Shiny Around the Edges

Publication: A Boy and His Blog

So, I was looking over Tiny Mix Tapes' eureka! list for 2005 today trying to find some new music to check out, and I came across Denton, Texas based Shiny Around The Edges, whose debut full length Secrets of the Double Blind was profiled.

The band, consisting of husband and wife duo Michael and Jen Seman, and drummer Josh Prisk, combine folk sensibilities with chaotic flourishes of noise experimentation. If pressed to find a point of reference, imagine Akron/Family with a Low fixation.

While the sounds are unique, what's most refreshing about the band, is their approach to their art. Put out on CDR's, each copy is personally packaged by the band. Michael gave the following reason for this decision:

"We decided that we wanted to eliminate any sort of gap that might come between us and people that like our music. When we play we don't want to just play, we want to be able to talk to people in the audience, find out what bands they're into, what they like, what they do. Having a pre-packaged CD that's all shrink-wrapped and ready to go kind of puts a wall between us and them," he said. "We'd like to think of them as friends. We went the route where what we do is more like a woodblock print as opposed to a lithograph."

You can also check out their Myspace page for a couple of extra tracks. You can also buy their album for a mere $7 by clicking here which I urge you to do.