Hey there, folks. This week I’m going to bring you another treat. This one isn’t quite something that I found in a thrift store, but it’s a great album none the less. I am, of course, talking about Absinthe Blind’s fantastic 2000 shoegaze album, Music for Security. 
In late 1999, my Internet access almost solely consisted of what I could scrape together at work. That ended up with me spending some hours after work and on weekends, surfing for lack of anything better to do. It was a weird time in my life. Anyway, in my adventures, I found mp3.com. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the site, mp3.com was something of an open marketplace for independent artists, allowing them to post samples of their music and offer CDs (or the rare digital downloads) for sale through the site. Some great music died when the site went down – they got a little too big for their britches and decided to implement a system whereby you could put your CD into a PC, their servers would recognize the CD, and serve you their files. Pretty cutting-edge stuff for 1999/2000, but WAY too early and the labels killed it in its crib.
Anyway, some fairly big names built their fanbase on MP3.com, the unfortunate Linkin Park being the biggest among them. I could cruise the site for hours, picking among the refuse to find the gems. Absinthe Blind was one of my earliest finds. They grabbed hold of me right away, and I had to have their then-current album, Solarshift. I became a steadfast fan despite the fact that they rarely played outside of Illinois at the time. When Music for Security came out, I had to have it, and thus, I am now sharing it with you.
Describing Absinthe Blind’s music is kind of tricky. They’re clearly influenced by shoegaze bands like Ride, My Bloody Valentine, and Spiritualized, but they put their own twist on it, featuring a little more melody than some of those groups. How about I just give you a sample instead? Here’s Vanity Calls, which offers a pretty good idea of what you can expect:
If you’re at all into the shoegaze sound, you owe it to yourself to check out this great band. Sadly, they broke up in 2003 with no sign of a reunion, but it was a great run while it lasted.
- Label: Hammerhead Records
- Year: 2000
- Found: Arlington, VA
- Notes: N/A
- Filesize: 73MB
- Small
- Breathe the Screen
- Don’t Lose the Image
- Lifelike
- Standing with Knives
- If You Move On
- Three Hours Later
- Phoenix
- Invisible One
- Sandpaper Straight
- Giving up the Crown
- No Sound
- Man After You
Get tracks 8-13 here.
Found Music 