BY MICHAEL DONOVAN Thinking Machines are an indie-rock trio based in the 215. To date they have released three full-length albums: their self-titled debut in 2001, Dream In Lo-Fi, released in 2002 and most recently, A Complete Record of Urban Archaeology, released in January, 2008. Though only a three-piece, Thinking Machines sounds much larger — thanks in no small part to the expansive guitar and bass work. On the TM’s third album, elements of post-punk and indie rock are mixed together for an end result akin to the soon-to-hit-Philly Les Savy Fav (but not as weird) and Minus the Bear. Even if the hardscrabble vocals don’t quite match the charisma of the guitars, Urban Archaeology is an eminently-listenable collection of songs. With an album where the guitar takes the spotlight, it should be interesting to see how well the riffery translates to the stage. Urban Archaeology’s last track, “You Are Not Safe,” is a great album closer and probably will be a great set closer. If nothing else, though, the show should hold us Fav-heads over for a couple weeks. Thinking Machines is playing with The Chimeras and Jotto tonight at Johnny Brendas — and like any brother-loving band from the city of Bro love, they have been nice enough to stream their entire album on their Last.fm. Dig it!
WIKIPEDIA: Thinking Machines Corporation was a supercomputer manufacturer founded in Waltham,
Massachusetts in 1982 by W. Daniel “Danny” Hillis and Sheryl Handler to turn Hillis’s doctoral work at MIT on massively parallel computing architectures into a commercial product called the Connection Machine. The company moved in 1984 from Waltham to Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, close to the MIT AI Lab and Thinking Machine’s competitor Kendall Square Research. Besides Kendall Square Research, Thinking Machines’ competitors included MasPar, which made a computer similar to the CM-2, and Meiko, whose later offerings were similar to the CM-5. “We’re building a machine that will be proud of us.” – Thinking Machine’s motto