Oldest Known Planet Identified by Think Airbag

Jenna Roadman, PORTLAND MERCURY

In a world of spacious beauty, where pillow-y, gentle landscape brushes the sky, offset by the golden, illuminating backdrop of the sun, is Think Airbag. Forgoing the industrial, cold mechanics of big city life,

preferring to dwell in the majestic countryside, at least musically, Think Airbag uses the big, wide-open fields to float, creating a sound of space and time, a harmonious nod to all things untouched by the hands of modern

consumerism. Using the less-is-more aesthetic, Think Airbag combs through well-polished, tightly knit production values undeniably laying beneath home-spun, indie-fied recordings, giving the record the perfect spit

shine, without losing any of its prestige and cache to gloss or buffing.

What we have here is a smooth, gentle, and quite relaxing take on a slumbering sound that is as rich as it is airy, as vibrant as it is subdued, and as intoxicating as it is memorable. Think Airbag are newcomers on the scene, but their sound is that of veteran musicians, creating a soulful, early morning, dew-on-the-skin freshness that is

lacking in much of music today.

-Alex Steininger

www.inmusicwetrust.com

We get a piles of CDs mailed to us here at the Exploiter offices and many are in fact crap. But every once in a while you get a hook up because of the zine and someone lays on you, a cool disc. This is pretty much how we got an early copy of Portland, Ore's Think Airbag. We had previously covered King Of Spain's Normalized CD and had dug it. That band eventually came to a halt and KoS bassist Sean Bartley went into something completely different and started Think Airbag with King Of Spain founder Rayburn Edwards. Rayburn had left King of Spain years ago but continued in the scene.

The pair are once again collaborating on recording and playing live shows under their new moniker. Their first album is going to be called Oldest Known Planet Identified, when it finally becomes commercially available. Even better than the title is the front cover which features a cheap-o guitar floating in space above the Earth connected by wires to a box called an "electronic stimulator." If you know what an electronic stimulator is email us.

The new Think Airbag album is a little bit of space music, a little bit of indie rock and a little bit of electronica. Plenty of beeping sounds, drum machines and lush synth pads but also raw guitar sounds. I hear tube amps with some grit on them doing melodies and leads.

There are currently 7 tracks on the disc we got. My favorite track is God's Face, which is an upbeat catchy pop song where the chorus states "Everyday's the weekend, Everynight's a party... in space." How true it is my friends. This is one of the songs King of Spain used to perform and one of their best live songs in the set, however, it was never recorded. This song alone is worth getting this debut Think Airbag disc.

The lush and fantastic Livelihood has more synths and vocoder than an AIR album. Great make out music and especially enjoyable on long drives. Or like me, when you have that pounding hangover and you want something smooth on the stereo.

Another soon to be indie space rock hit is the track Lonely. The intro beeps with early atari like sounds but busts out into a full on pop masterpiece. Think Airbag uses an abundance of drum machine sounds and space rock guitars. Tunes like Lonely and Nothing You Can Do sound reminiscent of 80s synth pop bands like Psychedelic Furs or perhaps something in the vein of Peter Murphy. A genre ready to come back to life with fresh new blood.

You, the reader, should pick up the Think Airbag CD when it becomes available for the songs Lonely and God's Face, soon to be classic indie synth pop hits. The rest of the album has a LOT of music on it, all excellently recorded and produced. The shortest song is 4 minutes which means there is a plenty of notes to go around. What more could you want?

-El Mako

www.internet-exploiter.com

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