MT WARNING
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | Established. Jan 01, 2014 | SELF
Music
Press
UNCUT MAGAZINE: “Mikey Bee’s psych-folk compositions - sometimes reminiscent of fellow Aussies Cloud Control - are immensely affecting, moving between rousing anthems such as “Youth Bird” and “Like a Tattoo” and more reflective pieces such as “Anchor”
THE GUARDIAN: “sinewy introspection of the National and the revelatory grandeur of Sigur Ros”.
invasionMAG: “MT WARNING excel in painting utterly captivating soundscapes rich in aural depth and lyrical meaning – a hypnotic reverie made all the more intense when experienced live.”
Tone Deaf on Laneway: “Frontman Mikey Bee sends chills with his lower register. The band’s hungry, grinding style appeases the building crowd, and the group pushes out a far greater wall of sound than their minimal setup suggests”.
Inpress: “Energetic and inspiring performance”
Scene Magazine on Bigsound (Oz equivalent to SXSW): One of the best and most exciting acts of the night was definitely North Coast band MT WARNING. Combining heavy yet melodic rock with ambient electronic elements, their set was made all the more hypnotic by frontman Mikey B’s personal, evocative lyrics and filmmaker Taylor Steele’s arresting stage visuals. The climactic end featured an epic, soaring performance of ‘Youth Bird’ and Mikey B jumping into the crowd and starting a moshpit. To call them a band worth paying attention to doesn’t do them justice. Once they get started it’s almost impossible to tear yourself away.
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Glasswerk Magazine (UK): “Strewn with longing and built around a swirling desert rock rhythm and a melancholy vocal…”
Triple J on Midnight Dawn: “New Gem, Soaring ambient pop”
Clash UK: This is a beautiful, emotive song, and the vocals are amazing too – at the beginning, especially, it just sucks you right in.
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Dom Alessio, Home & Hosed, TRIPLE J. - Following on from the beautiful slow-burner 'Forward Miles', Byron Bay act MT WARNING are back with the propulsive and rocking 'Youth Bird'. It features sharp guitar chords, a driving drum rhythm and Mikey Bee's howling vocals.”
EAT YOUR OWN EARS: "Youth Bird is an immediate song that builds and grabs you with its catchy guitar hook and souring vocals, its almost too short, as soon as its finished you want to listen to it all over again..."
RUSSH MAGAZINE: “I wanted something bold and physical. MT WARNING seems ominous, but its physicality was that when the sailors saw it from the sea, they knew to turn their boats to deeper water or they hit Point Danger. Its local name also translates to 'cloud catcher', I like that.”
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TIME OFF Brisbane: “Destined for big things”.
Filter Magazine: Forward Miles remix: "LaDuce adds heavy, ominous-yet-dancey synth to this meditative, sparkling anthem, as well as robotic echoes to Bee's controlled, steady vocals".
TIMEOUT London: “Their music is thumping alternative rock, with electronic and post-rock influences from the likes of Sigur Rós”.
PAGES DIGITAL: “The music is beautiful, challenging, cinematic and unique. Much like the story of MT WARNING, really”. - Various
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
Photos
Bio
When Mikey Bee was
playing a solo show in Australia, American film-maker Taylor Steele happened to
be in the audience and was intrigued by the performance. The film-maker
approached the musician with a different way of writing songs. How would
a song sound from a man sinking into the ocean?". The musician answered
with a song washed with anticipation, determined lyrics, and denial. A
discovery of new music was explored.
Together they pushed
the idea of a song telling a unique story while being part of a visual story,
played out over an album which came to represent lifes cycle - a journey from
one side of the day to the other, as much as from one side of life to the end.
The band name came
about when Mikey and Taylor were thinking about what experience they were
trying to create with the music. We
wanted something bold, ominous but also simple and stoic. There's a mountain
close to where we were working, its the first place to see the sunrise in
Australia, the first place the sailors would see from the ocean and when they
saw it, they knew they were close to Point Danger, a reef that would ground
them if they didnt turn east. Bold in nature, ominous in name and simple and
stoic to view, the name MT WARNING was agreed upon. It also conveniently shares
their initials in the title, hence the pronouncement M, T, WARNING.
Mikey would piece
together the compositions during late night sessions in a beach shack studio.
He'd put the songs together by jumping around the room from guitar, to piano,
to drums, to bass. And by sunrise each day, Taylor would have something to make
new notes on. He would check that all music, lyric and tempo were still telling
the story each song was supposed to; from
the feelings of big dreams in youth to the realisations and heartbreaks of old
age, and all the emotions in between. Those recordings became the album, Mikey
adding Tori Lee's vocals to some tracks and had drummer Grant Gerathy overdub
Mikey's random drum technique.
When it came time to recreate the
songs live, Taylor's history in punk rock and film making challenged, coached
and directed Mikey from side-stage to engage fully with his audience and
letting his education in rock pubs come to the fore with a fury. Holding steady
and defined for the intimate moments that appear on the record, to near
destruction of stage and guitars in the heightened break out moments, with
visuals created by the two projecting on the back of stage to enhance the
experience for both the audience and the band.
The outcome is
dynamic, an album that is visually thick, sonically sprawling and lyrically
subtle in the most poetic sense. A recording of the interactions between us,
what lies just beyond and utilizing music as the movie.
DEBUT ALBUM Midnight
Set Out 28 March 2014
all songs by Mikey
Bee, Produced by Taylor Steele
Band Members
Links
