Finding Unity On Exotic Floors

About this time last year I tried to get Sydney two-piece Unity Floors to play a show up here in Brisbane. I thought their Women's Golf 7" was killer, and managed to see them play at FBi Social April that year. Anyway, they said no - something to do with international holidays and such. Now, a year later, they are coming up here under their own impetus (well, I'm sure Popfrenzy helps) armed with debut LP Exotic Goldfish Blues - and wouldn't you know it, I'll be on holidays! Karma - biting me twice?

At least I have this album to keep me warm on those brutally cold December nights over in Europe. Exotic Goldfish Blues is eleven electric tracks of two best mates getting loose - the only way a duo should really sound. It isn't all breakneck noisy ruckus (although with 'Holy Hell' the boys have rivalled early Japandroids for simplistic, holistic abandon, albeit a couple decibels under earsplitting) - opener and single 'Nice Fit' is a sunny ode to one-night-stand love; 'Day Release' chugs along, drawing you into the sketched-out story; the wonky maelstrom that is closer 'Crash Cars'. What is evident is the tone and melody in each of the tracks - you can't help but smile your face off when these songs come around. And around. And around. Because this isn't an album that allows you to get up and walk away - it's too lovable for that. Exotic Goldfish Blues is best mate material.

So - reckon you might come up 2014 when I am around? Yeah?

You can pre-order Exotic Goldfish Blues here. They are playing an Off The Rails show at the Grand Central Hotel Thursday December 5 with Screaming Match and Scrabble in support.

Yawning Without Guilt

Big Yawn are a duo out of Melbourne that delve deep into the darker, inflamed realms of electronic sentience. Their Hash Matters/Lowlite 7" (out now through Fallopian Tunes) is crafted to find the holes in the digital age and plug them with jagged ephemera and pummelling hypnosis. The band call themselves "electronic/doof/industrial/miscellaneous" - that should placate the pigeonholers, at least until they take a tab of Big Yawn. It becomes indecipherable static thereafter, of course - after all, the rest is noise. Or is it? It's the febrile mix of slight, layered abrasion and percussive asphyxiation that makes Big Yawn anything but.

Big Yawn are currently in Brisbane, having played a famed Real Bad show out at Moorooka on Sunday (alongside the likes of X In O, Screaming Match and Slurpee). Tonight they are playing at The Hideaway for Guilt Retreat #4, a 4ZZZ connected show (presented by Makeda from A Guilt/All Day Breakfast Enterprises, which is also featuring Sky Needle/6majik9's Michael Donnelly and the Fun Police DJs (AKA Brainbeau), so you know it will be sensational). You can buy Hash Matters/Lowlite here.

Foreign Thieves

I thought I'd end off  Chicago's Daylight Robbery, who I caught playing a no-frills rocking set at The Waiting Room on Friday night (alongside others such as Roku Music and Screaming Match). The trio are no nonsense, clearly doing it for the love of it, and there was something disarming about their throwback garage punk that is often missing from others of their ilk.

I'm closing down for the weekend. I'm a little bit sore from last night's stellar Trainspotters gig (thanks for coming out, by the way), I'm dreading my first day at two of my jobs in three weeks tomorrow, I've done a mountain of washing, and I'm looking at the final day of the Ashes Test with a queasy sense of trepidation. I need to medicate. And their latest release, the EP Distant Shores, is the ticket. Apparently created specifically with this tour in mind (they only released their Ecstatic Vision LP last year, but wanted something "new" to bring with them), the three tracks electrify; fast paced and urgent, with a mirthful glint in the eye, feeling more in sync with MC5, the Jam and X than more recent punk luminaries (which also speaks to their final show being a support of Straitjacket Nation).

You can pick up Distant Shores (in white 7" vinyl), and indeed any of Daylight Robbery's back catalogue, from here. They are halfway through an extensive Australian tour, have been playing with the likes of Deep Heat, White Walls, Cuntz and Native Cats of recent times, and they have tapped another show tonight at the Crowbar alongside the ever-excellent Blank Realm (Yoghurt Blood are also playing a rare set).

Daylight Robbery - Distant Shores

Thursday Cover Up - Black Lassie Keeps On Dancin

Not as much a review (and moving the cover post from its coveted Friday slot) as a promotion. Tonight there is a goddamn rad gig at the Black Bear Lodge, with the top three bands releasing new material. Gothic sorcerers Occults and Adelaide's punk brood Rule Of Thirds both release 7"s, whilst local maudlin minstrels Keep On Dancins finally give hard copy to follow up their excellent The End Of Everything LP with a pink cassette in the form of Black Lassie (out through Long Gone Records). Seven tracks of Spaghetti Whimsy, opening with an echo-drenched slowburn cover of seminal Brisbane guitar pop band Custard's 'Nervous Breakdance', the "EP" offers every facet of the KODs that makes them such an attractive prospect - the reined in wistful saunter, the occasional brash outburst, soaring vocals, the coyness, the shyness, and the ness-es in between. It's no stretch from familiar ground for the band, but that's not what anyone wants, now, is it?

Rounding out this delectable bill is new-ish phenomenon Screaming Match, who kick everything off at 8.  Ensure you get down there (and that awesome artwork again provided by Sam McKenzie.

Keep On Dancins - Nervous Breakdance (Custard cover)