Wednesday 27 August 2014

Video Vacuum - Trans Am, Catman, Pere Ubu, Lower Spectrum, Whirling Hall Of Knives, Goat, Ghost Wave


I'm moving house today. So I'm not going to be able to do any posts I'm afraid. So here is a lengthy A/V gem that I prepared earlier...


I mentioned earlier this year that I was pretty happy to hear Trans Am were bringing out a new album. In fact I had pangs of sadness when packing my things to move to the UK and found my copy of Futureworld that I hadn't listened to in years - enough for it to soundtrack an afternoon of throwing out clothes and taping up boxes. Here is the film clip for 'Insufficiently Breathless' - a subdued, sonorous affair with film-like breadth, and the ethereal, woodsian music video fits the music perfectly. Hoping to see these guys play once more before 2014's candle burns out.


I spoke very favourably of Catman, the solo outfit for Adam Rogan. His guitar suite The Singapore Demos was a killer example of how to sweep away all semblances of the self in pure music. He is back with a new track, 'Joo Koon', and it continues the amazing vibes - I have listened to this song non-stop all day. Just hearing this reminds me of how much I love Mark McGuire's Living With Yourself - and how good Catman is. So many more people need to indulge in this magic.


Trans Am onto Catman, then swinging back to an older classic band that are continuing their "comeback" in the form of Pere Ubu. A band I never thought I would get to see, but saw them at the Melbourne ATP last year (you know, the Altona one - the good one?) 'Golden Surf II' continues the brooding, bracing rock deathmarch that the avant-noise-weirdniks refuse to let go of, and in the process have crafted one of the most deliciously off-the-wall killers that they have brought out in some time. The beauty of the film clip is that Pere Ubu can sustain a band-filmed-in-a-room clip because of their ubiquity and magnetism, but the flick-card images that hammer throughout add the extra slice of the macabre. Great stuff.


Ned Buckley's climb as Lower Spectrum continues, now with the launch of the film clip for his single 'Khlever'. Another exquisitely shot clip that utilises the austere environs for its own nefarious aims, the alien objects and symbols shown throughout becoming more arcane in the frozen terrain that the young protagonist wanders through. Pagan ritualism based in the ancient future.


Further down the rabbithole we go, into the trancelike noise of Ireland's Whirling Hall of Knives. 'Scrap Assembly' blasts out like a warning siren, a nuclear meltdown of the senses, a groove intent on internal destruction, yet insistent on muscular movement and emotional attachment. The clip again creates this claustrophobic miasma of contracting and expanding, the tension growing just behind the cerebral vortex, the ghost in the machine in the self. Disturbingly simple, destructively seductive.


Goat have a new record out soon called Commune. I loved World Music. I really dig these krautrock demons from Sweden. And whilst 'Words' could have had a much more visceral film clip than this one, there is something foreboding and hypnotising about the triangles here. The band has always enjoyed angular design with their artwork, as well as multicoloured splashes, so the film clip still fits into the Goatosphere... Still, I want the masks and faux-camp darkness. This is an electric taste of what is to come though, so I'm not complaining.



OK, so let's try and pull out of this existential nosedive with one last clip. New Zealand band Ghost Wave have in 'Who's Doin' The Talkin'' crafted a languid psyc-out that is hazed and easy on the soul. Unabashed love of the motorik beat - as am I. Let's take a load off and unwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind...

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

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