My Liner Notes for Les Sewing Sisters' album
Friday, July 23, 2021
Sewing is putting two things together. Ever since the Paleolithic era, humans have been stitching between fur and skin clothing as well as using animal body parts. The invention of the sewing machine in the 19th century led to the introduction of manufacturing clothing. Little did historians knew that in 2020, Les Sewing Sisters would make music out of the 20th-century sewing machine. Like fastening fabric or objects together, Lun*na and Saori sew sewing machine sounds to the human voice. With every song about the making of clothes, the machinery of manufacturing clothing, and of course, the existential problem of what to wear? Les Sewing Sisters is the Sound of Now.
The revolutionary aspect of Les Sewing Sisters is that they take a 19th-century machine, the sewing machine, and turn it into an instrument for the 21st-century. Nothing has been this dynamic since the Ventures introduced the popularity of the electric guitar to Japan in the early 1960s. A machine that made women (the primary users of the sewing machine in the early days) free from dreary and time now is used in sound. Every song deals with the nature of clothing, or making clothes, or the old existential problem of what to wear? Lun*na and Saori (Les Sewing Sisters) look back to the industrial age to make noise and pop songs for the Sound of ‘Now.’
Ever since the Paleolithic era, humans have been stitching between fur and skin clothing as well as using animal parts. The invention of the sewing machine in the 19th century led to the introduction of manufacturing clothes. I can’t imagine Isaac Merritt Singer in 1851, thinking that his sewing machine in the faraway future (2020, to be exact) will be a musical instrument. Or that two women from Japan, Lun*na Menoh, and Saori Mitome (Les Sewing Sisters), would be producing noise from the machines to make exciting pop music. Every song on “Les Sewing Sisters” is based on the theme of clothes, either sewing clothes, the nature of cashmere, and of course, the existential problem of what to wear? It has been a long journey from the first musical instrument, the simple flute (67,000 years ago) to the electric sewing machine. What you hear on this album is noise from sewing machines, that is fine-tuned via computer, and the human voice. There are no guitars, drums, Synths - just voices, and the beautiful sound of the sewing machine. Lun*na and Saori looked back to the industrial age when the sewing machine came to existence and looking onward to making the ‘now’ sound of Les Sewing Sisters.
credits
released July 23, 2021
Les Sewing Sisters are Lun*na Menoh and Saori Mitome. Produced, Recorded and mixed by Adam Lee Miller at Woodhouse Studios, Detroit, MI. Additional production and recording by Lun*na Menoh, Silver Lake Studio Los Angeles. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio
Les Sewing Sisters album is avaiable here: Les Sewing Sisters' album
Nice liner notes Tosh! What a fun record. “Banality Attack” for instance leaves me in stitches every time I listen to it. Les Sewing Sisters are sharp as needles and although they can be cutting at times, e.g., “See You on the Dissecting Table” I hear a thread of empathy and compassion for those of us who occasionally feel like fashion victims or look in our closets and find nothing to wear. I have to say this music is tailor made for these strange times that we live in. “Les Sewing Sisters” is very now music yet I predict it will wear well—like a well made article of clothing.