PREMIERE - Winternationale Announce New LP With Eulogies

Sounds like a pun, but it isn't - it's 'Eulogies', the first track to be heard from Melbourne bass and drums post-punks Winternationale's upcoming album, out in the new year (it will also be out in 7" form on Almanac Recordings, with older track 'Shadows' taking up the back end). 'Eulogies' starts out slow and elegiac, a monochrome icebound soundscape, before the incessant, insistent drumbeat and bassline kicks into the fray. It becomes an altogether different beast, a metronomic purging of the soul, and bodes well for the future.

The band have quietly hewn their trade, offering a distilled ball of lightning to all those lucky enough to have caught their sets. They have laid low this year though, writing and recording (some of which was done in Brisbane at Incremental Studios - Cam actually introduced me to these guys' sound a few years back). The single will be available via datacard which will also include a mixtape, video clip and the first edition of the duo's bandzine Storm & Stress - all of which you can pick up at the Grace Darling Hotel November 11 when they launch it with support from the excellent Great Earthquake and Mares.

A 7" Monument To Hysterical Cathys

Just a short post to give a shout out to Sydney's The Cathys. Featuring members of JuliaWhy?, King Tears Mortuary, Plum and Hell Selzer, the lo-fi pop kids have just released Hysterical Monument, a four-track 7" that sums up the slightly disparate corners these guys have crawled from. 'Loan' is a jumped up pop gleam in the eye, with Sam Giddey's goofy baritone galloping over the top; 'Rebble' is more tempered but no less coiled, taking the tense tempos of Dunedin's finest; 'Subtle Barbs' is a little more laconic, but spirals out into a guitar washout; and 'Heart Disease' finally brings the rock riff out to play, albeit with a giddily sunny disposition. The band launches the 7" in Sydney tomorrow night followed by dates in Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane - see below for details, and order the 7" here.

Sydney: 

Thursday 18 June @ The Union with Disgusting People and Drowning Fleets. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1613992808814040/

Canberra:

Saturday 20 June @ The Phoenix with Mope City, Thunderbolt City + Eadie & The Doodles. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/849857128434071/

Melbourne:

Friday July 3 @ The Tote with Shiny Coin, Chook Race and Summer Blokes. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1399589547035794/

Sunday July 5 @ Grace Darling with Pure Moods and Cool Sounds. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/825112544237141/ 

Brisbane: 

Saturday July 25 @ Trainspotters with Kitchen’s Floor, Cannon and Point Being. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1594349354151380/

Wetting The Blanket

Melbourne miscreants Wet Blankets launch their debut LP Rise of Wet Blankets this on Friday downstairs at Grace Darling, with Cuntz and Bonniwells in support - shit, what a cracker. I haven't heard the album yet, but seeing as 'Fridge Too Far' is a goddamn blister-buster of a track, clocking in at 83 seconds and melting the walls without breaking a sweat (or getting any sleep, cos it's the middle of the night), I reckon it's going to be excellent. The record is out through Anti-Fade Records too, who have pushed both of the Living Eyes' excellent albums, so quality is assured.

PREMIERE - Primary Colours Keep It Basic With Compact Disc (VIDEO)

Today I kiss the ground of Australian soil for the first time in nine months - AND IT FELT SO GOOD. Ill be offline for a few days as I lose myself in the Victorian countryside (and head to Golden Plains too), so let's welcome each other into a warm embrace by premiering the new Primary Colours video, 'Compact Disc'. It's their scrappy post punk nonsense, which gets heady and serrated if suitably loose, but the looped, VHS faded, cartoon cigarettes, smiles and starts-imposed clip is its own streamlined beast.

Primary Colours are about to embark on a tour to launch their Compact Disc/Services Rendered 7" release:

March 14th @ The Phoenix Pub Canberra w/ Bare Grillz 

March 20th @ Black Wire Records w/ Sadfaces + Twin Rover 

March 22nd @ The Grace Darling Hotel for Minimum Wage w/ Orlando Furious.

School Break Ups

(NOT a pic of the band - but you get the idea)

Australian musicians are the fidgetiest bunch. Most are in a multitude of bands, with one the focus but a myriad of half-cooked ideas floating about spilling out in weirder and wilder realms. School Damage is no different - and yet definitely IS different, in that this relatively new four-piece seem fully formed. Formed by Jake Robertson (Ausmuteants, The Hierophants, The Frowning Clouds, Drug Sweat etc) and Carolyn Hawkins (Chook Race) with Danni Damage and Jeff Raty bringing in the rhythms, School Damage is the perfect amalgamation of all these exterior pursuits - synth silliness, mewling guitars, loose-limbed garage rock bluster, B52s-esque garishness run through the rusted grinder of grit-in-the-wound punk, monotone vocals...it all adds up to a night with a beer-stained shirt and a shit-eating grin, loving life even while vomit flows down the slides at the local children's playground at three in the morning. They put out a cassette, Deep Net, on Moontown Tapes, and now have the impending 7" Break Up coming out of Detonic Recordings (Multiple Man, Diesel Dudes). All elements are present and accounted for on these three tracks, especially on the title track, which plays like a slow-swaying synth number of doo-wop-less pop before crashing into a guitar wash meltdown.


Grab your copy of Break Up here. School Damage launch this puppy on Friday August 29 at The Grace Darling alongside The Clits and Waterfall Person.

Rancid Mutton

I somehow missed commenting on this brutal bile-fuelled band at the beginning of the year, then again when they supported Sonic Masala Records' own Gazar Strips on their Sparkling EP tour in May. Well I'm sure these guys don't need much of an introduction if you are into gutter noise punk rock outta Melbourne. To the rest of you - introducing Mutton.

I first heard 'In Between The Dirt', the last track off their self-titled EP, and thought of fellow trash Batpiss (one of my favourite breakout bands of last year). But this is even more indebted to Yow and his acolytes than most of the pricks running around Brunswick, and that alone makes them an exciting proposition. you can't state that this is particularly "new" - but what's original when you are flailing on the floor trying to gouge your eyes out with a broken pool cue? Plus they have a band T-shirt of Sam Kekovich being torn apart by rabid sheep - an in-joke for the Aussie AFL/lamb-eating crowd, sure, but that imagery alone buys them miles of shit-stained cred.

Mutton are already aligning themselves with some of the gold-flecked detritus of the Australian underground, playing shows with the likes of Sewers, Cuntz, White Walls, Scul Hazzards, Worm Crown, Bone and the excellent DEAD - but these guys are flaying themselves to the front of the pack. Join in on the flagellation.

Open Your Eyes to Sounds

You know when sunlight hits the top rim of your sunglasses and for a moment you get lost in the brilliance of existence and realise that we're all just energy radiating through space? That sunset having a sound makes absolute sense, and that if you just give into the feeling you will make peace with yourself and therefore everything? If you don't, you need to open up your eyes.

Sounds like Sunset are a seriously good band. I once cried alone in my house listening to 'Inflight Movies' off Saturdays (one of the greatest Australian albums, period). I don't believe in the supernatural, but if I did, this would be my church music.

If you live in Melbourne you really should go to the Grace Darling tonight (5 July) and witness them launch this with Iowa (who are damn good in their own right! and share this Tym's split seven). Take a hankie with you, drink some red wine - and wear a pair of sunnies if you're self-conscious.