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It seems like it’s taken a while for press and magazines and most people to really take notice of Notes From the Universe, but we’re starting to get some good press on it, which makes us happy. We put A LOT of energy into making an album, so it does mean a lot when people notice, and take the time to write a review.
RagMag
An ambient and boundless alt pop and rock opus of an album was recently released from the band Collide and it breeds an absolutely refreshing set of textures that blend and chop into each other giving everything a darkened disquietude but also this vitality that helps the songs build a fierce but flowing character.
The Notes from The Universe album is completely immense, and these songs have the feel of connecting together almost like a concept album would.
You get such a great combination of natural and digital instrumentation that create an atmosphere that has a way of wrapping itself around you and keeping you right where it wants you.
You have some real gems throughout the records playthrough that possess this pop sensibility which is also there a lot on this release.
But even still if you look at this like it is a concept album, you're better off.
The vocals across the record have this graceful tonality to them and it really helps the whole approach for the soundscape and style that they've built.
There are plenty of surprises lurking around the corners and levels of intensity that rise and fall so the songs have a way of feeling alive and breathing.
What's most impressive about this really is the arrangement and songwriting and how the performance of the songs is the glue that keeps everything together and forward moving.
These are incredibly pictorial as well a lot of the time, which is quite beautiful in its own right, but they never lose that touch of grit and sharpness.
Notable songs include "Freak Like Me", Haunting Me Still, and "Are You Better Now" among others of course.
Buzz Slayers Blog just reviewed Notes From the Universe and did a review for us…find it here:
https://www.buzzslayers.com/post/an-interview-with-collide
Although the band has hardly kept quiet in the interim with reissues and the “Are You Listening?” collaborative single, it had been four years since Statik and kaRIN had graced their audience with a full-length album of new Collide material. Perhaps it was this long wait that accounts for the 11 tracks on Notes From the Universe, which present some of the band’s densest and most notably robust production values yet. Elements of ‘60s blues-laden psychedelia can be felt in the sharpened rays of light guitar and organ that resound in “Turn Off Your TV,” or in the grinding grooves or “Are You Better Now?,” while later cuts like the jaunty “Icy Cold,” the swinging lounge jazz vibes of “When All You Crave,” or the sultry cabaret rhythms of the smoky “What Were You Thinking” demonstrate the fuller extent of Collide’s variety of influences, all filtered through Statik’s fierce layers of sophisticated electronics and splashes of organic sounds like guitar and piano. We even get a mangled bebop energy in “Gets to the Heart,” the distortion doing little to dissuade from an inherent pop catchiness, and probably the closest Collide has ever come to truly sounding like Curve. A song like “I Go Crashing” is especially entrancing, if somber, as jangly strums of acoustic guitar mingle with swirling waves of ambient pads, while the martial percussion and icy trickles of guitar eventually give rise to overdriven drums and malfunctioning sequences in the opening “Stardust.” All the while, kaRIN’s breathy and melodious voice remains as seductive and serpentine as ever, always balancing between a vulnerable chanteuse and a mischievous temptress, aided by no small amount of reverb and other minor effects for occasional emphasis.
However, much of Notes From the Universe tends to linger precariously close to the point of excess; songs lasting nearly six or seven minutes are not a new thing for the duo, but there is such a superfluity of lengthy repetitions that one might wonder if Statik and kaRIN are trying to make up for the long absence. “Freak Like Me” is a prime example of this, with the song virtually a complete work by the time three-and-a-half minutes have elapsed… but that’s only the first half of the song, and while the corroded bass tone and washes of feedback in the bridge and the arpeggios and vocal effects of the coda are enticing on their own, there is an almost anticlimactic disconnect that occurs. This applies to every song on the album, but this isn’t to say that Notes From the Universe is in any way tiresome; on the contrary, in fact, much of the band’s appeal over the years has been in how they allow songs to breathe and progress as they will. Ultimately, Notes From the Universe delivers all you could expect from a Collide record, and just a little more – such generosity from a band is deserving of gratitude.
Notes From the Universe comes in at #19 for Best Albums of the Year!!
To end the year, we'd like to give thanks to all of our supporters and listeners.
Since we began making music, a lot of magazines and websites have gone under, but one of the most well known and revered websites around, A Model of Control, made their list of their top 50 albums for 2022, and our album, Notes From the Universe, which came out 2/22/22, came in at 19 on their list!!!
There were a lot of albums released in 2022, so we were pretty happy to come in at 19, and appreciate Adam at A Model of Control for his continued support.
(NEW VIDEO+NEW AUDIO)
The original version of "In the Frequency" never had a full video. Edward Mavskegg (who also did the video for “Bending and Floating” started a video for the song, (but for some reason that we never fully understood), never wanted to finish it. Since this is the summer of new videos, we decided to finish it ourselves! For the audio we did a new mix which combines the original version of the song with the Great Apes remix.
For anyone wanting to download the new mix, we made it available on our website (as well as our Bandcamp page) as both a wav and mp3 download
https://www.collide.net/.../in-the-frequency-video-mix...
https://www.collide.net/.../in-the-frequency-video-mix-mp3
We hope you enjoy this all new version and complete video! It only took 10 years. The Great Apes Remix was done by Tom Gipson. The original version featured Dean Garcia on bass and Scott Landes on guitar.
Collectors item
Signed & numbered Son of a Preacher Man CD Single!!!!
Available NOW!!!
This will be a collectors item of an extremely limited edition single. Each one will be signed and hand numbered, from 1-200. We wanted this to be a special Halloween release, and if you get an order in soon, most people should get it by that time.
Let us take you on a little trip....so, have you ever had something you wish you could go back in time and do differently?
Take the song "Son of a Preacher Man"....We originally did the song for a compilation that Re-Constriction was putting out called Cyber Punk Fiction. Director Kevin McVey loved our version so much that he convinced us to do a video for the song. The thing is, the regular version of the song never appeared on any of our own releases. We did a remix of it for Distort, but that's it. Who makes their first video, but never releases the song on their own album? Us!!
Around this same time, we did a remix contest on our (old) website. We posted the winner (and maybe a few more) online, but that's all that ever came of those remixes. Once we transitioned to a new platform for our site, all of those remixes just disappeared.
Jump ahead to 2022...At around the same time we were working on upgrading the video to the song, we found all of those remixes.. We listened to them with fresh ears, and thought that they really needed to see the light of day. And then came a new idea...we had all of raw footage to the video now—we can re-cut it to go with one of the remixes!
Watch the new Guflux Remix video here
Since the original version of the song never got released by us...we thought... let's do a CD single with that version and the best of the best remixes. We now have that CD Single printed and ready to send out! The single includes the original version, and 5 other remixes.
Order your copy now!!
1. Son of a Preacher Man (Original Version)
2. Guflux Mix - (see new video!) remixed by John van Loon (Guflux)
3. Katarrhaktes' Heretic Mix), which was just done especially for this single,
4. G6 Mix - Remixed by Damien James (Gabrielsix/Tripping Breakers)
5. Heavenly Creatures Mix - Remixed by Richard Turek (Heavenly Creatures)
6. DJ Phrancis Mix - Remixed by DJ Phrancis
As you may have gathered by now if you have been following along—we have been going back and updating older videos. For this one, we take a step wayyyyyy back to our first video, Son of a Preacher Man.
We've always wanted a higher resolution version of this video, and thought that we could re-digitize the 35mm film that it was originally shot on, but, as it turns out, the film had been lost and we may never know what happened to it.
So, to make an updated version we did the next best thing and found the 1:1 original digital transfers, and re-digitized all of the video, including all of the raw footage. There were always a few things that we thought could have been better. Being the crazy perfectionists we are (Statik), we did a bit of new color grading and color correction and along with a bit of A.I. up-rezing, we now have a great looking fricking 4k version of the video!!
It's definitely been a labor of love to work on these videos. We hope you enjoy the results. Be sure to give the video a like on YouTube, so that more people can find these new versions.
If anyone hasn’t been keeping up to date with us on Facebook this summer, we’ve been uploading some new and some new and improved videos to our YouTube page.
So far we have
The Live at the El Rey concert video., now in HD, with a new mix of the concert audio.
Euphoria (now in 4k)
Head Spin (Behind the Scenes studio video and photoshoot) (NEW)
A Little Too Much (Behind the Scenes studio video) (NEW)
Shiver X (Secret Meeting) (Behind the Scenes photoshoot video) (NEW)
Dreamsleep (Acoustic Video) (in 4k) (NEW)
Deep (Acoustic Video) (now in 4k)
Modify (Acoustic Video) (now in 4k)
Breathe (Acoustic Video) (now in 4k)
Time (Acoustic Video) (in 4k) (NEW)
Euphoria (live in San Diego) (now in HD)
Like You Want to Believe (West Coast Tour) (now in 4k)
Wings of Steel (West Coast Tour) (now in 4k)
Stay tuned…we still have a few surprises up our sleeves!
Happy watching! -kaRIN & Statik
When I write words, I like to capture my own feelings, but also to leave the song open enough for others to gather their own meanings and experiences from it.
At the core of the song, "When All You Crave" was written to say we are all interconnected, and although we are individuals, we all have similar dreams, hopes, and fears as we go through life.
Here is a a little lyric video we made with some fire, fire
Collide
"We just wanted to make the kind of music that we wanted to hear."
Once upon a time, somewhere around 1992, two people met at an industrial dance club. One was very thirsty, so they asked the other to get them some water. After the liquid reached the glass, the two began a conversation, which became a friendship, and then formed a creative union.
The creative union became what is known as COLLIDE. The primary core of the Los Angeles based duo is Statik and kaRIN. Statik is responsible for the sound orchestrations and overall production. kaRIN takes care of the vocals and lyrics.
The essence of COLLIDE is the coming together of two opposing entities to form a symbiotic whole ... combining the female and masculine energies, the cognitive and the subliminal, the strength and the mystery.
To date, the duo have released eleven full length CDs and a DVD -- Beneath the Skin, Distort, Chasing the Ghost, Some Kind of Strange, Vortex, Live at the El Rey, Like the Hunted, Ultrashiver (with Dean Garcia of Curve, Two Headed Monster, These Eyes Before, Counting to Zero, and Bent and Broken. In 2020 they re-released their albums Chasing the Ghost, and Some Kind of Strange as 2 disc Blu-Ray/CD Special Editions.
"Our eternal thanks to those who seek out and expose new music."
kaRIN - Vocals, Words
Statik - Noise
cover of the Sam Smith/Kim Petras song
Oh YES we did!!
We fell in love with this song, (and with Sam Smith & Kim Petras who created it), and we felt moved to do our own version.
We hope you love it!!
To all of the people who don’t fit in...for ANY reason
Thank you for making the world a better place!!
Thanks so much to Sam Smith & Kim Petras!
Their art, their truth & their bravery to be themselves struck us.
Love, compassion, and understanding for each other is always the way forward, and it is getting increasingly scary and dangerous in a world that tries to pressure people who do not fit into particular molds.
We will be donating a portion of the proceeds of this song to The Trevor Project.
The Trevor Project provides support services to LGBTQ young people.
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