Spoiler alert! The new Midlake record is not from the band that you grew to love with The Trials Of Van Occupanther. With each successive album, the members of Midlake transformed, foregrounding a different favorite section of their record collections. Now comes Antiphon (ATO), which announces itself with an opening title track that rocks harder and more insistently than anything in the group’s prior catalog. Midlake again sounds like a new band. And, this time it is: It’s Midlake’s first since the departure of principal singer/songwriter Tim Smith, its first with guitarist Eric Pulido stepping into those lead roles, its first with former touring members Jesse Chandler (keyboards, flute) and Joey McClellan (guitars) officially joining drummer Mackenzie Smith, multi-instrumentalist Paul Alexander and guitarist Eric Nichelson. Chandler and Nichelson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Midlake feature.
Chandler: “Sita Ram” is a track by Alice Coltrane on her album Universal Consciousness from 1971. The beautiful harp playing and exquisite organ solos throughout, combined with the sitar, make for a pretty amazing few minutes of music. I could listen to that go on forever—it’s just true musical bliss. We joke that this song is what heaven sounds like, but maybe it’s true!
