Feel It Records
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
Produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Caufield Schnug in Lawrence, KS
A Silver Key Can Open An Iron Lock, Somewhere originally written and performed by LiLiPUT
Album art by Natalie Hoffmann
Optic Sink – Lucky Number – New LP
Regular price
$ 22.00
Releases/ships October 31, 2025
Lucky Number, the third album from Memphis trio Optic Sink, finds the band both refining and expanding their hypnotic mix of post-punk and dance music, resulting in a sharp and moving exploration of surfaces, shadows, and self-delusion.
Natalie Hoffmann (NOTS) has come into her full power as a lyricist. Her work on earlier records (see “Modelesque” and “Glass Blocks”) shows her talent for exploring the hidden shallows of modern life, but here the funhouse mirrors are balanced by painful longing and drops of truth
that leak through the cracks. The music reflects this—under Bauermeister’s driving grooves and the songs’ tight arrangements lurk hidden complexities, thanks in part to Keith Cooper’s exceptional, angular work on guitar and bass.
“Unreachable / untouchable space / glass tower / a fragile face / when you’re here / where do you go?” Hoffmann sings over the sinister, nocturnal funk of “Construction.” Few bands can match the hard beauty of Depeche Mode, New Order, and A Certain Ratio—Optic Sink
manages to do more than that, adding their own sad, cutting wisdom.
Produced and recorded by Caufield Schnug of Sweeping Promises, Lucky Number is out Fall 2025 on Feel It Records.
-Dan Hornsby of True Green/author of Sucker and Via Negativa
Natalie Hoffmann (NOTS) has come into her full power as a lyricist. Her work on earlier records (see “Modelesque” and “Glass Blocks”) shows her talent for exploring the hidden shallows of modern life, but here the funhouse mirrors are balanced by painful longing and drops of truth
that leak through the cracks. The music reflects this—under Bauermeister’s driving grooves and the songs’ tight arrangements lurk hidden complexities, thanks in part to Keith Cooper’s exceptional, angular work on guitar and bass.
“Unreachable / untouchable space / glass tower / a fragile face / when you’re here / where do you go?” Hoffmann sings over the sinister, nocturnal funk of “Construction.” Few bands can match the hard beauty of Depeche Mode, New Order, and A Certain Ratio—Optic Sink
manages to do more than that, adding their own sad, cutting wisdom.
Produced and recorded by Caufield Schnug of Sweeping Promises, Lucky Number is out Fall 2025 on Feel It Records.
-Dan Hornsby of True Green/author of Sucker and Via Negativa
releases October 31, 2025
Recorded and produced by Caufield Schnug
Mastered by Matthew Barnhart at Chicago Mastering
Album artwork by Natalie Hoffmann
Additional vocals on Don't Look Down, Kinetic World and Laughing Backwards and additional synth on Golden Hour by Lira Mondal
Vibraphone on Kinetic World, Luxury of Honesty and Golden Hour by Jackson Graham
Optic Sink is:
Natalie Hoffmann
Ben Bauermeister
Keith Cooper
Special thanks to Greg Cartwright
Recorded and produced by Caufield Schnug
Mastered by Matthew Barnhart at Chicago Mastering
Album artwork by Natalie Hoffmann
Additional vocals on Don't Look Down, Kinetic World and Laughing Backwards and additional synth on Golden Hour by Lira Mondal
Vibraphone on Kinetic World, Luxury of Honesty and Golden Hour by Jackson Graham
Optic Sink is:
Natalie Hoffmann
Ben Bauermeister
Keith Cooper
Special thanks to Greg Cartwright
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
Expanding on the magnetic, minimalist post-punk frontier first chartered on their Goner debut, Optic Sink return with their second album, 'Glass Blocks'. Hot on the heels of their recent EP on Spacecase Records, the Memphis trio of Natalie Hoffmann, Ben Bauermeister, and Keith Cooper ventured out to Lawrence, Kansas to record at the home studio of Caufield Schnug (Sweeping Promises). The resulting seven originals and a rendition of LiLiPUT's "A Silver Key Can Open An Iron Lock, Somewhere" define Optic Sink and their remarkable style with a clarity and power seldom realized in a studio setting. Hoffmann and Bauermeister command the high end of the mix with a gamut of perfectly dialed synth and percussive tones while Cooper's bass serves as rhythmic anchor. There's far more to dive into, whether it's the cold, driving beat of "Modelesque" or the minimal, percussive brilliance heard on "Glass Blocks". Perhaps the best part of the formula is the sheer amount of natural energy that gleams through the mix. Like a warm refraction of musical chemistry and originality, Optic Sink have struck gold with 'Glass Blocks'.
Produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Caufield Schnug in Lawrence, KS
A Silver Key Can Open An Iron Lock, Somewhere originally written and performed by LiLiPUT
Album art by Natalie Hoffmann
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