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Net is a four-piece space wave band from Oklahoma City. Formed in 2017, Net’s lineup—John Baber, Andy Escobar, Tommy McKenzie, and Kyle Vasquez—includes members, collaborators, and alumni of experimental rock bands Ester Drang, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, and the Chainsaw Kittens, to name only a few.

The band established a trademark sound on 2018 debut “Memory Swipe,” the recording and live shows both channeling the innovation of Talking Heads, the pulsing blasé of “The Idiot”-era Iggy Pop, and the hooky electronica of Gary Numan. Regional touring followed, including shows as direct support for the Flaming Lips and Closeness (members of the Faint, Azure Ray).

Net’s followup album, Terminals, will be released August 7, 2020 on Oklahoma City label Clerestory AV. The new album was written and tracked collaboratively and features an expansive, melodic wrangling of all four members’ musical tastes and writing styles. Net recorded “Terminals” at the notorious Pink Floor Studio in Oklahoma City with producer Dennis Coyne (Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Flaming Lips, Kesha, Miley Cyrus) at the helm.

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The opening pulses of “Detonator,” the first track on “Terminals” from OKC space-wave band Net, are downright sinister. It takes nearly a full minute for the song to hit its stride, and then, singer and guitarist Kyle Vasquez’s melodic deadpan promises to lead listeners into 35 minutes of neurotic highs and lows. Where you’re headed, he promises, will “take the place of the past you know.”

The hallmarks of Net’s past, established on their 2018 debut album “Memory Swipe,” are a brazen confidence and an outsized strangeness, the jangling collision of Vasquez’s songwriting and the later addition of full instrumentation. Where “Terminals” surpasses its predecessor is in pop sensibility—a signature sound aided by the congealing of all four band members’ particular tastes and decades of experience as writers and instrumentalists. With a little age, Net has learned to, in the words of synth player, bassist, and songwriter Tommy McKenzie, both “wield and be led by” creative neuroses.

The lilting gait of “Asphyxiation” and the power pop stamina of “Jigsaw Man” are stylistic standouts and prominently demonstrate the influence of producer Dennis Coyne (of Oklahoma City’s Pink Floor Studio) and keyboard player John Baber, arguably the most outright musical member of Net, on the record as a whole. Coyne and Baber were critical in helping bring the songs from rough demos and reactive experimentation during tracking into complex, potent studio recordings.

The songs cover lyrical themes ranging from questioning one’s place in the universe (“Jigsaw Man”) to blithe rebellion (“Lines”) and even a few tiptoes around the idea of leaving meatspace behind, all delivered in Vasquez’s distinctive, unbothered clamor and grounded by the frenetic beat-keeping of drummer Andy Escobar. Everything is, in turns, nestled into a frenzy of instrumentation or isolated to great, metallic effect, the soundtrack of a new-new-new wave psych rock act in the throes of rebelling against their robot captors.

“Terminals” is well-crafted enough to feel spontaneous, equal parts outlandish and broadly listenable.

— Becky Carman

TRACKLIST:

1. Detonator
2. I Dissolve
3. Terminals
4. Lines
5. Asphyxiation
6. Timelapse
7. Jigsaw Man
8. Headcrack
9. My Machine

WEB:
www.netinspace.net