NULL DEVICE – The London EP
(2005 Nilaihah Records)
Null Device had a website way back in 1994 and your band didn’t. So it would seem natural that, having solidified their geekier-than-thou status, they would experiment with the Internet as a distribution outlet, which they’re doing with The London EP. All the songs and the CD artwork are completely free to download from nulldevice.com, although they strongly suggest that you make a donation to help cover the bandwidth (or buy them ice cream or whatever). Word thus far is that out of 900 downloads only 5 generous souls have donated, so the honor system hasn’t proven itself to be a lucrative business model for them.
The EP, which should tide their fans over until their next full-length release, contains remixes of “Walk in London,” “Unknowingly,” and “Travelogue” by themselves as well as a couple of other nationally known electro bands, Hungry Lucy and Iris (from Ohio and Texas, respectively). There’s also an early demo version of “Electrified” (on the website, Eric Oehler describes his guitar playing on it as “naïve”) and there’s the song “Complicated,” the only track that wasn’t previously released in some form. Technophobes will enjoy the acoustic version of “Walk in London” that was forged by guitarist Dan Clark.
If you prefer a CD copy, either because you’re web-less or you want to support the band the old-fashioned way, those are available as well. However, only 100 copies have been printed and considering that the band has gained a decent amount of recognition in the underground synth-pop scene, and they’re being marketed to a global audience by their Ohio-based record label, the hard copy could become a collector’s item.
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