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.

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

PREMIERE - Primary Colours Keep It Basic With Compact Disc (VIDEO)

Today I kiss the ground of Australian soil for the first time in nine months - AND IT FELT SO GOOD. Ill be offline for a few days as I lose myself in the Victorian countryside (and head to Golden Plains too), so let's welcome each other into a warm embrace by premiering the new Primary Colours video, 'Compact Disc'. It's their scrappy post punk nonsense, which gets heady and serrated if suitably loose, but the looped, VHS faded, cartoon cigarettes, smiles and starts-imposed clip is its own streamlined beast.

Primary Colours are about to embark on a tour to launch their Compact Disc/Services Rendered 7" release:

March 14th @ The Phoenix Pub Canberra w/ Bare Grillz 

March 20th @ Black Wire Records w/ Sadfaces + Twin Rover 

March 22nd @ The Grace Darling Hotel for Minimum Wage w/ Orlando Furious.

Twelve Courses? Your Point Being?

Just a short post about Point Being, a new band out of Sydney that features Nite Fields' Liza Harper (yes, they are still very much alive and kicking - more on that very soon...). The four piece is much more agitated and raucous than the gossamer crawl of that band though, as 'Degustation' clearly displays. The lines "You're not invited/But you come anyway" is pretty great, delivered in a tone that makes it almost impossible to work out if he is pissed off or laconically cheering the usurper along. That kind of ambiguity lends the song a buoyant edge - irrespective of whether the intrusions are wanted or not.


Point Being recently supported Day Ravies alongside Bare Grillz, and their next Sydney show is supporting Bearhug and Step-Panther - a regular Sonic Masala love-a-thon.

No Home For Mere Women

I stumbled across Sydney's Mere Women through true global sonic seeker of truths, Tenzenmen Records, in 2012 (along with Hira Hira and a bunch of other Australasian acts I couldn't believe I lived without before then). That album, Old Life, was pretty good, an edgily awkward post-punk slanging match of a record that showcased a trio of young people agitated yet rudderless - like Batrider, but with the lower-intestine bile and overt angst. Fast forward to now. Mere Women know what they are doing now - at least I think they do. The ten tracks that grace Your Town are spirited eve as they languish in a quagmire of reverb and missed chances, airs and graces, rolled eyes and fraught thoughts. The mood that pervades the album is something akin to being forever caught in the shade, behind the 8-ball, gripping barbed wire, seeing the greener pastures wither and die whilst the wheels continue to futilely spin. Despite this melancholia that emanates from the tracks, there is a forcefulness that underpins everything; the baring of teeth; the wanton brandishing of sociopathic disdain (something they share with another great Aussie band, Bare Grillz). 'Heave Ho' even has a bit of the Zola Jesus about the vocal delivery - no easy task. Your Town isn't happy, but it potentially will make you happy, even as you like sliding down the razor blades of oblivion.

Poison City Records keeps hitting home runs, picking these guys up. It's a great release.

Australian Pride, Sonic Masala Style (Pt1)

SO MANY AUSSIE BANDS DOING GOOD THINGS. So let's check some of the most recent ones out!

Let's start with my currently most played song from one of the best bands in Australia. 'Flesh War' is the first taste from the upcoming Total Control record Typical System, coming out on the excellent Iron Lung label. It's shaved away some of the industrial dirge that lurked in the corners and fully embraced the 80s Gothic New Wave. This doesn't even feel Australian - if it weren't for Mikey Young's guitar lines, I would thing we were in Berlin on a snow blasted Sunday, time indeterminate, all pofaced and windswept, black coats and wasted gazes. In short, it's amazing. Cannot wait to hear how this all comes together - colour this my most anticipated release of 2014. Always a dangerous comment to make - but it can't be unmade now...

Three bands are playing tonight in Brisbane that have new music out. Depraved goth rock trio Gazar Strips are launching their second EP Sparkling on yours truly's Sonic Masala Records. I can't go into too much detail as that would be self-aggrandising, but obviously I like it, especially closer 'Bee Mantis'. Pre-order the EP here.

Then there is Naked Maja, who have been steadily building elliptical steam since the release of their Disillusion EP last year. They have a new single at the ready, 'Out Of Mind', and it's a slice of tempered, considered mood, a salubrious offering that nevertheless feels suspended in formaldehyde, the sun piercing the liquid in amber shards, a sleepwalking daydream in between worlds. It's this kind of sun drunk miasmic emotion that this band does so well, a meticulous deconstruction/reconstruction of pop conventions. Great stuff - their The Vagrant EP promises to be another bar raiser.

Finally there is one-man darkness machine The Steady As She Goes, whose Dangerous & Dead LP is a brooding, calculating winner. All brooding theatrics in a minimalist pit, this act is one of the more understated must-see acts in Australia at the moment. It's the fact that the magnetic pull comes from one man, sucking the air out of the room at the first few notes of the guitar, that makes his performances so hypnotic. All three bands, alongside the excellent Barge With An Antenna On It (who are recording new music the following day at Incremental Studios) and Hypnotic Bedrooms, all at the Underdog for a tenner. See you there.

Now for another current favourite album from a band I can't get enough of right now. Melbourne four-piece Nun have released their debut self-titled record through Aarght! (Australia) and AVANT! (Europe), therefore letting it slip that they love exclamation marks. And darkness - plenty of darkness. For Nun is one delectably dark spiral of despair. Opening track 'Immersion II' is by far my favourite due to its chaotic atonal nature, but the way it bleeds straight into 'Evoke The Sleep' is brilliant. Apocryphal synth madness - can't beat that. 

Keeping things dark is label No Patience, who has just brought forth two great releases from doomed soothsayer Lakes and gutter scum Flesh World. Lakes' Carved Remains/Face In The Ash 7" follows hotly on the heels of last year's Blood Of The Grove LP, and these two tracks are another cut above, filled with sworling gothic tension and pent up anguish. There is a vibrating intensity that hums at the heart of these tracks, even as Sean Bailey's delivery seems at once teeth-gnashing and slack-jawed - on the precipice between exultation and damnation. No such tightrope walking for Flesh World though - their Planned Obsolescence EP is a breakneck kick into the abyss. This kind of thrash wasn't made to be heard on anything other than shitty cassettes thrown onto a bonfire, but now that they are on vinyl expect this devilish energy and power to ooze out and consume the world. 

Let's travel to Newcastle now and catch up with Bare Grillz. This band brought out Friends at the beginning of the year, and it's an excellent record that I unfortunately slept on until only a few weeks ago. There is a rawness to the recording where you can hear the mistakes, elements of the studio wouldn't normally take in, and this is the Araldite glue that stick all of this atonal angular aggression in place. It has that hollowed dissonance that some of the NZ bands that dole out this type of warped noise tend to have woven into their DNA, and that is an imminently good thing. A real grower - hopefully the boys return for a show up north sometime soon.

I'm running out of time because I have to go eat a handful of flu tablets so I can make it through the Gazar Strips show tonight alive - although Ill probably try to drown the germs in liquor anyway - so I thought I would end this first instalment of Aussie awesomeness with everybody's favourite, Courtney Barnett. She played The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, she has the video clip out that is at the bottom of this post, and she has this interactive zine about her tour/trip that you can colour. I could write for hours more about this, but Ill leave it for now. Keep between the lines! Come back tomorrow for the next instalment, featuring the likes of Wizard Oz, The Seaport and the Airport, Austin Buckett, Full Ugly, No Action, Freak Wave and lots more!