Denton band Shiny Around The Edges debuts new disc

It took a village to make this album.

Shiny Around The Edges is made up of Jennifer Seman, Michael Seman, and Michael Forbes.

DENTON — Sometimes inspiration can come from the most familiar of places. For Denton experimental band Shiny Around The Edges, musical stimulus for their new release The Night Is A Disco came from fellow musicians within the community and the city of Denton itself.

“Denton bands from the Paperstain family – Dust Congress and BluDDeD HeAD – have influenced our songwriting in varying ways,” the band’s multi-instrumentalist frontman Michael Seman said. “Denton’s music scene – and by extension the city – is incredibly friendly and accommodating, which allows one to develop as an artist in whichever direction she or he chooses.”

Fellow Denton bands Dust Congress, Terminator 2, Baptist Generals, BluDDed HeAD, and Geistheistler lent a musical hand to help aid in the recording of The Night Is A Disco.

The album, a joint venture between Paperstain Records and Gutterth Records, was recorded in Echo Lab and several homes around Denton. According to Seman, The Night Is A Disco “is the sound of hanging out with your friends in the living room listening to a wide variety of old records that you found on a forgotten shelf at Recycled Books.”

Unlike Shiny Around The Edges’ past albums (Holy Roller, Denton’s Dreaming), most of the tracks on The Night Is A Disco were written on the piano. The band also included instruments such as the saxophone and the clarinet, as well as dabbled in a bit of digital manipulation, which Seman said the band has never done before.

Although the musically exploratory trio had the option to record exclusively in the studio, they opted to record as much as they could in the homes of their musical cohorts, believing that the end result of The Night Is A Disco would have sounded different otherwise. “We were looking to capture the vibe of playing music with our friends in Denton, and that necessitates recording all over the city,” Seman said.

“We love the fact that [Denton] has the charm of a small town, but is also a small city with a plethora of creative, intelligent, and highly entertaining people to help pass the time,” Seman said.

Shiny Around The Edges celebrates the release of The Night Is A Disco at Macaroni Island on November 16 in the city they call home, with a set that will encompass the sonically unconventional band’s last three albums. Denton acts Eccotone and Forever Home kick off the night’s festivities.