The Guardian
June 27, 2003

Adam Sweeting

Buy The Mechanical Forces of Love at Amazon.co.uk

"Glitchy Beach Boys harmonies" is how Brad Laner describes the music he makes under the Medicine banner. It's as close as anybody will get in a micro-soundbite.
Laner has been making Medicine music since 1991, but while they were once a five-piece band that you could file under "rock". 2003's Medicine is just Laner, a room full of gadgets and the extraordinary voice of Shannon Lee, daughter of kung-fu star Bruce.

At one level, Medicine deal in sweet soul music and ethereal pop hooks, as in Sodden Rockets and Good For Me, but there are always a dozen things happening at once. Lee's voice floats past like clouds or flutters down as if it had been chopped up in a blender; electronic rhythms overlap, drop out, disintegrate or start running in reverse. It's spiritual, too, particularly in the haunting mantra of Best Future ("You know you die alone... never need to atone... for the life you made").

Fascinating.

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