Singularity is Mae's

Mae

Mae was an American alternative/indie band that formed in Norfolk, Virginia in 2001. The band's name is an acronym for "Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience," based on a course taken by drummer Jacob Marshall while a student at Old Dominion University....

 third full-length release and their major label debut. The album was originally to be released in April 2007 on Tooth & Nail Records

Tooth & Nail Records

Tooth & Nail Records is a record label founded by Brandon Ebel in the U.S. state of California in November 1993. The label later moved to Seattle, Washington, where it is situated today...

 like their previous two albums, but the band signed a deal with major label Capitol Records

Capitol Records

Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

 soon after the new album announcement which pushed the release date back to August 14, 2007.

Production

Mae headed to Los Angeles to record Singularity with producer Howard Benson in October 2006. The band came up with the title Singularity from a book that Marshall and Sweitzer were reading by Australian scientist Paul Davies

Paul Davies

Paul Charles William Davies, AM is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, currently a professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science...

. Jacob Marshall referred to the term as being "the ultimate unknowable in science... the interface between the natural and the supernatural.’ We realized through those conversations that there is so much more for us to learn and to understand and these ideas inspired us to question everything."

The band was inspired by bands like Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...

, U2

U2

U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

, The Smashing Pumpkins

The Smashing Pumpkins

The Smashing Pumpkins are an American alternative rock band that formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1988. Formed by Billy Corgan frontman and James Iha , the band has included Jimmy Chamberlin , D'arcy Wretzky , and currently includes Jeff Schroeder Mike Byrne , and Nicole Fiorentino The Smashing...

, Nirvana

Nirvana (band)

Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...

, and Rage Against the Machine

Rage Against the Machine

Rage Against the Machine is an American rock band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1991, the group's line-up consists of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerford, guitarist Tom Morello and drummer Brad Wilk...

 when they were creating Singularity. Jacob stated in a recent interview with Fuss Magazine that Mae collaborated with musical artist Kenna for a track titled "Novacaine" that would be for the Japanese release. Jacob said the band would try to leak the extra track to their listeners. The track would be released on release day as a bonus track via the iTunes store. Rob will for the first time play the Vox

Vox (musical equipment)

Vox is a musical equipment manufacturer which is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, the Vox Continental electric organ, and a series of innovative but commercially unsuccessful electric guitars and bass guitars...

 organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

, Companion organ, Casio

Casio

is a multinational electronic devices manufacturing company founded in 1946, with its headquarters in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Casio is best known for its electronic products, such as calculators, audio equipment, PDAs, cameras, musical instruments, and watches...

 portatone

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

, and the kazoo

Kazoo

The kazoo is a wind instrument which adds a "buzzing" timbral quality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. The kazoo is a type of mirliton, which is a membranophone, a device which modifies the sound of a person's voice by way of a vibrating membrane."Kazoo" was the name given by...

 instruments on an album.

Release date

At a concert in Charlottesville on April 30, Dave Elkins stated that the release date would be August 14, 2007 on Capitol Records. This was confirmed by Zach Gehring in a news post to the band's website and mailing list on May 3. On June 18, Mae posted the song "Brink of Disaster" on their MySpace page. On June 20, the song "Sometimes I Can't Make It Alone" was made available as a digital download

Music download

A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...

 through the United States iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

 music store, though it was not intended to be released until June 26. On June 26 the song was made available to purchase through Napster

Napster

Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...

, Amazon

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

 and all other digital outlets. It was also made available as a ringtone through most major cell phone companies and it was posted on their MySpace page. Mae has offered an autographed booklet with pre-orders via the Interpunk and SmartPunk stores. Singularity was leaked to file-sharing sites on August 3, 2007. On August 10, 2007 the band made Singularity available to stream on the band's MySpace website. For almost one week following its release, the new album was mislabeled on iTunes as performed by "Various Artists," which could have caused downloaders to have had issues searching for the new Mae album.

Following its release, Singularity debuted at number 40 on the U.S. Billboard 200

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

, selling about 17,000 copies in its first week.

Webisodes

The band has been producing weekly webisodes on website devoted to the album and its release. The band releases webisodes weekly named after a song on the album, and features the song in the webisode. Each episode features band members explaining what each song means. Each episode contains footage of studio recordings. The intro and outro to a couple of videos can be perceived as subliminal messaging as promoting 081407 (date: August 14, 2007), the day Singularity was released.

Date	Webisode
June 11, 2007	Brink of Disaster
June 18, 2007	Rocket
June 25, 2007	Sometimes I Can't Make It Alone
July 9, 2007	Crazy 8s
July 16, 2007	SST
July 23, 2007	Just Let Go
July 30, 2007	Telescopes
August 6, 2007	Home
August 13, 2007	Singularity

Track listing

The final track listing was announced in a MySpace bulletin by Rob on May 26.

All songs written by Mae

Mae

Mae was an American alternative/indie band that formed in Norfolk, Virginia in 2001. The band's name is an acronym for "Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience," based on a course taken by drummer Jacob Marshall while a student at Old Dominion University....

• "Last Transmission" - 1:33 (Hidden track
  Hidden track
  In the field of recorded music, a hidden track is a piece of music that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener...
  
   in the pregap
  Pregap
  The pregap on a Red Book audio CD is the portion of the audio track that precedes "index 01" for a given track in the table of contents . The pregap is typically two seconds long and usually, but not always, contains silence...
  
  )

1. "Brink of Disaster" - 3:38
2. "Crazy 8s" - 4:01
3. "Sometimes I Can't Make It Alone" - 3:15
4. "Just Let Go" - 3:17
5. "On Top" - 3:47
6. "Waiting" - 4:51
7. "Sic Semper Tyrannis" - 3:20*
8. "Release Me" - 4:01
9. "Telescopes" - 3:25
10. "Rocket" - 2:52
11. "Home" - 3:37
12. "Reflections" 6:05

• "Sic Semper Tyrannis" is also known as SST for short, as it was titled during their webisode dated July 16, 2007.
• There is one more track to the physical CD which can be heard if the disc is "rewound" back to -1:33 of track 1. This track is known as "Last Transmission"; which made an appearance in a webisode not included in the 081407.com website but is part of Mae's Youtube.com profile.

Bonus tracks:

13. "(Silence)" – 4:07
    
14. "Last Transmission II" – 6:38
    

iTunes release:

13. "Last Transmission II" (Hidden Track) – 6:38
    
14. "Novocaine" (Bonus Track) (feat. Kenna) – 4:17
    

Japanese release:

1. "Last Transmission" / "Brink of Disaster" – 5:02

13. "(Silence)" – 4:07
    
14. "Last Transmission II" – 6:43
    
15. "Novocaine" (feat. Kenna) – 4:16
    

Personnel

• Dave Elkins – vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  , guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  
• Zach Gehring – guitar, vocals
• Mark Padgett – bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  , vocals
• Jacob Marshall – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  , vocals
• Rob Sweitzer – keyboards
  Keyboard instrument
  A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
  
  , Hammond B3, vocals

Technical personnel

• Published by – Myman Jones
• Produced by – Howard Benson
• Recorded by – Mike Plotnikoff
• Cover design – J. Michael Mollohan

Charts

Chart	Peak position
U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	40

DVD

There was a possibility of a DVD being co-released with the new album. The band's tour manager has filmed almost 100 hours of footage of the album's writing and recording, and says that much of the material "will likely make it to DVD either with the new album or as a stand alone DVD". Mae told Chart in June 2007 that they hope to release a DVD in late 2007 or early 2008.

External links

• Mae on myspace