Photo: Bandcamp
The American Analog Set were always an anomaly, emerging from the distortion-soaked 1990s purveying a notably relaxed type of krautrock-infused jam, hushed while their contemporaries were rowdy. Their breakthrough was 2001’s Know by Heart, a record where it felt like everything crystalised, but the three prior are worth exploring, and handily, they’ve been collected in a new box set.
In 2023 The American Analog Set released their first album in 18 Years, For Forever. It’s marked by the appearance of distorted guitar, which in the context of their usual palette is a seismic shift.
The band have just put out New Drifters, which collects their first three albums, as well as demos and unreleased tracks from the time. ‘Too Tired to Shine’, from their debut LP The Fun of Watching Fireworks, has the template of fuzzed-out synth, drums, and diminutive guitar playing and vocals courtesy of Andrew Kenny already established. If anything, they got more quiet from here. On ‘Magnificent Seventies’, off their second release, From Our Living Room to Yours, the drums are brushed, and the fuzz is gone.
That track stretches on for nine minutes, a good showcase for Mark Smith’s polyrhythmic tapping, and the band's fondness for sitting on a few notes for an extended period. By the time we get to the third record, The Golden Band, there’s a step up in fidelity, and also confidence: ‘A Schoolboy’s Charm’ instils three chords with a lot of feeling, and Kenny’s vocals are more surefooted.
That same album contains ‘I Must Soon Quit the Scene’, a moody piece led by vibraphone, and heavy on atmosphere.
The American Analog Set always had an air of mystery that set them apart from their contemporaries. On their first few albums they were compared to Cocteau Twins, Stereolab, and NZ’s The Chills, and those are all apt reference points, but the band really did find their own minimalist approach, and stick to it.
It was their 2000s records which cemented their status as a band that would linger in the annals of alt-rock, but this earlier work is just as soothing, if slightly unformed.
