‘ambitious and vulnerable’ LP: DINA MACCABEE – The Sharpening Machine
Dina Maccabee – The Sharpening Machine LP is available at Bandcamp.
by Walter Price
The recent LP from Dina Maccabee, ‘The Sharpening Machine’, is one of this year’s stand-alone stunners. (Not to mention one with the lengthiest guest credits, a real community effort.) Intricate and addictive, this 10-track album is a non-formulaic masterclass. Near endless moments of delicate nuanced sounds cradling the whispery if not ethereal vocal styles of renowned violists Maccabee. As well as heaps of layered wonders throughout, every new turn something more intriguing than the last.
“With each project, I come closer to distilling the different sounds I’ve been chasing for the last 15 years. The Sharpening Machine seems to be one more stop on a winding journey, and I’m learning to have the courage to reveal my weirder side. These songs combine my urge to experiment with the desire to connect. It’s also about an internal battle with perfectionism. How do you coax an idea or sound toward its ideal, while keeping the possibility for surprises and compelling failures?” – D. Maccabee
If you’re a fan of adventurous sound exploration of Wayne Coyne, Murmur Tooth, Fredrik Kinbom, and/or Aldous Harding…then this release will stimulate your senses and heighten your avant-garde playlist. And you can stream this LP in full as well as watch the beautiful “Little Bite” animation by Karolina Glusiec, below.
DINA MACCABEE
Artist photo courtesy of Public Display PR
All songs by Dina Maccabee
Recorded at Rec Center, Los Angeles
Produced by Dina Maccabee and Evan Collins Conway
in association with Geomancy Records
Mixed by Evan Collins Conway
with additional mixing by Gavin MacKillop (9)
Theo Karon (4,10) Eli Crews (1,6,8)
and Ted Reichman (2,3,5,7)
Mastered by Jon Cohrs, Bear Call Mastering
Album art: detail from “Bring a string-bag”
Benjamin Britton, 2018
Animation: Karolina Glusiec, 2019
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“Songwriter and violist Dina Maccabee’s latest album, The Sharpening Machine, is a milestone entry in the New York-based musician’s creative continuum. Her path has taken her from formal music studies to individual explorations of folk and electronic sounds, on a quest to unite people through music that is both ambitious and vulnerable.” – bio