Romeo Hits Hyperdrive Ace

Canberra label Dream Damage (TV Colours, Bare Grillz, Assassins 88) have been a strong purveyor of Australia's underground music scene, with some great releases from lesser known acts such as the likes of Slow Violence and Cat Cat shining through. Another release they have put forth is Hyperdrive by Ace Romeo AKA Andy Campbell, guitarslinger of The Fighting League. The album is awesome, if fairly eclectic. It starts off the way I expected things to be, and continue (thanks in part to the name, and to the cover art) - 'Heart To You' kicks off with a weird baroque Euro traveller synth disco pastiche - like Todd Terje was playing in a Balkan nightclub with the barest of Rolands and a Gameboy extension. Then the guitar rocks in, live drums, and a lick that feels like a muted hair metal riff - and this is in the first third of the song. The vocals drift through, playing on the same lines of Tame Impala-lite psych soul searching, but as guitars layer over each other, with a much more insistent beat propelling things forward, Ace Romeo isn't trying to emulate those types of glories. The rest of Hyperdrive is equally filled with thrilling curveballs - the throwback pub rock riffage of 'Move To Mars' that fits into the Sydney rock'n'roll set effortlessly; the earnest 80s stadium rock mania of 'Best Friend'; the urgent post-punk meets Sharpies-esque title track; the 70s chase scene cum yacht rock malaise that tears 'Total Riffage' apart... It is honestly like Campbell has grabbed his dad's record collection, thrown it into the dryer, hit maximum spin, scooped out the shattered remains and glued the albums together ad hoc. But it works. I really like this record, and I reckon you will too.

Colouring Beverly For The TV

From Canberra's Dream Damage stable comes TV Colours. A rather basic nom de plume, to be sure. But with members of The Fighting League, Assassins 88 and Danger Beach involved (all bands Sonic Masala would kill for), the title actually makes sense. Then the crunch of 'Beverly' bursts forth, a morass of speaker-shredding distortion, tight drumming and warehouse yelling, sounding like the 80s guitar thrown through an electronic woodchipper sound that compatriots Civil Civic or DZ Deathrays utilise, and just as much as a raucous, jubilant mantra in the chorus to allow for flailing hair and limbs, beers thrown in to the air, jubilance fuelled by devil-may-care attitude and a flagrant devotion to having fun with substances. Intoxicants for teetotallers; justification for junkies.

'Beverly' comes out on TV Colours' loooooooong-awaited debut LP Purple Skies, Toxic River - more about it as it comes to light, and these suckers tour north of the border.

Three Ominous Beaches

 

Its been a very hot summer. Best time to be in a country that loves its pools - and even better, that has incredible beaches. It hasn't been the best for me though - in the UK for most of it, then in hospital, then banned from water like a Mogwai. Sigh. The beach holds so many great memories. Here are three beaches though that you should be wary of though - don't go burying your stash in the sand or off into the dunes with a handsome stranger here. Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water etc etc.

  

This first Beach band (and the impetus for this post) had a release out in the dying light of last year, Pacific. Canberra's Danger Beach is the solo project of Lachlan Thomas (formerly of sadly now defunct Assassins 88). His debut record Milky Way was somewhat a hit out there in the global internet ether, whilst the video for the track 'Apache' was nominated as a finalist for the 2012 Vimeo Music Video Awards. Those lo-fi meanderings aren't entirely gone, yet there is a slicker, darker perspective to these tunes that, if the glossy cover art is anything to go by, lurks in that in-between state between dark and light in the city - where the darkness never truly invades, but never truly leaves either. Think of Michael Mann's Collateral. There are sunny moments like 'Bee' or great track 'Idle Hands', but above all the devil is in the twilit details - especially the sirens that light up the stone-cold classic that is the closer 'Dark Blue' - fucking rad. A great album from a great up and coming band, you can get Pacific through Dream Damage here.

 

Whilst Canberra isn't that far from the golden sands of a quintessential beach, there aren't places much further from such a destination as Scandinavia. Yet this is where we find Cannon Beach, and befittingly the Danish/Norwegian duo aren't likely to break out the Shangri-La leads anytime soon. Having met in the countryside of Denmark, the tracks on Concrete, People And Things stem from approaching music from different perspectives (from folk-oriented Americana to ambient compositions and tape manipulations, with a common neutral ground in shoegaze noise). The result is sparse, eclectic, but oft-times electric. Example in point is ‘Sacred Harp’, an instrumental made up essentially of an autoharp connected to a Leslie amplifier, one guitar-amplifier and one bass-amplifer, a drone experiment that bleeds into the moody atmospherics of 'Loki'. Out through Ikenai! Records, you can grab Concrete, People And Things here.

 

Out of these three beaches, Menace Beach probably has the most recognition, at least potentially. A Leeds-based quasi-"supergroup" featuring members of Pulled Apart By Horses, Sky Larkin and Hookworms, I was immediately enamoured by their scuzzy nature, although they are also the closest to beach guitar pop of the three - their PR even pushes references of Wavves and Ganglians onto us. They are not bereft of ideas though, already rolling out a couple of tracks for Too Pure Records' Singles Club to back up their self-titled debut EP. 'Dropouts' sounds as much Breeders territory as anything else, or mid 90s Britpop that flirted with noisier, more whacked-out guitar settings, whilst 'Tastes Like Medicine' comes from the Williams/Cosentino school of shimmering lightweights that still somehow manage to remain fun and relevant. Pre-order this sucker here.
 

Assassinate The TV

Ive mentioned Assassins 88 and TV Colours already this year, and love them both. Its great to see that Dream Damage Records have brought the two bands together for an ace split release that is well worth the wax it's pressed on. It has been out a while over here - about three or so months - but it perfectly encapsulates the bands' progression. Yet its still interesting to see Assassins 88 steer away from the excellent sounds they breathed into their Kaneda EP for more traditional sounding garage surf punk - they still pull it off with bored aplomb, and its exciting stuff, but they have shown glimpses of more. TV Colours on the other hand have taken this chance with two sweaty palms and headbutted the fuck out of it. I have already mentioned 'The Kids Are All Grown Up' in the past, and 'Heavy Metal Sleeve Skies' is definitely as much of a speaker killer as its predecessor, but with a little more to go on. Im not sure why they have produced songs that jam every sonic noise up into the red, but they have carved something giddy in the process.

You can grab the split here.

Assassins 88 - Raising Phoenix
TV Colours - Heavy Metal Sleeve Skies

88 Assassins Live In Kaneda, Ey?

I have to say I have been dying to get this EP out there. Assassins 88 are surprisingly from the Australia's Capital Territory, or Canberra. not many good bands come from there - other than illegal fireworks and porn, not much ever does. Put out through Dream Damage Records, Kaneda seriously kills - four tracks of abrasively loud yet infectious noise disco punk. If DFA79 werent so - well, DFA, and more HEALTH by way of Lightning Bolt... Shitty comparisons aside, I cant get over how much I fucking love this EP. Could be my favourite short release of the year thus far. Seriously. Fucking get it, or get out.



Assassins 88 - Scanners
Assassins 88 - Sunshine

TV Colours Are All Growed Up

TV Colours, a discordant garage mess of a one man band from Canberra, or Sydney, depends what mood he is in. The 'he' in question is Bobby Kill, and he is about to release a split 7'' with another promising Aussie act, Assassins 88, via Dream Damage. This split is important for TV Colours, as he joins in with Assassins 88 to kick arse as a live band. I just missed them play here in Brisbane last week, but Im sure he'll (they'll?) be back - TV Colours' debut LP is being primed for next year...

TV Colours - The Kids Are All Grown Up