12rec.035 Front  
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milhaven
i.m. wagner EP

12rec.035

file under: postrock & indiepop
     
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Milhaven are a postrock-band from Bochum we discovered two years ago. Sven Swift recorded and produced their first album and this brand new EP. The story so far...

After the release of Bars Closing Down in the early days of 12rec., Milhaven soon became one of our most downloaded artists. In the Winter of 2006, nearly one year ago, we met in their old, dirt-laden rehearsal room and started to record new songs. Hooked by the success of the debut LP, Sven thrashed the old tape-recorder and spend all his money on a 10-channel audio-interface. Milhaven gone digital! We were planning to release the EP in the spring of 2006 until Milhaven got thrown out of the rehearsal room- the ancient school-building we were recording in was said to collapse! Two months went by searching for a new location. When it was found in the blooming hills of a small city at the edge of the Ruhr-area, the sound was completely different to the old room. All set to zero, we re-started the recordings.

In the scorching heat of Summer we banned this four songs on tape. While the debut was recorded wearing woolly hat and scarf, this time the band was lost in sweat and fatigue. I.M. Wagner is less intimate than Bars Closing Down, but there's a trace of frantic power in the new songs that'll be new to you if you've never seen Milhaven live on stage. Check the noise-eruptions in half-improvised "Lord Of Birds" or the all-consuming end of "Oh! Great Pacific". Still, there are expanded moments of gentle guitar-play you can find a lot of beauty in; the initial parts of "Clean Room" and the final acoustic-track "Firnis" maybe just the most obvious examples. Milhaven refined the songwriting both at the quiet and the loud parts and managed to record a dignified successor to their highly acclaimed debut LP.

   
   
 
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