Staff Reviews

Mi Ami - Steal Your Face

Review by David Pott-Negrine

Imagine that you are stood in an empty room, with two bands practising in two rooms adjacent to you. In the room to the right is a noise band pretending to be a dub reggae band; in the room to the left is a dub reggae outfit pretending to be a noise band. From where you are stood you can hear both bands playing at the same time.»

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ex-black eyes guitarist daniel martin-mccormick and bassist jacob long, along with a drummer release 'steal your face', their second album as mi ami. the music was recorded once again by phil manley at lucky cat studios. as with 'watersports', the entire process took five days, with all tracks performed live and vocals overdubbed. working for a third time with manley meant that by the time of recording he had acquired a deep and full understanding of mi ami's music, and was able to take certain calculated risks other engineers might not. thus, the album is far and away mi ami's finest sounding, and the one which is most aligned with their live show. each track was approached with unique sonic characteristics in mind, from the claustrophobic mind-scape of 'harmonics (genius of love)' to the fading light of 'dreamers' to the sharp, lacerating tone of 'latin lover' to the avant boogie of album closer 'slow.' anyone interested in understanding what mi ami is about would do well to start with this album. more concise than 'watersports' more confident than their other pre-thrill jockey releases and better sounding than anything else they have done, 'steal your face' marks their arrival as a fully-formed, organically mature band.
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