Her Space Holiday - The Astronauts are Sleeping (Volume 2)
(No Karma)
The Astronauts are Sleeping demonstrates the best and the worst of cheap,
accessible recording equipment and CD manufacturing. One the one hand, anyone who
wants to can, with minimal effort and expense, record and mass produce their
particularized vision. On the other, well, not everyone can be Lou Barlow.
The CD insert describes this record as "a collection of songs recorded on various
analogue machines between 1996-1998. Both the recording techniques and the songs
themselves are more than slightly imperfect." What you get is ten tracks of clean,
laid-back, melodic guitar work and unconfident vocals from a developing songwriter,
Marc Bianchi (who appears to be working entirely by himself). The mix is spiced up by
some sparse bass, the uneven mixing of home recording overdubs, and really bad
keyboard filler.
The whole record has a kind of underdeveloped feel. The songs are bare ideas and
could stand a little more fleshing out. The production is thin, relying too much on
keyboard presets to fill in the holes. One gets the feeling that this is a very personal
work. However, that does not necessarily make it worth paying for. With a little more
spit and polish, Her Space Holiday could probably put together a pretty decent record.
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