Early Day Miners
LABEL: Secretly Canadian  |||  PHOTO: Rebecca Drolen

Early Day Miners are a 'musical-cooperative' based in the rolling hills of Bloomington, Indiana. The group formed when Daniel Burton and Rory Leitch (both of Ativin) began playing on front porches and basements with Joe Brumley, a mutual friend of theirs. Early Day Miners incorporate a revolving cast of accompanying musicians (friends) for both live shows and recordings. The resultant sound is not unlike a cinematic postcard; the words are there to serve as visual guides, the sound is camerawork. Their first album, Placer Found was released in April of 2000 on Western Vinyl and have since released four more on Secretly Canadian, with a fifth due for release September 22, 2009.

When Early Day Miners loosen up, it's almost a different band. The complex layers and atmospherics are still there, but front-and-center on The Treatment, the band's newest release, are insistent basslines and straightforward melodies on multiple organs and guitars. One of the poppiest here, "So Slowly", manages to combine a buoyant Cure bassline, a wah-wah solo worthy of Robert Fripp, and yet still conveys the lazy drift of summer. You can even hear an echo of "Sympathy for the Devil" on the album's centerpiece "How to Fall".

To a certain extent, this is Early Day Miners' most-produced record to date—and partly because there's a greater engagement with individual, human concerns. Arriving as a fully formed talent, Burton has developed his lyrical themes slowly over the past decade—exploring the neglected regions of America, and the forgotten chapters of its history on previous albums. In some respects their most personal, subjective, and emotional album, The Treatment starts like every pop album should, with an invitation to join the band in enjoying The Treatment: "we're going out tonight / won't you join us?" but subtle clues reveal its questioning voices are not so straightforward. So listen close—this is an album whose every layer demands attention, and re-pays it.



LINKS
EDM's website
EDM on myspace
EDM's blog


LISTEN & DOWNLOAD

From The Treatment, “So Slowly” (right-click and save)



From All Harm Ends Here, “All Harm” (right-click and save)



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