The Wytches return with 'Talking Machine', the haunting title-track from their forthcoming fifth LP, out on the 10th October via Alcopop! Records. Always outsiders in the UK punk landscape, the band dig deep into analog ghosts and dystopian anxieties, blurring the line between 20th-century nostalgia and AI-age dread.
Inspired by Thomas Edison’s “tone tests” and the fear of machine-made music, frontman Kristian Bell revives the eeriness of pre-recorded illusion and threads it through their trademark fuzz-drenched, organ-laced garage psych. The result is a slow-creeping spell that feels both archival and apocalyptic.
The band's Kristian Bell explains on the new single and album title, "I saw the term “Talking Machine” in a book I was reading about Thomas Edison. It was a nickname for gramophones. I thought that was fitting enough for an album title, but I guess like a lot of people, the whole AI thing has been on my mind a lot and I saw a connection there too. Thomas Edison would host these events called Tone Tests where he’d demonstrate how much audio recordings had advanced by fooling the audience in to thinking they were listening to musicians playing live but it was actually all pre-recorded, playing from a gramophone. People feared that a lot of jobs in the entertainment industry and beyond would be replaced by technology, a lot like what’s going on now."
Have a listen to 'Talking Machine' in the player below.
