INTRICATE MACHINES

Children of Los Angeles, you have a hall pass to rock.

Los Angeles is an exaggerated version of “The Factory” a la Andy Warhol. There’s a magnetic force drawing raw talent to LA; there’s always something brewing underground. Yet the music scene has an attention span of a four-year-old. One minute you’re in, the next, you’re electro. So who will survive? 

Cue Intricate Machines, a five-guy band you might have heard of, but not really. Comprised of So Cal natives and full time music nerds, band mates Trevor O'Neill, Lee Hepner, Colin Honigman, Shaun Tidwell, and Daniel Landau collectively make stuff sound good.

Instead of pigeonholing themselves in the indie scene of recent, they give the local low-fi punks a brainy makeover. Each track off their EP is thoughtful¬ly composed and memorable; after all, their biggest influences include bands like Radiohead and Talking Heads, as well as offbeat genres like African psychedelic funk. They can talk intelligently about jazz and then perform a 30-second Screamo set– which happened recently at a show in Chinatown.

Others are catching on. Their EP made it on to Amoeba Record’s “recommended” list, and a well-known DJ from Indie 103.1 recently played a song on-air. And on the down low, two respected record labels have expressed interest in the up-and-comers.

I’m putting it on the record: Intricate Machines is here to stay. As much as I’d like to keep them a secret, I can’t, because their music is bigger than LA. Yeah, they’re that good.
--DIANE CHANG

http://www.intricatemachines.com
http://www.myspace.com/intricatemachines



This story was published on July 31, 2008.