Aural Australia #3 - Feral Ferocity

Life is rough and stuff. Time to get feral.

Ausmuteants won't give a shit what I write here anyway. The Melbourne punk wastoids have made that abundantly clear with their track 'Music Writers' off new record Band Of The Future (out now through Aarght!) - an acerbic vomit that pierces the bubble on critics, both of the page and from within the scene. But you can never take these guys seriously - the album title alone throws shade on their Devo shadings, carving themselves of the Marty McFly's of proto-punk's past, flitting back and forward, changing history by deliberately crushing bugs, ripping off butterflies' wings, and beating mouthbreathers at their own game. Plus BOTF builds on last record Order of Operation's clarity, injecting the slicker sonics with familiar spit, pace and leers. The rants and tantrums are as visceral and zanily ridiculous as we have come to expect, yet even more infectious, like a sandblasted canker, with that rank synth whirr throwing us into the surreal and absurd. Nailgun blasts of punk that leaves slackjawed wonder in its wake, with bumps of T-Rex glam and Boggles wrongness to ingest. In short, brilliant. (But what does any of this even mean? What the fuck would I know? Just listen to it already.)

The Peep Tempel released one of Sonic Masala's favourite albums of 2015, Tales, and one of the most underrated rock acts in the country are back with a killer song and video for 'Rayguns'. A bullshit crazy newslogue purge with rolling-news lyrics, .gif ready stock clips fused to the band revelling in their zero-fucks chicanery. It comes from 3rd LP Joy, which promises to get deep into the human psyche and wade maniacally in the roiling chaos. There are still a great degree of Australian grotesquery and humour in their offerings though - opener 'Kalgoorlie' alone lends whiffs of Wake In Fright horror. And while we are at it, below this excellent video is another taste of the album (out later this month through Wing Sing Records), 'Totality'.

Screamfeeder closing out our second Sonic Masala Fest is still (and will always remain) a defining moment in my life. The band have continued to play together and release the periodic new song since re-releasing their albums on vinyl through Poison City Records, and 'Karen Trust Me' is the latest ebullient slice. They have their miasmic noise pop down pat - every chord change, swelling squall, cymbal crash and Steward/Lloyd harmony is present and accounted for, embedded with myriad hooks of all persuasions that it is impossible to remain impervious to its charms. It's enough to keep the withdrawal at bay until their promised 8th album in 2017.

Back to the insanity then. Melbourne punk messes Mesa Cosa have crafted a pagan travesty for their film clip for new track 'Stone Bone'. Still riding the serrated ridge between raucous psychedelic and fucked-up garage rock, the madmen don marsupial, Ex-President and Simpsons masks while running rank in the wilderness, destroying their instruments, TVs and other paraphernalia to climax in a jerrycan-fuelled bonfire for the ages. The boys spend a good portion of the time with their heads impaled on sticks too. They have sold their soul, sacrificed their body bags, and lost their minds - all for our eternal benefit.

Members of Freak Wave, Iowa and Camp Cope join forces to travel back in time to flannel fuzz Valhalla in TV Haze, an act inimitably indebted to Dinosaur Jr in both rambling guitar rock and dry, warbled vocal delivery. The 90s throwbacks continue, but with this self-titled effort it feels warranted, a welcome addition that climbs to the upper echelons of their contemporaries, yet steeped in Australian music nostalgia. They are playing some massive shows in Melbourne next month too supporting the aforementioned Screamfeeder as well as playing alongside SM faves Pale Heads, Ouch My Face and Summer Flake.

We will finish with post-punks Gold Class who are making their way back to Europe after a successful stint over here earlier in the year. New track 'Kids On Fire' feels (to me at least) a mix between obvious signifiers (Joy Division, The Smiths) and more rugged outliers (slowed motorik Hey Colossus, and The Spinning Rooms - really! - with the little guitar lick that strikes me like Joe's saxophone - maybe I just miss those guys so much). The film clip IS Gold Class - black and white, smoked lens, white on black, Venetian shadow, strobe glare. Urgent earnestness. The guys play in London at The Victoria October 26 with The Bodies - it looks to be a tense affair.

Mugging An Emotional Segall

This has been floating around for a while - and it's true, after my incessant writing about Ty Segall for a couple years, I have been detoxing over the past twelve months - but I bit the bullet and bought Emotional Mugger today. He cuts a more garage rawk trail than his even more prolific buddy John Dwyer (Thee Oh Sees), much more likely to blow the speakers than take you into the hyper ether, but he is no less adventurous here. Each song seems to be its own entity, intent to max out the red on every speaker known to humanity, flirting with all of his predilections (glam rock, garage rock, stoner rock, 70s metal, 60s psych) while skewing it all so much to ensure each morsel leaves a tingling sensation to the mouth and an acidic itch in the back of the nose. You gotta hand it to the man, that even when songs seem less focused on pristine songs to stand the test of time, and to develop earworms likely to burrow into your head and eat you from the inside out. That white-noise synth a la Digital Leather; the guttural heaviness, laser effects and 60s pop vocal stylings of  'Diversion'; the cramped horror glam of 'Big Baby Man (I Want A Mommy) - it is all deliberately off the wall and diseased. It isn't really subversive though - Segall knows it's a joke and his self-awareness is passed on to us, we are to be in on the joke - but instead is a macabre noise trip with indelible hooks and a brooding closer in 'The Magazine' that I have incessantly played since stumbling across it - like if TV On The Radio listened to Disappears, then had a hallucinogenic breakdown. Emotional Mugger is a schizophrenic record, but with so many crazy ideas hitting the mark - how the fuck does he do it? Grab it through Drag City here. Ty Segall is bringing his Muggers to London in June, with Aussie synth punk miscreants Ausmuteants in tow - get tickets here, it will be all kinds of awesome.

Hits From The Box #118 - Eat, Box, Dead

Another Sunday, another killer hangover. This one also included fireworks, but of a decidedly different nature - I attended a black-tie charity function where the main event was boxing. There was a ring in the middle of the function room, with tables set around it. Now I don't know about you, but regardless of whether you like the sport or not (me = not), there is something disconcerting about adults drinking wine and eating raspberry cheesecake in suits and gowns while white girls with cornrows beat the living shit out of each other. Suffice to say I drank my way through it. Now I am in a dark room, looking for sustenance for my soul. These bands are doing it for me today.

Starting off with Mia La Metta, the solo project for Beards drummer Kathy Gray. Beards is a frenetic left-field post-punk fever dream, a darker, trashier Trash Kit; Mia La Metta then is more exploratory, offering measured takes on the "day job" ('Black Sand') but just as concerned with finding motorik plateaus to air her wonked-pop wares ('White Ship'). The basic drum machine and synth lines are quirky yet effective, and Gray finds melody in the madness. 'Cut The Eye' could be a Peaches composition played by Ladytron, produced by Gary Numan and Wayne Coyne. Weirdness begets excellence. Grab the cassette through Crumb Cabin here.

Vancouver's Cult Babies describe themselves as Rosemary's Baby meets Baby Muppets. Silly, I know, and they know it too - look at the pic above. But one thing that isn't silly is Off To See The Lizard, the five-piece's new EP. Starting with the woozy, lethargic yet massive psych warble 'Garbage People', I felt like I was listening to Kurt Vile doing The Beatles covering Bobby 'Boris' Pickett at his most monster-mashing. 'On A Roll' is more straightforward in is cosmic tripping, but that organ and Theremin sound is so killer that you will go with it. The title track really hits the Black Angels dirge hard, and the live recording makes total sense here. 'Fuck Money' is a lot of fun, a wall of altered states; 'Conspiracy Dog' is gangly yet tightly-wound and deranged; and 'Yes We Cannibal' marches out, a hallucinogenic funeral procession into the mind. Great stuff.

I can't believe I haven't written about NZ champs Street Chant before! Newish track 'Pedestrain Support League' contains everything I love about them - irreverence, a strong sense of the sublime and the ridiculous, jaded jangle and melody to burn. Share-house living, the highs and lows, but mainly the lows. Huora is the band's second album, should be out this month, and I for one cannot wait to actually hear it. Keep up the sardonic sighs in technicolour tracks, guys.

Native Eloquence is three guys outta Oakland who craft what they call "water pop" - the percolating rhythms permeating Big Blue Nowhere tends to back such ideas up. The looped, layered instrumentation, playful grooves that settle like a hypnotic skipping record, and lilting, reverbing vocals evoke Animal Collective or Ducktails with their more spatially meditative mantras. Opener 'Doldrum' is the clear highlight, although the skronking saxophone in 'Habits' and the marimba in 'Wash' shows the breadth of magical talent on display. This album plays lightly on your consciousness, and haunts for days. Really impressed with this one.

Plum is Caleb from Sydney band the Cathys, and his EP Black Doris is four tracks of meandering, gauzy bedroom pop with inflections of shoegaze and somnambulist chill. Dream pop when done right has the audacity to lift spirits as it drifts along - extremely focused even as it seems to shift in the mist. Black Doris captures that elusive spirit.

Finishing up with Bad Lifers. a punk band from Canberra that are no more. That said, Dream Damage are releasing Shelf Life to alert the world on what has been missed. Originally recorded in 2012, the ten tracks on Shelf Life are short and loose, pub and BBQ punk for the urban fringe dwellers. The members went on to join bands like Ausmuteants and Danger Beach, and they were loose units who played alongside The Fighting League. Shelf Life is never going to capture what the handful of Canberrans who caught Bad Lifers live were able to experience, but it'll do...it'll do.


Happy Sunday everyone!

Tethered Slump On The Rise

One of the strongest DIY bands doing the rounds here in London is Vertical Slump. Featuring members of Shopping/Gloss Rejection/Omi Palome/Circuit Breaker, they take a frantic post-punk stance and inject it with some synth squall insanity. There are some Australian touchstones here that seems consistent with underground scenes - see the likes of Ausmuteants, Total Control or Gold Class, three Melbourne bands that bear reference here. 'Tether' is the first taste to come from the band's debut 7", and it's an agitated buzzsaw that plateaus into a warm chloroform hazed dream when the chorus hits - not necessarily a light at the end of the gloaming, but respite from the tension. It's a delectable slice of monochrome madness. Ruined Value comes out soon through Icecapades - pre-order it here.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE - Hierophants Have Got A Nervous Tic

I got to see that gangly maelstrom of giddy energy Jake play in his Ausmuteants mutation last Wednesday night at the Shacklewell Arms here in London. They were a brilliant ball of synth punk energy, with UK barbs thrown with gay abandon. Jake can't rest easy now that he is back in Melbourne-town, because Aarght! Records are preparing to launch the looooong-awaited debut album of one of Jake's other bands, Hierophants (whoda thunk it?!) Parallax Error.

It fits perfectly on the Aarght! roster, especially seeing as it was originally started surrounding one of my favourite Aussie bands of recent years, Ooga Boogas, what with the stilted post-punk synth madness and all (see songs like 'Taste' and 'Think' for a direct relation; perennial knob twitcher Mikey young did the final production glossage too). In other places there is an early Mint Chicks fuzz (like 'Nervous Tic'), but mostly Parallax Error marks another sonic seismic shift for the Geelong-via-Melbourne four-piece. Their propensity for writing songs at the drop of a hat isn't really in evidence on the album - it's a tight synth prog playground and you're all invited to bomb-dive the ball pit.

Here is the video for 'Nervous Tic', directed by Moontown's Danny Wild. A lurking number that is fun for all the wrong reasons, like a high that starts to get the wobbles as you realise you are running with scissors barefoot across broken glass across a peak-hour highway. If the video tells you ANYTHING, it's don't eat drug-laced chocolate cake slice that has been sent you in the mail. Or, actually, eat the whole lot. And wait til you get to the surprise cameo! When is your next sequel, dawg?

Parallax Error is out soon - keep eyes peeled!

Exhaustive Biker

Exhaustion is back! The somewhat enigmatic trio brought out an unheralded, corrosive gem with their first LP Future Eaters and now the Melbourne malcontents are back with Biker (out through Aarght!), and its as abrasive, corrosive, hypnotic and seductive as you could imagine - and more. You don't really need to go past opening track 'Blunt Eyes' - the atonal brutality on offer there is nigh on orgiastic. 'Haus Flipper' comes in like a absurdist pop song (for Exhaustion anyway) - the only "light" to be found here - before a steady maelstrom of unhinged noise with a metronomic fulcrum at its core (the drumming from Per Bystrom is phenomenal) unfolds and obliterates everything it touches. I could go on (and should), but I need to get my painkillers and booze (really). I'm going to stop and just say PREORDER BIKER NOW. It's amazing - possibly my album of the year (and 'Twin Lights' scours my soul).

A Wet Education

Geelong, you are excelling at stupid punk rock I do admit. My current favourite (and I was told about these guys by Jake from Ausmuteants the only time I have met him, at the Tote back in May when he and Roland (Cobwebbs/Barbiturates) were telling me about Drug Sweat, so it's my fault it's taken so long) is Wet Blankets. This trio roll up, smash out some distinctly Australian punk, and roll out, a toxic wasteland in their wake. They have just released Hex Education Hour through Italian label Goodbye Boozy, and this 7" doesn't fuck about. But then again, it kinda does. For just when the bedrock of the songs sound aggressive and bug-eyed, they sing about Dave n Joyce. It's raw, it's powerful, it's tight and yet somehow loose as fuck - with all songs barely breaching a minute. Wet Blankets is the kind of band that should do weddings. ALL OF THEM.

Grab Hex Education Hour here.

Ausmuteant Growths

The growth of Ausmuteants continues like a fluid-filling canker. The treble-troubling twerps love courting straight up garage rock, acerbic synth punk, trashy rock tropes and scuzzy flailings of noise, but settle on their own inimitable course, wrapping it all together with a slacker coyness and irreverence that becomes more palatable by the day. And I don't mean they are softening the blows or sweetening the edges - just that their delicacies are becoming addictive. Take Stale White Boys Playing Stale Black Music, the band's latest release. The cover digs into Eric Clapton, blanking out the eyes in a faux attempt to give him is dignity; the vocals for 'Who's The Narc?'are more up front and therefore the serrated lyrics bite deeper; the rollicking nature of the "chorus" is both an addictive melody and a conceited ripoff of 80s chugging stadium rock.



The Ah...What An Ugly Face Every Face Is 7" out through Heinous Ass Records scuzzes up the formula and puts the dancing shoes on, albeit ones with bloodstained steep caps. Each song dives headlong into a different genre and comes up covered in shit and shit eating grins.



I don't know why, but these elements all give Ausmuteants an indelibly unique take on any genre. You have heard all this before - but not quite like this - and that is what makes them one of the biggest bands in Australia right now. Don't believe me? See them one night at the Tote and then try to explain your indifference away. And if you are in the States later this month you might catch them roaming the streets - catch em while you can.

UPDATE: Details for Ausmuteants' new album on Goner Records Order Of Operation and sample track 'Boiling Point' appeared overnight on Stereogum - go see what you think.

Video Vacuum - Multiple Man, Drug Sweat, Whirling Hall Of Knives, Club Sound Witches

I've been waiting for the plumber to come around to the new flat for three hours now. The kitchen is full of water. The washing machine is pretty much dead, hemorrhaging water by the litre. Ive sandbagged it all off with the last of my towels - but how long until the levee breaks? Ah well, let's watch some videos while this domestic race-against-time irons itself out...

Those faux-irascible twins Multiple Man are at it again, this time with decidedly cleaner bass. 'Persuasion' is still a MM black mass, yet with a decidedly New Wave production style. I felt like I was watching archival footage here, although the lack of makeup perturbed me... And that little synth fart noise. Incredible. Then at the three minute mark we get serious. Alex Dunlop (Roku Music, Cobwebbs, HITS, et al) has done a killer job on this clip - the best one yet.

On to the next Aussie dirge sensation then. Drug Sweat formed in Melbourne earlier this year in response to Primitive Calculators curating the "comeback" of Little Bands, where bands are created for this one-off event and just go for it. Formed of Jake Robertson (Ausmuteants, The Frowning Clouds, Leather Towel), Richard Stanley (Aarght! Records), Angus Bell (Pageants, The Galaxy Folk), Marc Dean (Ausmuteants) and Roland Hlavka (Cobwebbs, Barbiturates, Gold Shade), Drug Sweat was too good a name to give up, and the band have been playing shows since. This is one of their slapdash efforts. I think it's brilliant, and hope they get around to recording an album's worth of stuff.  Sonic Masala is interested ...



Clubsound Witches "Uprok" from nicola morton on Vimeo.

Delving into the deepest currents of Brisbane's electronic experimentation you will find Club Sound Witches, the amalgamation of noise wizards Nicola Morton and Matt Earle (the lifeblood of Real Bad Music). This ten minute exploration is excellent, a mind burner that melds with Nicola's footage of a paper boat at a lake in Jakarta on a sunny day to disorienting effect. There is word that more recordings are on their way - on the strength of 'Uprok' we can only hope.


Whirling Hall Of Knives - Comminute from Trensmat Records on Vimeo.

And finally we are travelling back to Ireland for the second Whirling Hall Of Knives video in a month. This dystopian duo are bringing out a 12" EP and this is the title track, 'Comminute'. The kind of techno noise that swallows you whole - nightmarish beats and squalls that nonetheless draw you inexorably to your oblivion. It's songs like this that blur the lines between fear and sexuality to a scarily indiscernible degree. Long live the new flesh.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!!

Move Your Frown Upside Clouds

Humming; Humming Like dunduddundundun... Like bass and wailing guitar and lyrics about “people” moving places. Places like sideways and your way. Most likely with something to offer you. If this is what happens when you legalise everything - like, if you can blow yourself a joyous kazoo to get through the day and then change whatever you’re doing halfway through just to boogie down – I say legalise it all. Now.

Pre-order the new album from The Frowning Clouds, Legalize Everything (out through the prolific Rice is Nice in Aus, and Saturno Records elsewhere) now and have people move it towards you soon.

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.