Alternative Press Magazine

ALL ABOUT SATELLITES AND SPACESHIPS This Austin, Texas, group's droneological, ambedelica has the rakish blueprints of guitars, bass and drums, thereby creating a peripheral field of sonic images that is temporally fluid and viscerally lurid. Reese Beeman sings in front of this space-time electric jive, and the quartet don't sound like anything but acid rock to me. There has not been enough of a resurgence in the use of the term acid rock, and that's too bad, because acid rock has a real nice ring to it.     Mining the traditions set forth by Hendrix and carried on by Spacemen 3 all the way to what is happening at this very moment is what 7% Solution are all about, besides the satellites and spaceships. From the swirling, subversive interpretations of R.E.M. to the mad, abstract impressionism of their own lyrical mantras, this missive is truly from the vast minority. If their overly committed attacks on time and space don't find you right where you live, then you just haven't taken enough acid yet. The really beautiful thing about this package is that the band throw in an extra copy so you can give it to one of your acid head friends. Somewhere in in Texas, Roky Erickson is laughing...(5 stars) -Mitch Meyers-

Rolling Stone Magazine

The U.S.space-rock program: Never mind those pictures from Mars; they look like holiday snaps from Dry Gulch,Ariz. More impressive are the mercury-bubble pools of guitar and the shattered-glass sparkle of the choruses on All About Satellites and Spaceships (x-ray,cd),by the Texas-based quartet 7% Solution.(Rock-crit sound bite: More-era Pink Floyd through soft light.)And you have to admire the band's generosity: The package includes a second copy of the album to pass on to a friend...... -David Fricke-

Option Magazine

The trouble with slow-core bands like Low or Slowdive is that they're all mood and no movement. 7% Solution has that dreamy, droning quality such groups aspire to, but has so much more to offer. First, is some really fine musicianship - what initially struck me as so much hippie jamming really jelled, as I listened, into delicate, deliberate curlicues of smoke and lace. Second, is attention to texture and dynamics - there's nothing worse than boring rock, a trap 7% avoids by drenching everything in reverb and filling in space nicely with two intertwined guitars, deep bass lines, floating vocals or Scott Sasser's psychedelic-style (not rock) drumming, and giving passages the effect of loudness to contrast with their softer surroundings. Finally,there's just better material here than on similar band's albums--I love the way "Revolve" just drifts into Hendrix's "Third Stone From the Sun" and the subtly majestic refrains of "Built On Sand" or the Mazzy Star-ish "The Road And the Common". Cool deal: each cd comes with an extra, free copy to give to a friend -and the good news is that this is a band worth sharing. Pass it on. -Beth L.-

Rolling Stone Magazine

Can cover of the fortnight: "Oh Yeah" (Hidden Agenda,single) as treated with Nineties space-beat flair by Texas' 7% Solution. -David Fricke-

The Fritz

Creating a great record is no small feat, but creating two in a row is nothing short of incredible. This is Seven Percent Solution's second time in the best of the best here and, believe me, it is well deserved. This as yet unsigned foursome from Austin, Texas make music which seems to be a gift from God. Like a mist, their soft melodies filter down and surround you while a storm begins to brew off in the distance. Slowly the pressure drops and the wall of textured guitars moves in, engulfing your meager form in its vast beauty. The guitars begin to soar and the drums pick you up and carry you off to a new land where music is not played it simply exists. This is the land where Seven Percent Solution reign supreme. They do not play their instruments, but rather their instruments play them, creating sonic sculptures that are massive and detailed yet not unweildly. The music Seven Percent Solution create is so precise and gorgeous that it becomes all I can think about, all I can concentrate on when I hear it.     GABRIEL'S WALTZ picks up where their last record, ALL ABOUT SATELLITES AND SPACESHIPS, left off. They still carry the torch of '90s wall-of-sound icons such as My Bloody Valentine and Lush, but they have taken it a step farther by making the vocals a little more pronounced and less of an instrument. This is a good evolution for the band as they know how to orchestrate the whole creation flawlessly.     I am beginning to think these boys can do no wrong. With a bare-bones budget, they have managed to put out two incredible records and a great seven inch. All have had excellent production values and incredible songs, making this one band that people need not only hear, but learn from. You will be hearing more from these guys, I promise you. - Aaron Gustafson -

The Austin Chronicle

The most important credit on GABRIEL'S WALTZ - certainly the most revealing - "inspiration: Anne Sexton" defines Seven Percent Solution's long-awaited second album just as Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space defined an entire modern rock movement. One of the most extraordinary American poets of the 20th century, Sexton was both brillant and beautiful, a powerfully candid woman defined by her confessionalism, who killed herself in 1974 at the age of 45. Like this Austin quartet's debut, ALL ABOUT SATELLITES AND SPACESHIPS, a shimmering Pink-Eno exploration of infinite guitar ambience, GABRIEL'S WALTZ spins its song cycle into - or out of - one longer, thematic poem which serves as the album's gravitational center. Starting with the opener "Dear Anne" (Save me from my failing), the band's three-guitar mission revolves around collapsing seperate melodies into a dense black (w)hole of sound and emotion. Thus, "The End Of Faith" ("I'm beyond repair/washed out to sea"), "Bruise" ("Carry the love,carry it alone"), "Lullaby" ("If you dream tonight, I'll be near by") "The Innocentes" ("When I'm no more, no more sight, no more darkness, no more light"), and finally "Dust and Ashes" ("When I think it through,I never asked for you") blur into a long, languorous journey of pinging, ringing riffs. When the instrumental title track abruptly cuts off at album's end and you're left with the epitaph "I'm so tired and soul-sick" at the bottom of the lyrics, this elegiac spellbinder continues another 20 or so seconds in silence before ending - like it's life has been cut off. In space, no one can hear your heart break. -Raoul Hernandez-

Vendetta

Austin,Texas' Seven Percent Solution absolutely shine on "Gabriel's Waltz", even surpassing their stellar 1997 debut "All About Satellites And Spaceships. From the opening notes of the lush opener "Dear Anne", you'll become totally immersed in this group's dark, psychedelic grooves. The best reference points are probably fellow Texans American Analog Set and Comet or The Verve c. "Gravity Grave", "She's A Superstar", and the "A Storm In Heaven" LP, but Seven Percent Solution are even more out there than that. You'll just marvel at the hypnotic power of tracks such as "Bruise', 'Dust And Ashes", and the Pink Floyd-like "Threshold". Reese Beeman's hushed, dreamlike vocals further enhance the record's trippy genius, the soothing "Lullaby" being a prime example---pure sonic heroin. If Roky Erickson and Syd Barrett ever come to their senses, they'll be mighty proud of these boys! - NO BYLINE -

Rolling Stone online "Albums That Mattered '98"

MADONNA - Ray of Light LAUREN HILL - Miseducation of Lauren Hill JEFF BUCKLEY - Sketches AIR - Moon Safari 7% SOLUTION - All About Satellites and Spaceships BEASTIE BOYS - Hello Nasty - ARI BENDERSKI -

AMZ musiczine

Yeah, I like my music on the melancholy side. So sue me. ...This isn't music you'll be tapping your toes to, it's music to listen to wind blow by. Is it gonna get airplay? Only on my dream radio station, the one in my head, when we're on the air only when it rains and at night and I take callers after midnight who talk with me about love, longing, and loss... and I reinforce the idea that it's okay to mourn the death of something you'll never know.      Overall, this is absolutely lovely. I haven't heard anything this good in this genre in a Really Long Time... (five stars) - SIOBHAN O'NEILL -

181.4 Degrees from the Norm

Captivating, emotive, and gloriously seductive, GABRIEL'S WALTZ imparts a fragile beauty similar to the diverse patterns of light refracted from a cluster of well-cut diamonds. Smooth and clean, it quickly captures your ear with it's fluid guitar movements and passive vocal textures...the delicate elegance embodied within each song produces a calm though not so content atmosphere that those with a mature taste will hurriedly embrace.     GW uncompromisingly captures and disseminates the intended messages of its creators. A message delivered with a level of integrity and seriousness that duly serves to seduce the listener and hold his or her attention. Seven Percent Solution's penchant for a refined, open, light sound masks the darker, partially gothic undercurrent underlying the album's lyrics. Simply put, a unique and delightful album. - MATT CURRIE -

Oklahoma Gazette

Although it sounds as though it was recorded on a massive budget, the 7% Solution's debut, ALL ABOUT SATELLITES AND SPACESHIPS is a low-overhead affair...but the space-rock contained inside is cinematic in scope, the aural equivalent to the final scenes of 2001 A Space Odyssey.     Even amid such acknowledged masters of space-rock as SPIRITUALIZED and SPECTRUM, 7% stands out with it's remarkable mix of organic drums and guitars with the otherwordly psychedelic swirl of it's keyboard effects.(WE DON'T USE ANY KEYBOARDS - Reese ;)) ... the closest any group has gotten to achieving the disturbing beauty of MY BLOODY VALENTINE's classic LOVELESS album. - GEORGE LANG -

The Fritz

I have been a fan of Seven Percent Solution for quite some time, SXSW marked my first chance to see them perform live. I took the opportunity to see then twice. Both shows left me awestruck. Aside from playing their incredibly masterful wall-of-sound compositions, they wowed the audience with unexpected covers. Their faithful interpretation of Hallelujah had me floored. On record, this band has some of the highest production values known to man and live they make it easily apparent that their records were not the product of studio trickery,.. it was pure skill. I highly recommend that you check out Seven Percent Solution if they come through your town. Being based out of Austin, unsigned, and still with day jobs, they do n't get out much, but if you miss the chance to see them, you'll kick yourself for it later. -Aaron Gustafson-

Magnet

"Lullaby" Wandering down from the hills toward their Austin Texas, homes, the psychedelic warriors of 7% Solution take pause; the drugs kick in, time stands still and they hear distant strands of atmospheric guitar and innocent vocals. When the equally trance-like "Oh Yeah" (a Can cover) kicks in, they realize they've been in the basement all along, spinning records and watching light patterns on the walls. -Fred Mills-

InSite Magazine

Gabriel's Waltz, Seven Percent Solution's new c.d., soars and shines and dips low into emotional expanses of darkness and light. Go with it. One listen shows you only that each listen thereafter will bring something new. It's "psychedelic" which to them translates as "...layered and multi-dimensional; something that makes you think; something that expands you a little bit,...U2 and Radiohead are good examples. Break out of the "Austin Sound" mold and see what psychedelia in the new millenium sounds like. With our without chemical enhancement. -Beverly Bavaro-

Fort worth Weekly (fwweekly.com)

Intricate spaces More than just filigree and shadow, 7% solution craft epic music. By Colin Maycock Deep down, everyone knows that in reality, space is as silent and cold as a dead kitten's final resting place. Even the most avid collector of Windham Hill "Music of the Spheres" compilations or the meandering musical musings by Bay Area artists with names like "Starchild" or "White Dwarf," will concede, albeit only after being beaten repeatedly around the head with the wet fish of reason, that an absolute vacuum cannot support anything that the human ear would detect as noise, let alone music. So it's an odd quirk of linguistics that music characterized by dense layering, delicate, entwined melodies and gently loping drums should end up described as space rock. A few years back, it seemed like you couldn't take a leak in an alley around town without pissing on a spacerock combo or two. Nowadays your only chance of hitting one is if you had irritable bladder syndrome and a few weeks to cover some territory. Aside from local stalwarts Yeti, whose jazzy riffs and unique time signatures signal a band exploring the distinctly non-rock sectors of the vast emptiness of distant galaxies, and the more obviously psychedelic leanings of foreign interlopers like Gay Dad, one of the most respected practitioners of the easily belittled style is the Austin quintet 7% Solution. Although 7% Solution has only released two full-length c.d.'s, All About Satellites and Spaceships and Gabriel's Waltz, on the band's own X-Ray label, in 1996 and 1999 respectively, along with a couple of singles, the band has developed a national media profile that far outstrips its local reputation. Each of the band's c.d.'s have garnered favorable reviews in such august publications as Rolling Stone, Magnet and Pop Culture Press, and it has been featured on MTV news twice. As a unit the band is genuinely pleasantly surprised, in the most benign and non-conceited fashion about its reach beyond the hardly constrictive boundaries of Texas. Guitarist James Adkisson said, "It's a very pleasant shock. It's hard to get a handle on, sometimes. People in Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, New York that own the c.d.'s, know the songs. It's a great feeling." Young men, a long way from home and possessed of certain musical talents, have been known to act out their own versions of the traditional rock-god fantasies. Recoiling from the suggestion that the band, like so many others out on the road, may behave in less than a gentlemanly fashion, Adkisson said emphatically, "We have great times on tour; no smashing up motels but we get to meet a lot of people, and do interviews and immerse ourselves in a being a band without regular life getting in the way." 7% Solution specializes in creating widescreen soundscapes that shimmer, glisten and glide like the skein of petrol atop rain slick streets in the early evening's streetlamp glow. The gently whirling and addictive qualities of the band's musical creations developed out of the members' disparate influences. "The songs that Reese and Bob, and Scott played for me in the beginning was a nice blend of Hendrix, Cocteau Twins and U2 and the Cure, bands that I truly love so I was hooked," Adkisson said. "I brought in some Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Eno and this Mortal Coil, and the sound just emerged." Sounding more like a who's who in the critical circles of modern rock, than a guitarist, Adkisson continued, "More recently, the influences are Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, Spiritualized, D.J. Shadow, Sonic Youth, Portishead, the Orb, Stereolab and even more attention to older great songwriters like The Beatles, The Who, Stevie Wonder and Nick Drake. Those combinations of influences lend themselves to very 3-D atmospheric, and spacey sounds." Although Adkisson eschews the Van Halen style of guitar pyrotechnics, he can wrest some truly amazing sounds from his instrument. In fact until recently the 7% Solution had little need for a synthesizer. Adkisson admitted that, "We are starting to use a keyboard for piano sounds and also taping down keys for drones. There is also an Omnichord [electronic autoharp] on our song 'The Innocentes.' Reese came from the Hendrix/Kevin Shields/The Edge school of playing, and I came from the Adrian Belew/Robin Gutherie/Brian May school of playing, so together we could create a lot of interesting sounds. We never disliked keyboards, We just didn't need any. It was fun to be creative and stretch what we could do with guitars." 7% Solution's shows are an exercise in subtlety and an exploration of intricacy rather than an opportunity for the audience to leap about to the apparently infinite variety of melodies that can be squeezed from the four chords that make up the backbone of rock 'n' roll. Adkisson claimed that instead of recreating the intimate intricacy of the band's records, its members focus their attention the overall picture. "We want the songs to be recognizable but we also don't want them to unexciting, note-for-note from the c.d.'s. We listen to the recorded songs and decide what the most important parts and sounds are, then we use that to recreate them live. Some of what we can do live surprises people. Many of the guitar tones are programmed so the sounds you hear are exactly what was recorded on the c.d., but there are also many differences. The main structure and feel of the songs are there is a lot of experimenting and stretching within the framework." Adkisson said the band's shows are "an atmospheric, moody 'psychedelic happening,' hopefully. Songs from both c.d.'s plus new things that we're working on. Usually an interesting cover or two. We have played the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Can and Jeff Buckley tunes. Filtering other people's songs through our universe is fun. We're not pretty, so we also have the projection show." While promising to create a memorable event, Adkisson was a little coy in detailing exactly what it would entail. "Yes, there will be a few surprises," he said. "Guess I'll keep them that way. We have really great crowds in Fort Worth thanks to KTCU, and the Ridglea Theater is perfect for our visual show."

Michael Chamy, Austin Chronicle March 16, 2001

SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION: Though their intoxicating debut All About Satellites and Spaceships circulated among the national underground, Seven Percent Solution have remained a closely guarded local secret. They continue to weave bewitching threads of atmospheric melodicism that merge in awe-inspiring stellar alignment. (South by South West, Saengerrunde Hall, 9pm) -- Michael Chamy