Optic Sink – Glass Blocks – New LP

September 2023.

Memphis synth punk without the trash-stomp garage-rock abandonment many have come to associate with that Tennessee town, Optic Sink cold and calculated as an Akron robot typing messages on an electric teletype, cracking a Moroder power-line like a Morricone bullwhip, but still analog warm and organic as skin on a knuckle, a brass-knuckle sandwich electricity into your ear, twisting up the knob on the space heater to warm up the vacuum tubes and cold space suits hanging in the back of the garage, Natalie Hoffmann (Nots) vocals, guitars, art w/  Ben Bauermeister (Magic Kids) drums, and Keith Cooper (Jack Oblivian and the Sheiks, I assume), bass.  Loads of synth electricity filling the sounds, like icicles on slate rooftops, strong and fragile, sharp and melting, dripping mineral water on fluorescent lamps and power circuits, Hoffman's guitar and Cooper's bass helping pulsate the rhythms into your ears, exotica percussion and electro funk mixed with bits of early mid-60s secret agent elbowing its way into the sound, shards of spaceage rock piercing into the skin, all the sounds wound up tight and the band working together wonderfully, twisting rhythms into your eardrums like wires wrapping around glass power pole insulators ... surrender and let Optic Sink knot their rhythms around your ankles and up and down your Frankenstein spine, let go of the railing and bop your noggin like the heads of the Peanuts dancing away the holidays...become a puppet riding on the pulse and electricity of Optic Sink. -- winch