MYTHICAL MOTORS
“Selections from the Psychic’s Museum"
C52 (Fall Break Records)




Holy crap, this is a lot of material from a band that I’ve only just heard about in the past year. You can’t fault me for that – I don’t go looking for many jangle pop/indie rock tapes, but now that Fall Break Records is on the scene, I may have to adjust my search parameters. (Who am I kidding, I’m a music writer – I don’t have to lift a finger [well, except to type], and I get my records for free!) Chattanooga’s Mythical Motors has been around for a long time in band years, since 2006, and they’ve released a butt ton of material in the interim. That’s actually not surprising when you’re as indebted to Guided By Voices and The Apples in Stereo and bands like that – you’re practically born with pop songwriting in your DNA. You wake up, brush your teeth, and knock out about fifty tunes before breakfast. It’s just what you do.

It’s what Matt Addison does, and he and his band of merry guitar slingers have perfected their power pop formula in basements and bedrooms and home studios and whatever else like machines on an assembly line. Write hook, record, move on. Remember I.R.S. Records? Flying Nun? Yeah, they’re represented here too, and Mythical Motors would have slid right in to the each label’s roster if they were twenty years older. But right now, it seems that Tennessee – the whole state mind you, not just Chattanooga – is the new hotbed for this type of tunage. It’s the new Athens, Georgia, which is weird because Fall Break Records is based out of Athens, and they probably have something to say about that. Maybe we can get their label staff to Wrestlemania-style grudge match against Mythical Motors and bands like Commander Keen and others. I honestly don’t know who’d win (mainly because I don’t know how big the FBR staff is).

Doesn’t matter, though, because you still have to get your hands on this sweet tape. Did I mention there are twenty-two songs on it? I didn’t? Well there are, and that’s a lot, and they restlessly refuse to stay at one point on the rock-and-roll map. Addison and co. keep it fresh, which might be surprising after so much time, but here they are. Selections plays like an album instead of a compilation, and you can’t ask for anything more from your music curators. Have you ordered the tape yet? Why not? I’ve given you over four hundred words worth of time. You don’t have to read this to the end. It’s not like I’m monitoring your internet usage.




--Ryan Masteller