Hits From The Box #114 - What's In The Box?

Finally - after months of being screwed around, the 8th Sonic Masala Records release arrived on the doorstep on Friday - Day Ravies' Liminal Zones. It will be out in all great record stores in Australia soon, as well as our first release to be distributed in Europe (through Beko Disques) and the US (Jigsaw Records). So I am pretty damn happy. Let's hear what else has me content this week...

Richmond band Positive No had me from the opening moments of 'Bonded Pair', which echoed Slint. They are a different beast, flirting with Breeders, Blonde Redhead and Screamfeeder territory, and their debut LP Glossa is a Petri dish of infectious harmonies with more abrasive instrumentation, moving sinuously between the extremes with an ambidextrous ease. 'Weird Hugs' is the perfect example of this balancing act. They are touring the States at the moment -

Portland's Helvetia have been in hiding of late, mainly due to their connection with Built To Spill and the exciting news that Doug Marstch et al have a new album in the can. Doubly exciting though is that there is also a new Helvetia album in the guise of Dromomania. First track off it is 'A Dot Running For The Dust', which has that sunswept haze and psych spin that Broken Social Scene are occasionally able to harness; while the news heightens further with the news that the initial album, believed lost to a dire hard-drive malfunction, has been recovered after Dromomania was recorded, so you can get the "original" debut LP too! It's all for a limited time only - you better head here to get it.

Let's move over to Duck Duck Grey Duck, a band so nice they had to say it three times. While their album Here Come... has been out for a while, this pretty great video for album track 'Spills and Chills' has just come out, and seeing as I haven't done a Video Vacuum in aaaaaaaages, I wanted to show it here. The album itself is garage blues baked in the sun - the hooks are plentiful, the songs ooze with cool, it's all effortless, although the trio aren't averse to sojourns into frenetic psych wailers such as 'Transworld'.

Now to Australia, although the name Magic America may throw you. Now these boys are more plainly enamoured with the psychedelic rock drawl, as is evidenced on opening track 'Comes and Goes' from their eponymous EP, all of which you can listen to below. While that track follows more well-worn modern psych trends (looking at Black Angels and their eternal acolytes there), they try other elements such as electronic undertones on a paisley psych theme on 'Shock Me Sober', a swooning dandy approach on 'I'm Not Dying', and some Pink Floyd outer reaches tinge 'I Thought I Told You'. Closer 'Holly' - no thanks - I felt like it was Alex Lloyd fronting Jet, so yeah, in the bin with that one. That said, they haven't really stamped an individual sound yet, but the strength of that opening number hints that they might be onto something - give it time.

Still in Oz, we have self-professed shoe-grungers Claws & Organs. The visceral trio are making a strong impression, and their track 'Alphabetti Spaghetti' is a belter. The grunge element is evident in part, but it's better when Heather Thomas keeps the growl on the edge of her lips; her silken vocals lend more menace in front of a wavering behemoth of noise that the band easily control. I'm looking forward to what comes next.

Flying back to finish in Vancouver where we can smash down some UCLA Yankee Cola with bratty four-piece TV Ugly. They are all about making compact, crunchy scuzz pop, where werewolfing and eating shit are viable options for any given day. There is a dark grit under the nails of these tracks at times, like on 'Slow Thighs' (which, at 2:47, is the longest song here by almost a minute). But hit the seas on TV Ugly's 'Thrash Party Island' and nothing can bring down your day. Plus they also put Cake's 'Comfort Eagle' in one of their Facebook posts - and this totally made my day even better. DUDE!


Happy Sunday, everyone!

Hits From The Box #95 - A Broken Ex-Pat

I kept the majority of the music posts this week Australian centric, because I love a lot of Australian music, am Australian and am having a pang of homesickness for Australia right now. Not that I particularly miss JJJ's Hottest 100, or the dickhead parochialism come Australia Day (January 26 if you didn't know, but also known as Sonic Masala Day seeing as it was the day I did my first post here in 2010). Just missing the general good times all round. It could also be the G&T blues - last night was a rather large wipeout. But that's it, isn't it? Home is where the booze is. So Ill quit whining and start boxing...

All of the bands today are Australian too, starting with these guys. Brisbane isn't the only place in Australia that thrashes out fun, light, stupid-good garage rock blasts, as Perth's Thee Gold Blooms attests. Having recently supported Mac DeMarco, the four-piece are bringing out their debut album through Pavement Records (who also put out Magic Bones that we mentioned here not too long ago), and it's a bubbly, irreverent, backwards-looking-forwards smash, with many prerequisites (female-centric song titles in 'Natalie', 'Alana', 'Katie-Sue', 'My Girlfriend', 'Some Girls'; call and response woo's and gravelly howls). You don't need twelve members to build a 60s rock shrine. The band tour the record around Australia late January, culminating in a Brisbane show at Trainspotters alongside Tempura Nights and LSD Ratkings that actually took place last night - I assume it was a rad meltdown of death...
 

Now here is a band that has floored me - these guys are in Brisbane?? On VHS is a lo-fi muckaround that have only cracked out a few demos, but the sound that emanates from these rusted charmers is already strongly-formed. This is a sound that wavers between Built To Spill and Neil Young territory, with a fair slab of GBV looseness and Lonesome Crowded West era Modest Mouse flambeed within. New track 'Conceiling Fan' and slightly older 'Vanity' gives the truest examples of why I am getting excited - it's in the Spook Houses vein, or a bit of a bucolic Krill. I cannot wait til these guys get the wind in their sails - I feel something is seriously growing here...

Back to Perth and things get fuzzier and poppier. Kid XL put out a couple numbers on French label Beko Disques (who also just put out the excellent Cool Sounds record). They are buzzing gossamer kisses, a blissful cruise into a an electronic afterlife, where shoegaze slips into the fluoro mainframe. 'Natalie Snortman' is like what Wavves' Nathan Williams might throw away if he steered a little further afield from the stoner blaze and regained a little innocence - just a little mind.

Instrumental music in Australia is alive and well, with some great, measured variation - and yes, with Ghost Notes on the Sonic Masala label, I say this with a degree of bias. Another band that take the meditative, maudlin route is Melbourne's The Boats, whose third album Segundo is stunning. There have been some great bands such as Because of Ghosts, City City City and Laura that brushed shoulders with this kind of atmospheric digressions, playing improvisations into a distilled thematic medium, but Segundo has the regal elegance that Explosions In The Sky, or even (dare I say it) Godspeed muster - a hushed, post-apocalyptic reverence, an elegiac elegance echoing across the ashen wasteland. This won't get the recognition it should - so rectify that wrong and get all over this.

I haven't quite got a handle on Sydney act Backyard Soccer. All their music so far has a slacker, tape hiss swell imbued with heavy Jonathan Richman overtones, with broken baroque pop infusions over-egging the lot. Or maybe I have got a handle on it, as new track 'Candles' sounds pretty much just like that. Are they taking the piss? Who cares. Keep it coming (and apparently they have an album in the wings, so they intend to).

Another pop gem to come out of Brisbane is Love Signs. They have barely learnt to walk and they are finding themselves touring the likes of Slow Club and The John Steel Singers, and this is why. They have tapped into the wistful, swaying hips, sepia sunlight through thin knee length dresses and flowing hair early 90s indulgent pop - something that could have easily made the So I Married An Axe Murderer or 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack. It's nostalgia, it's innocence, its head on the shoulder of your beau at the school dance. I didn't expect to "get" this - but I get it, I really do.

More sonorous Galaxie 500-via-Smiths wash coming out of Melbourne in the form of Hideous Towns. The four-piece have just released a self-titled EP (you can grab it here) that is both brooding and contemplative, from the urgency of 'Solipsism' and 'Um Expression' to the somnambulist cruise of 'Undone' and tempered sway of 'Pets'. This final track even has a bit of the Art of Fighting about it, which makes me love it all the more.

Let's finish off with some off-kilter embryonic post-hardcore, once again outta Brisbane. The Larch have released this demo EP called And Now, No 1... and whilst it is incredibly rough the boys have an undeniable dissonant charm, especially in the first two tracks. They are growing into their own skin, so will be interesting to hear/see what they come up with when they have some serious mileage under their belt.



Happy Sunday everyone!

Quaffing The Healing Crystals Down For Those Cool Sounds

Barely six months have passed since Melbourne dudes Cool Sounds brought us Melbourne Fashion, and yet here is another album to light up and take in. Healing Crystals is eight songs of blissful, sanguine pop, an easy glide down the backstreets of your town. Snowy (The Ocean Party et al) has become more of a fixture on this album, his saxophone lending a warm hum that at once refreshes and lightens the load. There are additional vocals lilting in the background too from the likes of Amanda Roff (Harmony), Ashley Bundang (Zone Out, Hot Palms, Totally Mild) and Zac Denton (The Ocean Party, Ciggie Witch) to add to the wash of sultry sounds. In fact this reminds me a lot of last year's Ciggie Witch record, Rock and Roll Juice. There is an ease and familiarity with all of this, that doesn't feel as put on (or put upon) as other players in this crowded tavern. Especially when they get into storyteller mode, like closer 'Pizzas', which plays out like a vignette of a bit player from Edward Scissorhands, if the film was shot in Coburg. Which to me should be the focus of more jangle rock albums - concept it the fuck up.

Seriously though, Healing Crystals is a lovely record. The fact that French label Beko Disques (who put out the Excusers EP I mentioned recently, as well as Day Ravies and Nathan Roche releases) are putting this out is doubly exciting - grab it here. The boys have had a residency this month down at the Tote - and are finishing up this Sunday with Palm Springs and Tam Vantage in support - get along.