A Friday Night Cover Up - Butcheretting Depeche Morricone

I love it when bands take compositions and really screw with them. Today's track is a Depeche Mode song, one of their later ones - 'I Feel You' from 1993. Get a load of this...

It's a song that has been much covered by the likes of Placebo, Johnny Marr and Apollo 440 giving it a once-over. Now there has been a three-way collab between Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (busy with that At The Drive In re-reformation) and Terri Gender Bender (Le Butcherettes) and Baltimore's With Lions, who have just released their own record Fast Luck - and it has taken on a decidedly Chelsea Wolfe meets Ennio Morricone vibe, which I am hardwired to love. I won't be able to listen to another version of this, even the original, ever again.

Review - Beast & Flood's Lanugo and Tour Dates

Sydney trio Beast & Flood have graced the pages here a few times over the past twelve or so months, ever since I saw them play an energising set at Blackwire Records supporting Roku Music on their national Collider tour. The band are finally bringing out debut LP Lanugo and it's as chaotic, guttural, twitchingly melodic and fearlessly verbose. Opener 'Gold Maids' is indicative of the piano-wire strikes and emotive strangulation that these guys deliver in sonic cyanide capsule form. There is an affinity with Adelaide's Sincerely, Grizzly and Texan titans At The Drive In and ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - the frenetic fretwork, the bearing of sinew and soul, the anguish, ambiguity and absurdity of life. Adam's vocals will be an acquired taste to some - each word is ripped from the throat, an involuntary expulsion of pent-up existentialism and ennui. but there are moments of synchronicity amidst the gnashing and gurning.

Lanugo is out June 22 on No Safe Place Records. They tour the album through June/July/August - see below for dates and supports:

25/06 - RAD, Woollongong w/ Milkk, Solid Effort
26/06 - Blackwire, SYD w/ Hannahband, Polyfox & the Union of Most Ghosts

09/07 - Rics, BRIS w/ On VHS

10/07 - The Bearded Lady, BRIS w/ Ghost Notes, Draining Pool, Low Season

11/07 - Beatdisc, Parramatta w/ Carb On Carb + Bare Grillz + Sweater Season

16/07 - Phoenix, Canberra w/ Primary Colours + Mind Blanks

17/07 - The Metropolitan, Adelaide w/ No Action + Great Oceans + David Crosby's Sinus

18/07 - Vice Bar, Melbourne w/ Worm Crown + Nun of the Tongue

24/07 - The Brisbane Hotel, Hobart w/ Naked + All The Weathers

01/08 - The Hamilton Station Hotel, Newcastle

07/08 - The Old Manly Boatshed, Sydney w/ Ruth Carp & The Fish Heads

Atheist Doom In The Heart Of Louisiana...And Vietnam

I can't really confess to being an Eyehategod fan before this week. In fact I can't confess to even listening to them at all before this week. However I can cross both those worrying omissions out of my bucket list, because A389 Records sent me the Louisiana outlaws' new 7", brilliantly titled New Orleans Is The New Vietnam. I have been loving rock on the brutal side lately, and this metes out the justice with blunt, sludgy precision. The fact that these guys are heading to Australia to play the CherryFest festival alongside Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (At The Drive In/Mars Volta/a multitude of other weird shit) in Melbourne this November is now something I really want to be a part of.


You can grab the 7" (in green vinyl) here.

Can't See Through The Screens

Oh, you bands with every so difficult names to Google! Screens are from New York, have just released the album Dead House through What Delicate Records, and make a sound that is part times ATDI art rock, at others chillwave crossed with no wave, at other times has an industrial drone bent a la Factory Floor. Overall this is a very solid record, as the below tracks attest - and these aren't the best gems to find on Dead House at all in my opinion. They are making minor splashes in their chosen hometown too, if an upcoming show with the likes of Sightings, Aa and Golden Triangle is any indication - which it is, my children.

(NB - I think this is the band that my mate Andy was trying to tell me about. Mate, if its another Screens - and there seem to be a few around - let me know. But if Im on the money, kudos to you!

You can grab Dead House at their Bandcamp site, whilst physical copies are available through What Delicate here.

Screens - Shudder
Screens - Pop Logic

Built On A Yeesh Kebab!

We here at Sonic Masala cant claim to know everything there is to know about music, so we are constantly in contact with others to find the best and brightest of all things sonic...and masala-y? One group of guys Ive just become aware of are bloggists Built On A Weak Spot - their best of 2010 had some stunning additions that Im sad to say totally missed my attention! (And they also loved Creepoid, who we spoke about here - serendipity or what...) So whilst reading that I listened to another band they championed, Yeesh, a Vermont indie hardcore act, and their debut cassette Little Stabs At Happiness. I liked the raw nature of the lead's howls, the scratchy guitar noodling, the crash pummeling drums...it reminds me heavily of another great act, Australia's The Nation Blue. Even the post rock tendencies and urgency of closer 'Attack Ships' echoed of Drive Like Jehu, one of the most underrated bands EVER. A friend of mine, upon listening to Yeesh, said that they sounded like Sparta, the 'other' band that formed from the ashes of seminal act At The Drive In. Yeah, I can see the comparisons. I also think that this is much more Wiretap Scars than like anything Sparta came up with afterwards - and that can only be a good thing.

Anyway, an exciting little player which you can buy for a physical copy or download for a digital one here.

Yeesh - Long Distance Calls

The Glove Fits #5 - Fugazi

A lot of musical influences come from friends and family. You know - raiding your parents' record or cassette collection, being forced to listen to your older sibling's 'new music' that you 'won't get', etc etc.

Of course, it can come from people you admire for not just their musical taste, but their commitment to all things aural. My collaborator in crime on Sonic Masala, Paul, is definitely in this category. Others I think of in this vein are the trailblazers whose lives and careers have revolved around discovering good music before anyone else - the late great John Peel immediately springs to mind.

Coming from my own Australian background, the only radio station that had any kind of finger on the pulse of good music is/was Triple J. The 'king'pin of this national youth station was Richard Kingsmill, a DJ who for years had coaxed all who would listen to get involved in music of all facets, from all over the globe. He was/is the Antipodean Peel. So when he strongly recommended something, you made it top priority to check things out.