Ima Robot Enters the 5th Dimension

Los Angeles based, indie/new wave band Ima Robot have been through their fair share of music industry travails – most of the drama stemming from their involvement with the questionable politics of being signed to a major label contract. What is it that Q-Tip said again so prophetically on the track “Check the Rhyme”? Oh yeah, “Industry rule #4080, record company people are shady.”

All the label issues culminated in the band taking a break from their situation and stealing some time away to refocus and try new things. Ima Robot founding member, Timmy Anderson states it this way.

“We were all a bit tweaked from our last year or so in the major label game – I’ll leave it at that! Some life happened, a lot of work and side projects went down (Guns n Bombs, Edward Sharpe, Werewolf Heart records) and we all just went off exploring other musical endeavors and interests.”

Presently, the hibernation period is over and the Ima Robot’s current line-up, consisting of Alex Ebert (lead vocals), Timmy (lead guitarist, flutes) and bassist Filip Nikolic are back with their third full length LP titled “Another Man’s Treasure.” It will be released later this year on their own imprint, Werewolf Heart Records.

Anderson offers the following with regards to the sonic direction and overall feel of their new project.

“This record was an abstraction from our last ones,” he explains. “We needed to deconstruct and re-imagine, sort of reaching back to when we were kids and music was just a rush. We recorded about 25 songs and ideas over the last few years and pieced together the most congruent pattern we saw. It seems to all make sense now listening to it.”

On the new album, the trio also worked with a tight camp of talented friends and collaborators, namely Scott Devours, Lars Vongstrup, and Orpheo McCord who plays drums and percussion with the groups Edward Sharpe, Fool’s Gold. However for the majority of the record, it was mainly Alex, Filip and Timmy rendering song ideas and executing them within themselves. Whenever some compositions felt like they required more encompassing production, they reached out to their “full posse of friends.”

An excellent harbinger to their new sound and rejuvenated musical passion is the first single “Ruthless” which is currently making its mark on music sites and blogs all over the world wide web. The accompanying video is about six minutes of intense, séance-like, new wave/electronic goodness with brain-tweaking visuals balanced superbly with Alex Ebert’s trademark esoteric vocals.

“ ‘Ruthless’ was such a treat to watch come together,” Timmy says. “We got to collaborate with good friend and Dead Man’s Bone’s confidante Noaz Deshe. He literally did hundreds of pieces in different mediums and animated everything step by step… Paintings, drawings, water colors… it’s unreal!”

As far as current trends in pop music and paparazzi sensations “du jour,” you really won’t hear the Ima Robot compadres weighing in on all that jazz. They do have a soft-spot in their heart for a recently resurgent Detroit emcee.

“We as a band don’t talk about pop culture when we hang, we just create when we’re together. I think we don’t really care about that when we connect – we also don’t have a lot of time so we try and set up our hangouts to be creative central. With that said, “Eminem is back, yo!”

So for now, the warning trumpets have been sounded. The new Ima Robot album is set to drop October 19th on Werewolf Heart records. Timmy confirms that a second video is dropping soon for a song called “Rough Night” and it’s “sort of a beautiful nightmare set to the beginning of our universe.” He also mentioned another huge surprise video dropping in August that’s sure to “blow up.”