Forget Tomorrow

Macha | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 3, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Jet Set Records
• ASIN: B000274T9E
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #281,348 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Forget Tomorrow

2. (Do The) Inevitable

3. D-D-D

4. While the People Sleep

5. Smash & Grab

6. It's Okay Paper Tiger

7. Cmon Cmon Oblivion

8. Back in Baby's Arm

9. Now Disappearing

10. From teh Merak Lounge

11. Calming Passengers

12. Sub II

13. No Surprise Party

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Drastic., January 17, 2005

By 

jasonnn "-jasonnn" (kansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forget Tomorrow (Audio CD)

Four years is a long time. Six years is an even longer time. I would venture as to guess that most bands don't live to see their four-year anniversary let alone their sixth. Athens, Georgia natives and not-quite-dance-rockers Macha released their full length "Forget Tomorrow" after a taking a six year [from their last full length release] break giving their contemporaries plenty of time to die out in the mean time. The album is full of the band's semi-signature non-western instrumental style and laced with a newly synth undertone. This record seems to remind me of an acid trip I took back in `63 that started off in a Las Vegas night club and ended naked, vulnerable, and surprisingly tranquil on my parents' couch. Yes, it's drastic.
Think pressing your fingers on a squeaky-clean table and slowly dragging them across it. That is the closest thing to the sound that starts of the album and the title track. Fear not, though, the song quickly bursts into the funk layered hook that seems to prevail throughout the first half of this album. Bouncing rhythms and quirky guitar riffs blend together with equally unusual samples in songs like "(Do The) Inevitable" and its seeming epilogue "D-D-D." Without a doubt, this is the more light-hearted side of Macha and, at least in my observation, the initial draw of the album.
The latter half of this album, I found myself feeling like I was walking down some hall looking for the first half of the album and with each door I tried I awkwardly stumbled in on an artist frantically sloshing paint on a canvas. Point in case; "Now Disappearing." The track is layered with subtly phased high-hat taps, awkwardly arpeggiated acoustic guitar-like sounds (no doubt, from some eastern stringed instrument) and shy samples of a little girl babbling in a foreign language. Some songs sound and feel more like a slow ride on the Metro. The aptly named "Calming Passengers" has a sort of stop-and-go aura to it that seems to add another sonic passenger with each beeping stop until the end of the line where everyone calmly departs. On the "Sub II" the record even ventures a bit into the post-rock ballpark with a highly syncopated drum beat and even a cameo by the vibraphone.
All in all, this album seems like a new album every time you listen to it. Each play lets you discover more of its intricacies as well as admire the old hooks. Basically, it ought to tide you over for the next six years or so.

8.9/10
-jasonnn

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gamelans!, August 15, 2004

By 

A. Liebling (Long Island City, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Forget Tomorrow (Audio CD)

I've heard a lot about Macha, but this album - their first in 4-5 years - is my introduction. They're considered indie, but they sound awfully like all those 80s dance-goth bands I dig, like Joy Division, Dead Can Dance, Gene Loves Jezebel, etc. It's their dark, synth-heavy sound and death-disco electro bass and percussion, and even though everyone talks about their "unique" use of Eastern rhythms and instruments, it's really old hat in the early goth and industrial scenes, and the rhythms and sounds fit in perfectly fine now as they did then. Even better - their use of the instruments sounds more modern and creepy than the 80s synth stuff, which aged into cheese. Especially check out "D-D-D" - they rock the Indonesian gamelan like it's their job. Now, this album isn't for everybody - there are a number of lulls and irritating soundscape-type stuff that even I have to skip over. But the dance-electro-80s-goth thing is just great to hear again, especially when done really well... and with Indonesian gamelans.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I don't get the critical loathing, November 2, 2006

By 

N. Wilson (Dallas TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Forget Tomorrow (Audio CD)

I've read several bad reviews of this album, which is surprising because it is a good album, but unsurprising given the fact that the critics have always given Macha a hard time for...well, whatever reason - too ethnic, too...jeez. There's really no reason at all. They harness indie rock's coolness with something actually unique - the integration of Southeast Asian music.

The first half of the record is, like the critical response, both surprising and unsurprising. "Forget Tomorrow" seems to be the target of critical loathing for it's "derivative" post-Rapture thump. While naturally one must place the song in the context of other bands doing similar things, other than the arrangement - the drum machine, punchier guitars, synths and funkier bass, it's really not that different structurally from the old stuff - which was before the modern dance rock explosion. With more ringy guitars and less bass drum, it would still fit perfectly on the old albums. More importantly, like so many things Macha does, it tries something new - Javanese gamelan's ambience actually fits dance rock's coked-out air. (I'm not a fan of the Rapture and modern dance-rock by the way, although I like many of the bands that inspired it, like ESG, Gang of Four, Wire, etc. I would actually argue that this is the best example of the modern genre I've heard.)

The first half of the record creatively combines the two genres in interesting ways. The second half of the record hearkens more directly back to their older stuff. I think it is good both for old fans and for new fans who came to indie rock via the dance rock craze a few years ago. Certainly, being introduced to a creative band like Macha is something everyone should do - I have always felt sorry for the band, simply because modern music is so uninteresting, and their integration of gamelan is creative enough to distinguish them from the pack; yet the critical response is what I think killed the band's chances to get the audience. And if the new record tries to cater to a more mainstream audience, of course, critics complain about that too. Ignore the critics and at least listen to it for yourself.