A personal pet project two years in the making, ON YOUR MARK, GET SET… is a purposeful blend of blown out distortion mixed with saccharine sweet poppy hooks and choruses that will make fans of bands like The Lemonheads pucker up for joy.
The breakneck pacing of the record kicks off with album opener “Nothing” and blends directly into the first single “Nice Things”, a bittersweet ditty that chronicles the mind rush that comes with traveling the four corners of the country and everything in between.
“Never Turn Around” is an infectiously fueled two and a half minutes of pop goodness. McDowell talks on the sound quest that he had in making Gobotron sparkle: “Sonically, I was going for Neutral Milk Hotel. Especially with vocals. I didn’t want to sing like them, per se, but they have exactly the tone and lo-fi quality I was striving for.”
On the creative process for this album, McDowell says “The goal for ON YOUR MARK, GET SET…was to put every song into overdrive right from the start. The writing would begin with a verse, chorus, or just a riff. I’d set up a mic in the middle of the room and build up parts running from one instrument to another. Once I could hear what it was going to sound like, I would write the rest of the song and re-record the entire song. Then when everything was laid out, I started from scratch again and recorded the version that made it on the CD. This is a computer album that could have never been done if it were on tape. It became a science project rather than a band.”
Gobotron combines delicate and simple phrasings influenced from Ben Kweller to Brian Wilson, processed through pop-friendly static and piped through ear-buds waxed with Pavement.
Catalog Number: FGR026
UPC: 8-5970273843-4
Release Date: 1/19/2010
Format: Limited Edition CD, Digital
