierecords/
https://plus.google.com/101156744740824013197

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