Actors & Actresses - We Love Our Enemy - CLEAR COLORED VINYL 12" (The Mylene Sheath)

Actors&Actresses are a 3 piece from Kansas City, MO who mix synthetic, pre-recorded and organic sounds to produce alternately chilling backdrops and intense sequences of heavy post... whatever. While the stage presence of the band is relatively calm, the visual accompaniments filmed and edited by drummer Dave Sumner provide textural kinetics, without actually overpowering the complex rumble the band creates. Triggered samples and treated drum loops roil in the background, while the overpowering down-tuned bass played by vocalist Scott Bennett bursts at the seams. Moving forward and aft through the stereo field, Andrew Schiller’s guitars provide eerie whines alternating with roaring walls of chords. The band can deftly move from a vast downpour to a quite intimate and delicate singularity, often within mere measures. The lean arrangements of the band’s material allow for the players to concoct a sound all their own yet deliver full sets of songs, each one sounding very different from the last. As record reviewers often note, it’s easy to hear where A&A’s influences originate, but they’re somehow able to bring it all within their hazy machinery and make it all seem new again. They have released one EP titled “We Love Our Enemy” in 2005 and a full-length album titled “Arrows” in 2009 through The Mylene Sheath, a record label in Athens, GA. In addition to this reissue of their 2005 debut ep, a remix project for select tracks from 2009’s “Arrows” called “ARC” is being planned for 2011, with another full-length effort scheduled to appear in 2012.