Pink, Naked Nihilism

Hobart off-kilter punks Naked have crafted an oddly mesmeric record (on Tenth Court Records) in Pink Quartz, a hard-edged suburban gnashing of teeth. It goes from the impassioned growls and howls of 'Boys In Blue (All Ye Faithful)' to the bristling sparse early Bluebottle Kiss rock of 'Critical Half-Arsed' and the brooding maelstrom 'This Charming Man'. There is a wiry brutalism at work here, at times cathartic, at others bottomless, never content or still yet never offputting - Pink Quartz exists perfectly in its own atonal, shuddering world. The lyrics swing from angry to wry, sometimes moaned, sometimes strangled out (with lashes of humour throughout - the closer 'Paul Walker Overture' in its entirety, like Tyvek playing at being Hank Williams before slipping into Sleep doom). The perfect example of the wonderful weirdness is 'Sprinters Of The World Unite', a day in the life of a delinquent, starting with a dead dog and containing hurled bricks, stolen pizzas, beach arrests, birds catching worms and low-security prison. The vocals is a monotone singsong, punctured at one stage with imploding violin by Sewers' Josh Watson. It's its own thing - go with it.

What do you do with something as unwieldy as Pink Quartz? Chew it up, swallow it down, and through bloodstained lips ask for seconds. Grab this excellent record here.

To Infinity And Beyond...Hobart

I have written about some of the weird and wonderful noises echoing out of the Apple Isle that is Tasmania, dangling down across the Tasman from the Australian mainland, festering in their own fermenting juices, insular and exciting. One of the main bullhorns spouting the wonders of this places is Wrong Place Right Time Records, and a little while back they released a wrap-up of 2015 in Hobart called Neighbourhood of Infinity. It’s suitably named after a Fall track, and chronicles every facet of warped wonder to emanate from the place. A few you might recognise from these hallowed halls, such as the food-obsessed All The Weathers (the deliciously bent ‘Beans’), Heart Beach (the warmly forlorn buzz of ‘Tegan’), Native Cats (the lyrical staccato/soapbox scree ‘Scratch Act’), Bi-Hour (the downward broken-industrial spiral schooled by an insane headmaster that is ‘Truism’) and Treehouse (jangling and stumbling through the early dawn, a jocular jig and inebriated slip to ‘Hammer At The Door’). But the delights are just as gripping from other quarters – the slow insidious crawl and shadowed incremental cacophony of Wasted Idol’s ‘Seventeen’; the bubbling stargazing spectrum hum of Filthy Little Star’s ‘Keep On Whistling’ (reminding me somewhat of the pastoral experimentation of Soda Eaves and the aforementioned Native Cats in part); the ground-out post-punk bawl and plaintive moths-in-the-wallet despair of Naked’s ‘Beer’; the sneered punk squall of Powernap’s ‘Burn This City’. It’s all wild and weird and necessary. Grab it here.

Placing Perfect Pressure On The Poster Boy

This came through the emails earlier this week - and it's a winner. Poster Boy is a Melbourne subterranean matinee idol who sent me his new album Pressure and Perfection based on my review for Tasmanian weirdniks All The Weathers (if you haven't checked out their great release Going For Gold, see what I thought and have a listen here). Poster Boy is all about experimental, experiential synth waves, basking in the alkaline glow of a cathode ray, gin on the rocks in one hand, cigarette in the other, lounging and leching on the black velvet couch, sunglasses on in the dark. The internal coldness of 'Paused For Thought' wanders into the warped tape warble of 'Raw Nerve'. Once 'In The Wild' hits, you realise you are caught in the dungeon of a 80s Dark Romantic nightmare, putting on the mascara and the lotion in lethargic concentric circles, marking your skin and your soul with the tracks of heavy yet figurative tears. The cavernous narcotic crawl of 'Need Some Feeling' plays both as a seductive reach and a narcotic fall, caught between erotica and unconsciousness. It's an disconcerting yet alluring listen - lather up and slide into the underworld with Poster Boy.

Going For Gold Weathers

Just to show how skewed the scene is in Tasmania in Australia is Wrong Place Right Time Records. The Native Cats, Bi-Hour, Steven Wright (of Bi-Hour fame), Naked, RBP, Treehouse, Mess O' Reds - they have shone a light on them all. The latest release they have unearthed, excavated, dusted off and thrust into the light is 6 For Gold by trio All The Weathers. Kicking off with the irascible, off-kilter clusterfuck that is the baiting, bracing 'ABC', with Georgia's hyperventilating howl demanding centre stage, things bleed into more sinister realms with elongated tracks 'Wipeout' (with screaming, desperate sax solo) and '1838'. Think of bands like Bent or Girls Pissing On Girls Pissing for a semblance of the desiccated, rural gothic avant deconstructions on offer here. There is even a little of the Raincoats/Trash Kit about their shout-and-response fanaticisms and altered-state percussion, all done with tongue buried alive in the cheek. 'OH And Yes' though is the epitome of the band in my opinion - a heady mixture of chaos, texture, expulsion and implosion. Always deliciously unhinged, regardless of (all) the weathers.

Buy 6 For Gold on vinyl here. All the Weathers play tonight in a church (St George's Church in Battery Point, to be exact) alongside Adventurers, All The Best and Filthy Little Star - sounds bloody amazing.