About this project
Music for Headphones wants to finally release our 2011 album Life.in.Mono into the physical world. As an homage to 1970's German bands such as Neu!, Kraftwerk, La Dusseldorf, and Amon Duul II, the warm, natural sound of an LP is the only logical choice. Released in January, Life.in.Mono immediately made an impact on dozens of European blogs, play on American college and French radio, and was embraced warmly by psychedelic and shoegaze fans all over the world. We even made a video for every song on the album and that got some local press.
By March we were playing the record live and even played with Sonic Boom and Spectrum (one of the catalysts for Jonathan becoming obsessed with krautrock in the first place) to much praise from Sonic himself.
The album is available on our Bandcamp site as well as iTunes and all the other distributors, but so many people downloaded it during its first week (we offered it as a free download) its incredibly easy to find a pirated version! People keep asking us for the LP, so we decided its time to press it.
Here are some quotes from various blog reviews- be warned, Google Translate sometimes loses things....
This will have to be a regular feature, Krautrock Wednesdays, to see if I can get down to zero page views.Is this the best krautrock album of 2011?"
"Music for Headphones is a pleasant surprise that comes from the always restless scene of Philadelphia. Its economy crystalline when combining psychedelia, post-punk, new wave and Krautrock in the same space, makes them indispensable in the 2011 with this album 'Life.in.Mono.' A radiant pearl..."
"lysergic psychedelic climate, the best cyclic style kraut, layer and layer of synthesizers camouflaging the guitars mostly clear and travelers, the theme is to elevate the listener to somewhere uncharted, increase the power of the mind through repetition and loops give an amazing feeling that gradually we are literally inside the album, alias did not mention the name yet, is called 'Life in Mono' is the second of the guys, dated this year 2011, one of the first great works of this year promises and much indeed."
"Life in Mono acts as a sucking vortex. The Doors meet The Stone Roses, take you by the arm and spin you around until you get dizzy. A fine dizziness is what you deliver, the best champagne bubbles have the same effect."
"So listen to the pieces one by one and you wonder if this is not the case for the outtake of Neu? Or maybe a disc that Michael Rother published in disguise in order to respect the memory of Klaus Dinger."
"Despite the futuristic sound reaches back to the album is essentially a very cool piece of European music."
"So despite relying heavily on previous influences, Music For Headphones have crafted a bristling, fresh krautrock album. It jabs and punches in all the right places, mellows and grooves in all the others. Despite certainly slipping under my radar, and probably countless others, the quality of craftsmanship and the respect shown towards this well-trodden path make it a worthwhile listen."
So that gives you an idea of what the world is saying. Pretty exciting!
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Funding Unsuccessful
This project reached the deadline without achieving its funding goal on September 9, 2011.
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Digital copies of Life.in.Mono and 2010's Secret History of the World
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Your choice of any five of our currently available digital releases and a copy of Life.in.Mono on vinyl.
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Your choice of any five of our currently available digital releases and a copy of Life.in.Mono on vinyl and a free test pressing courtesy of United Record Pressing.
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Limited edition CD box set of all our releases since 2006 with custom, one of a kind art work, a copy of Life.in.Mono on vinyl and a free test pressing courtesy of United Record Pressing.
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Limited edition CD box set of all our releases since 2006 with custom, one of a kind art work, plus a custom Life.in.Mono.in.Video DVD and a free test pressing courtesy of United Record Pressing.
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Based in Philadelphia, Music for Headphones is a five-piece dark psychedelic band inspired by 60’ s rock, Krautrock, post-punk, new-wave, shoegaze, and neo-psych. Driven by stark vocals and lyrics, garage rock grooves and sudden descents into orchestrated noise, Headphones defies easy categorization. What ultimately sets the band apart is vocalist/guitarist Jonathan Allen’ s focus on an overall vision. He incorporates the precision and lush production qualities of Phil Spector, Spiritualized, My Bloody Valentine and the Cure to create overarching soundscapes. While the songs themselves are self-contained units, they also hang together to create musical and narrative movements.
As a concept, Music for Headphones began in 2000, went through various permutations and brief sabbaticals including Allen’s involvement with the Portland band The Upsidedown. Music for Headphone’s current lineup includes Jonathan Allen (guitar, vocals), Aaron Aleiner (bass), Phil Watson (organ, piano), Greg Kinter (guitar) and Justin Gibbon (drums).
