Whispers In The Speech Machine: Purple/Bone Splatter Vinyl LP
LPSLR286CPre-Order Item. Release Date Subject to Change.
Label: Slumberland Records
Release Date: 31st January
The Laughing Chimes are proper indie, our kid. They're dead young and with each single release, EP and album (you need to check their debut 'In This Town') they seem to embody the spirit of the hookiest, jangliest and forward thinking of indie pop from Flying Nun to IRS REM (the finest REM) to Echo and the Bunnymen and Postcard Records. They're not nailed on soundalikes or lifters because they manage to convey that special magic, that pureness of heart that you can't just simply reproduce.
“On their spellbinding sophomore album, “Whispers in the Speech Machine,” the young Ohio siblings from The Laughing Chimes fully embrace their Southern Gothic influences, cannily balancing the light of their infectious pop with the shadow of their rust belt environs. While attending an afterschool music program at their local opera house, Evan and his brother Quinn began recording The Laughing Chimes’ debut album “In This Town,”released in 2020. A string of well-received digital singles and a cassette EP for Slumberland followed, dazzling savvy pop fans with their Paisley Underground-inflected jangle that owes as much to the Flying Nun sound as it does to 80s Athens, GA.
The eight assured songs of “Whispers in the Speech Machine” prove The Laughing Chimes deserve the attention and accolades, while their approaches to songwriting and sonic aesthetics continue to evolve. “Southeast Ohio is the foothills of Appalachia, so it has this indescribable mood and atmosphere to it,” guitarist/vocalist Evan Seurkamp told The Big Takeover. “Sometimes there’s a haunting weight of decay you want to escape, but at the same time there is some sort of strange romanticism surrounding ghost towns. We’ve tried to channel those moods to add more regional flavor into our sound.”