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Cindergarden is the solo project of singer, songwriter, and producer Jaymie
Valentine. 2006 marked the release of Cindergarden's debut album, Underground Light Machine, which received widespread attention and acclaim in the gothic/industrial community. Underground Light Machine is the second album to be released by Valentine's own record label, Looking Glass Records, the first being yet another brainchild of Valentine's called Ghostlight. (http://www.myspace.com/67809)
Entitled Underground Light Machine, the album brought together elements of
gothic, trip-hop, and electro with a distinctive aesthetic that owed more to
antique china dolls—one reviewer compared Cindergarden's sound to
Rasputina with keyboards instead of cellos—than the apocalyptic leather and
spikes imagery usually associated with industrial music. Underground Light
Machine highlighted Valentine's talents both as a singer, as evidenced by the
sweetly sad melodies of "Dying Kind," and as a producer, with tracks ranging
from dance-friendly synthpop ("Ubiquitous") to quieter, more atmospheric
darkwave offerings like "Wasteland," which "evokes Victorian ghost children
languishing in dusty attics" (Matthew Johnson, Grave Concerns). Darkly whimsical cover art by painter Allison Meierding helped tie together the album's sound to Cindergarden's aesthetic, and the album garnered both critical acclaim and widespread club and radio play, with tracks featured at such institutions as seminal L.A. steampunk institution Malediction Society.
Valentine followed Cindergarden's debut with The ULM Remixes. Released in
February 2008, this eight-track digital download is less a typical remix
collection than a complete, if condensed, reinterpretation of the entire
Underground Light Machine album. Featuring a wide range of contributors ranging from Valentine's friends in the Los Angeles musicians' community (System Syn, In Vaein, The Tleilaxu Music Machine) to some of her own musical inspirations (Neuroticfish, Penal Colony, Babyland's Dan Gatto), the EP moves from melancholy synthpop to hard-edged IDM, breakcore, and industrial eclecticism and back again while retaining the unique moods of its source material.
At the same time, Valentine was also completing Cindergarden's sophomore
full-length, The Clandestine Experiment. Drastically different from Underground
Light Machine, the new album has a much slicker, more professional sound to it, though wavering bent tones on "Genesis" and tinnily tinkling harpsichords on
"Mire" confirm Valentine's fondness for vintage electronics and spooky antique
atmospheres. Valentine describes her own role recording the album as that of a mad scientist, and indeed there's a much more experimental mood in play. Tracks range from gothic trip-hop ("Sacrament") to aggressive goth/industrial in the vein of Diva Destruction and The Razor Skyline ("Alibi") to dense, darkly
cinematic soundscapes in the vein of latter-day Skinny Puppy ("The Clandestine Experiment"). The Clandestine Experiment also features guest performances from Clint Carney of System Syn (Valentine is also System Syn's live keyboardist) and live Cindergarden drummer Nick Liberatore. Diverse enough for both club-play and quieter, more intimate occasions, The Clandestine Experiment will appeal to fans of industrial and goth alike.
In 2009 Jaymie Valentine signed a deal with machineKUNT records, for a limited edition hard copy release of “The Clandestine Experiment” which is now available at www.machineKUNT.com
GRIM CONFECTIONS
$14
Click to order Grim Confections hardcopy
digital download
THE CLANDESTINE EXPERIMENT (2008)
Hardcopy currently unavailable
digital download
UNDERGROUND LIGHT MACHINE
- THE 2006 DEBUT!
$14
Click to order Underground Light Machine hardcopy
digital download
UNDERGROUND LIGHT MACHINE
REMIX EP DOWNLOAD!
$7
Hardcopy currently unavailable
