Operator Music Band – 7th Level Music

Top 25 albums of 2024: #’s 10 – 6

We’ve reached David Letterman’s favorite spot – the top ten. Let’s see who made the cut this year.

#`10: Dummy – Free Energy

This blast of shoegaze rock is bright in all the right spots and massive in all the others. I hadn’t heard them until 2024 and they ended up being my favorite shoegaze discovery of the year.

#9: New Age Healers – The Spin Out

This is cool psychedelia from the northwest. The album’s cover is indicative of what you experience while listening to it: A swirling mind trip down into strange places, or a mystical wind lifting you up from the ground and into the night sky. It’s your choice.

#8: Aaron Frazer – Into the Blue

Made after he transferred from the east coast to the west coast, Frazer created a second album of great, soulful R&B that’s both honoring and elevating the genre.

#7: Operator Music Band – Four Singles EP

It’s amazing this album even exists when you consider one of the band members nearly died after falling through a skylight before they were ever in the studio. The fact that they made a solid electro post-punk EP afterward is a testament to their commitment to each other.

#6: Meatbodies – Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom

Meatbodies easily are one of the best bands I discovered in 2024. This album is a great mix of psychedelic and garage-punk that immediately left me wanting more from them. I was also lucky enough to see them live twice, and they crushed it each time.

Who’s in the top five? Come back tomorrow to see!

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe!]

Review: Operator Music Band – Four Singles EP

It’s not every day you put out a groovy EP of acid house tracks. This is especially true after one of your band members falls over twenty feet through a skylight, breaks both wrists and six ribs, and sustains a head fracture that results in permanent hearing loss.

Yet, Operator Music Band did just that with their new Four Singles EP. How? You got me, but Jared Hiller figured out a way, and, along with Dara Hirsch and Daniel Siles, crafted a slick record.

Blending house with some krautrock and synthwave, “As It Goes” comes out of the start with a drippy, bass-filled bang, wicked hand percussion, and low-end vocal effects to warp your brain even further. “Screwhead” is a sexy, slightly industrial (Those drums!) track with sensuous vocals (“Focus is a function of ecstasy. Let me go slow. I’ll be right back.”).

“Oval” is bouncy and bubbly that, at the halfway point, turns into almost a dance-punk track with its almost frantic drums. “10 Days” continues this dance-punk theme with percussion and synths that sound like they’re coming through pipes and pneumatic tubes in an abandoned factory where a rooftop rave is taking place.

It’s all over too soon and leaves you wanting much more, as any good EP should. Many accolades should be given to Operator Music Band for creating something this good after Hiller’s harrowing accident. That kind of grit is rare.

Keep your mind open.

[Why not subscribe while you’re here?]

[Thanks to Cody at Terrorbird Media.]

Operator Music Band drop a killer new track – “As It Goes.”

Operator Music Band — the Brooklyn-based project made up of Dara Hirsch, Jared Hiller, and Daniel Siles — announces the EPFour Singles. The project showcases the band’s thrilling foray into acid-tinged dance music, slated for release on March 22 via Deep Break Records.

While working on this batch of tracks with producers Mike Bloom (XL) and Noah Prebish (Psymon Spine), Hiller suffered a life-threatening accident. He was sent plummeting over 20 feet through a warehouse skylight—directly into Rough Trade’s warehouse, no less. This led to Operator Music Band postponing material, while Hiller recovered from significant physical trauma: two broken wrists, six broken ribs, and facial fractures that resulted in permanent hearing loss.
Now, mostly healed and rejuvenated, the live-electronic trio are ready to resume releasing music, starting with the new single “As It Goes.” It’s accompanied by a music video, premiering via BrooklynVegan. Shot and edited by Hiller, the visual compiles footage surrounding his recovery, featuring friends and collaborators in candid moments captured with an observational charm.

WATCH: “AS IT GOES”

Originally emerging in the mid-2010s as part of a wave of talk-singing, “krautish” rock acts, Brooklyn-based Operator Music Band’s existence has been marked by highs and lows. Formed around the partnership of Dara Hirsch and Jared Hiller, who are joined by a rotating cast of musicians — which currently includes percussionist and longtime collaborator Daniel Siles — Operator Music Band has put out two LPs, three EPs, and a handful of singles that merge krautrock, art-pop and occasional post-punk sensibilities. Actively releasing and touring between 2015 and 2019, the simultaneous failed launch of the 2019 full-length Duo Duo (which resulted in legal intervention that forced the dissolution of the label involved) and the cancellation of extensive tour dates due to pandemic lockdowns, left the band in a place questioning the longevity of their existence.

Through working on side projects and remixes, Hirsch (aka datadata) found new inspiration in house music, challenging herself to learn to DJ and mix. The cathartic experience of the club offered an alternative to what seemed like the decaying local indie rock scene. “So much of the infrastructure that we had been a part of over the past years was no longer there,” says Hiller. What remained “no longer felt like us,” Hirsch reflects. These bittersweet, yet honest realizations pushed Operator Music Band to craft four dancefloor-ready tracks, each accompanied by a remix from a respected producer or DJ from the club scene: Doctor Jeep, D.D. Curry, Toribio, and Gabe Gurnsey (of Factory Floor).

Commenting on Four Singles as a whole, Hirsch offered: “For me, this collection of songs is about discovering music as play. There was a very long time in this band where so much of what we were doing felt like work. Satisfying and worthwhile, but ultimately work. Now, we feel like we have so much more room – feeling free to create and play without a specific goal. We can do things on our own terms.”

Keep your mind open.

[Go over to the subscription box while you’re here.]

[Thanks to Cody at Terrorbird Media.]