- Artist: Engineers
- Title: Engineers
- Label: Echo
- Release date: 6.21.05
click to download CD cover- Track Listing:
- Home: (Stream)
- Waved On
- New Horizons
- Forgiveness: (Stream)
- Let's Just See
- Come In Out Of The Rain: (Stream)
- Peter Street
- Said And Done
- Thrasher
- How Do You Say Goodbye
- One In Seven
- Video:
"The thing with us is that we're just different. We don't sound like The White Stripes. We don't sound like Coldplay. We don't sound like anything current. We don't do it deliberately. It's just the way our music turns out. We're not like anyone else."
Engineers, London, 2004
Engineers are a band of substance over style. A London-based four piece (Dan is joined by Simon Phipps - vocals/guitars, Mark Peters - guitars/vocals and Sweeney on drums) who've only been together since March 2003, they're inspired by everything from Brian Eno and The Cocteau Twins through to Todd Rundgren and Spiritualized. They're interested in the music they make and little else. They're a group who ardently believe in the restless, symphonic power of music. They're driven forward by the same impulse that compelled Dennis Wilson to write 'Pacific Ocean Blue' or Talk Talk to forge 'Spirit Of Eden'.
To that end, the band are intent on creating a live experience which matches the powerful psychedelic intensity of their music. "We have a guy doing visuals for our shows now," says Sweeney. "He's this mad German guy and he's got all these brilliant ideas. He's given us these Lomo cameras. They were originally the Russian's 'People's Camera'. They're really cheap and they take these really strange, sterile-looking blurred photographs. We're going to have them projected behind us. It's got to be an event when we play. Having said that though, we don't want it to be really slick like the Flaming Lips."
At the same time as working on the live element, the band keep coming back to their music, continually reshaping it and honing it. The fruits of their obsession will arrive this April with the release of their self titled mini epic on Echo. Holed up in a claustrophobic space in The Depot studio, North London ENGINEERS came to life completely under their own visions of sound and perhaps a few spliffs. It’s beautiful pages of sonic textures feature tracks like “Home” and “New Horizon.” Both tracks were self-produced by the band, before being remixed by a resurgent Dave Bascombe (a man perhaps most famous for his work with Tears For Fears) for UK 7” singles.
"We know exactly what we want to do, so it seems pointless to let anyone else meddle with it," explains Dan.
"You've got to be able to live with every aspect of the music you've made," adds Mark. "You've got to love it so much you can keep going back to it night after night. That's why we're doing it ourselves. We know what it's got to be like."
All the signs suggest that deep in the labyrinth corridors of The Depot, Engineers have forged their own highly original, deeply intense, utterly original sonic masterpiece. The band, however, are a little bit more circumspect.
"We've always said if more people started taking acid we'd clean up. I doubt whether that's going to happen though," sighs Sweeney, slightly sadly.
He needn't worry. Engineers are different. This is a band who are going to clean up whatever happens.