WAR by I Speak Machine
"Ever-so-rarely an artist comes along to stir your subconscious and redefine the unconventional. I Speak Machine—the experimental music and audio-visual project of Tara Busch and Maf Lewis–is here to show us the way"
Liza Lentini, SPIN MAGAZINE, April 21, 2022
WAR brings Tara out from behind her fortress of synths and horror soundtracks and back to center stage as a songwriter and performer. Shapeshifting into a spiky-crowned, combat boot-clad banshee, the album sinks its teeth into themes of addiction and mental illness. The result is WAR - a dense, intense, thick-as-a-brick witch’s brew of vintage synths and machines, skull-bruising drums, and that voice.
For the making of WAR, Tara brought her works to Sheffield producer Dean Honer, one of the masterminds behind The E.R.C, All Seeing I, The Moonlandingz & I Monster, and producer of records by bands such as Add N to X and The Human League. Over the next 3 years, they co-produced WAR remotely between Tara’s Los Angeles studio and Dean’s Sheffield-based studio.
As one might expect, WAR recruits a fierce army of synths and drum machines in its production ethos - yet also welcoming into the fold satisfyingly incongruent elements such as woodwinds and both acoustic and bass guitar. Tara’s voice, the central storytelling instrument, is also pummeled and pitch bent, crunched through fuzz pedals and vocoders and even morphed into a vicious synth bass by Tara singing through her vintage Korg MS-20.
Vocal influences lean heavily toward Jim Morrison, David Bowie, Doris Day, Judy Garland, Poly Styrene & Grace Jones, while musical influences range from Add N to X to film composer legend, Krzysztof Komeda. Album highlights include the delirious, sarcastic love letter to Los Angeles, Santa Monica: “I tried my best/ the ice too heavy in my chest” and the spitting, tongue in cheek rage of The Metal of My Hell : “burn the witch/ burn the bitch...you had it coming for a long time”. The album closes with the broken peace offering, Until I Kill The Beast, where Tara offers a thinly veiled glimpse at addiction: “You broke me to my knees/ the devil sits with me/ until I kill the beast”.
Tracklist
| 1. | War | 2:18 |
| 2. | Left for Dead (War Mix) | 4:33 |
| 3. | Beat Down by Heaven | 4:19 |
| 4. | Santa Monica | 4:00 |
| 5. | Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) (War Mix) | 4:34 |
| 6. | Dirty Soul | 2:54 |
| 7. | Ruined Me | 4:34 |
| 8. | I See You | 4:14 |
| 9. | The Metal of My Hell | 3:41 |
| 10. | Push the Grease | 5:08 |
| 11. | Rats Rise | 3:28 |
| 12. | Until I Kill the Beast | 5:08 |
Videos
Credits
All songs & lyrics written by Tara Busch
*except 1 & 10, written by Tara Busch & Kendra Frost, and 5 written by Johnette Napolitano/ Concrete Blonde
Produced, played & recorded by Tara Busch & Dean Honer
Mixed and Mastered by Dean Honer at The Bowling Green Studios, Sheffield U.K
Guest vocals on War & Santa Monica by Kendra Frost
Creative direction by Maf Lewis & Tara Busch
Cover Photo by Maf Lewis
Artwork by Needle Design
Crown & harness by Apatico
Comfort & counseling by Strelka “The General” Busch-Lewis
