MIIRRORS long player Motion And Picture will be available from Pravda Records on March 24th. Recorded in Chicago, Los Angeles and Nashville anticipation is high after MIIRRORS’ version of an otherwise unfinished Jeff Buckley demo "Gunshot Glitter,' seeped into public consciousness and garnered deserved acclaim. Paste magazine’s take was that MIIRRORS have come closer than anyone to capturing the Buckley zeitgeist. Few, to be fair, would even attempt it. Motion And Picture provides a cinematic soundscape of honest lyrical introspection and reactive abrasion, a personal timespan of disillusionment, resolve, and return of hope. Containing echoes of My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, the songs are underpinned by Shawn Rios's atypical rhythms; Brian McSweeney's voice is a uniquely cut cabochon as if floating over arrangements that dare with their guile, with their sheer airiness. Andre Miller, Patrick Riley, and Dmitri Rakhuba's color palette is combustible, their fuel inexhaustive. Over to the band…
PARALLAX
Parallax is the first MIIRRORS song. It was the first idea we (Shawn and Brian) wrote together and at its core, it embodies the sound of the skeleton of Motion and Picture. Electric guitar, drums, vocals. (Brian)
GUNSHOT GLITTER
Thank God that Brian and I separately found this song on the Japan import of Jeff Buckley’s Sketches record. Working with Jeff’s drummer Matt Johnson was a pinnacle, he and Brian each nailed their parts on the first take. Meant to be. (Shawn)
NIGHTWALK
The song is beautiful and it began as a Bossa Nova-feel demo that Dmitri made at home in Nashville. The chorus, Brian’s lyrics - such a sound of yearning. The video was just as much fun to make. (Shawn)
SINISTRY
Sinistry is the first song where the band came together as a collective writing unit. Until then, we were recording overdubs and piecing things together in the studio. If you listen to the recorded and live versions, you’ll hear that they are nearly identical. This is because there was no going back and learning what we had created when recording. Everyone just played what they wrote, together in the same room, at the same time. (Brian)
FIELDS AND FORESTS
Such a singular sounding song for us. One of my favorite contributions. No room for straight lines when sounds sway and permeate in such a way that’s so emotional yet still makes you move a little. (Shawn)
KNOCKOFF
Knockoff is the reimagining of a very old drum and bass demo I was never able to let go of. I was staying at a house in East Nashville before the pandemic and I had a few horn players drop in and play on the track. The bari sax is amazing, the way it communicates like a person at the end of the song. The spirit of the song relates to something I heard Alan Watts say; “the reason you don’t know what you want is that you already have it”. (Brian)<
WHERE DO WE GO?
Where do We Go? is a strange song rhythmically. There is a push and pull that makes me feel like I’m walking a tightrope. I was experimenting with a drum machine one morning, and it came in a flash. That has only happened a few times in my life. The song is essentially based on one note for 5 1/2 minutes. It was tricky to pull that off without the song feeling monotonous. That’s why the nuance of the atmospheric elements in the recording are very important. Subject-wise, it feels like we are approaching a cultural apex. We’re asking questions and killing each other over the answers. There’s a collective breakdown in direction and the horizon isn’t so clear anymore. (Brian)
SPASMATIC
This was such a fun recording to make.
Brian gave me the freedom to see what could work together rhythmically. There’s so much happening and it raises this anxiety in the song. It’s exciting for me to think of the various ways this can be performed live. (Shawn)
WOLF IN SHEEPSKIN
Wolf In Sheepskin really came to life in the recording at Electrical Audio. We tracked it in studio B, which has wonderful high ceilings and you can hear that when the vocal gets loud at the end of the song. It was difficult to record because the time signature changes several times and the performance had to be just right, because it is such a quiet song and everything is exposed.(Brian)
OLIVET
Olivet is actually one of my favorite moments of the album. It’s a hopeful quiet after the long storm. Dmitri and I were playing around with something really striking and pretty while Nick Broste was setting up mics for overdubs on another song during a session at Shape Shoppe. I really miss that place. This piece resembles an interest we have in making more instrumental material, whichever way that can be purposed. (Shawn)
