New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Los Angeles-based electro-pop duo able machines announces their futuristic self-produced sophomore album
Digital Precision due out
September 29 and available for pre-order now. Alongside the announcement, the pair share the first taste of the project with "Evidence" out now and its accompanying cinematic, self-directed video. With its Swedish pop influence, the latest track defiantly chooses self-love over a toxic relationship. To celebrate the LP release, able machines will perform live at their official album release show in Los Angeles at Gold Diggers on
September 6.
Digital Precision, the forthcoming self-produced second album by able machines, moves into uncharted emotional and musical territory for the pair. "I think for both of us, writing this album was a cathartic purging of emotions," says vocalist Tay Côlieé. "Each song is a little glimpse into the inner workings of our brains and how we navigate the tangled dynamics of angsty love."
Over a varied set of 12 tracks, the project allows the duo to strikingly expand their sonic universe using punchy, futuristic production and timely, thoughtful lyricism-written and produced entirely by the two artists in Los Angeles. With their second album, the pair is able to expand on the work they've made and experiment with their influences.
Côlieé says, "Stylistically, this second album gave us an opportunity to dive deeper into developing our sound. We had fun pulling elements from our background in different musical genres - like my love of
Fiona Apple and Elliot Smith, Linus' punk/metal upbringing and then melding all that into the electropop sphere." The majority of
Digital Precision was mixed by Seth Earnest (Tessa Violet) and mastered by Paul Logus (Anthrax, Notorious B.I.G.).
"Evidence," out today, is an empowering, Swedish pop-influenced earworm with an irresistible baseline and dreamy vocals. Côlieé says, "We wrote this as sort of a response to breaking out of toxic relationship patterns and realizing your own worth." The album was already written when the track made its way into their lives, but they saw something special in it and dropped everything to record it. Côlieé adds, "Musically, it's our tribute to our favorite Scandinavian artists."
The track's accompanying self-directed video is a cinematic CSI-style take on the song as the duo step into character as detectives, doing research and collecting evidence investigating a toxic ex. Dotson says, "It was the perfect opportunity to put our 3 "band chihuahuas" in the video as the K-9 Unit. We found an old audio parts manufacturing lab in East LA and it was the perfect location for our crime lab."
The plot-based video posed new challenges, like having to recruit multiple characters other than themselves for the first time. Côlieé adds, "The production had so many moving parts, rather than just
Linus and I winging it, we had so many opportunities to plan and add little Easter eggs in every scene — like hiding our song lyrics in the love letters and having our logo appear in subtle places."
Rising duo able machines is made up of Tay Côlieé and
Linus Dotson who met when Côlieé was perusing Craigslist in search of musical gear and stumbled upon a "wanted" ad posted by producer Dotson. Dotson, professionally known as
Linus Of Hollywood, has made a name as a diverse songwriter and producer, working with a range of artists including The
Charlatans UK, Bowling For Soup, Diddy,
Cheap Trick and Smashing Pumpkins.
He's also a member of
Santa Barbara pop/punk legends Nerf Herder, who are best known for writing the theme song for popular television show, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Côlieé first began acting as a teenager and later moved into music as a ghostwriter for Capitol Records, co-writing hits for major pop titans including
Ariana Grande and
Camila Cabello.
The group's first single, "Secrets and Lies" was written on the afternoon they met, and fueled by a matched passion and palpable artistic chemistry, able machines was born. Of their boundary-pushing sound and remarkable self-sufficiency, The HYPE Magazine wrote, "The duo tauntingly toys with the normal boundaries of pop music, often coupling their catchy melodic music with dark lyrical imagery while self-producing their own visual content, music videos included."
Today, coming off of a successful Japanese mini tour, able machines is ready to re-introduce themselves with their second body of work that spans a vast musical soundscape and sees the two plunge into emotional depths like never before.
