Anna's Golden Anchor

Holy shitballs! After being away for a fortnight, do I have some awesome new shit to pile into your ears and light your eardrums on fire!

After losing kilos in my feverish inhabitation of local noise trio No Anchor’s double LP Real Pain Supernova last year, I found myself packing it back on due to complacency. Sure, there have been killer releases in 2012 – and some better than this release – but there was something narcotic about the unrepentant clamour the two bass and drums, screaming-the-fuck-out outfit that burrowed under my skin. The dirge that infused ‘The End’ and ‘Gatton Bohemia’ (by far my favourite track), the nihilistic gnashing of teeth on 'Dead Pony' and ‘Wolves Bite & Disappear’ – nothing like this has crept out of the sewers of Brisbane with such nihilistic intent for…well, ever. If Hydra Head was still a legitimate “thing”, you could see these guys boring their place into the foundations, eating it away from the inside out.

Since then No Anchor have releases a great 7” (the brevity of ‘Rope’ and ‘Pussyfootin’’, as well as a mega rad of death cover of Big Black's 'Jordan, Minnesota', offered even more immediate gratification), a bits-and-pieces cassette in The John Dominance Tapes, and a 7” split with Melbourne angular miscreants Blacklevel Embassy. So I sure as hell wasn’t expecting ‘Anna’, another short NA stab to the brain. Even more exciting is that it precedes the band’s forthcoming album, The Golden Bridge. Listen to 'Anna' below – the closest the boys have come yet to perfecting that love song? Maybe. It certainly trumps Silverchair’s song about an Ana – it even has more N’s!

 

 

Here is the cover art, track listing and other bits and bobs. Can't wait, love these dudes.

Single 12″ record:
1.FTB
2.Slack Sabbath
3.Anna
4.Loose Gravel
5.One Means
6.Electricity
7.Woodman
8.Oh Kill
9.Slabs
 10.Shut Yr Mouth

Themes covered:
•Obscure legal terminology about the essence of guilt
•The Beastie Boys
 •The spectrum of value spanning between gold and poop
 •Beatrice
•The song as a drain
•The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart
•Gearwhores •Vortexes
•Flag burning
•Things that are heavy and layered. Like slabs.
•Ingrid.

Mapping Tortoises On The Margins

It has been a hectic few weeks on the international band touring front and will continue to be so up til Santa comes to town. Last night was the incredible Grouper (sorry I didn't do the call out on that one, but if you didn't already have tickets to her only show in Australia, more fool you), and tonight is another corker in the form of the incendiary Tortoise. The Chicago instrumental giants are twenty years young, and have been spending 2012 celebrating the fact (alongside the 20th anniversary of Thrill Jockey Records, which wouldn't exist in its current capacity without Tortoise's involvement). They are still at the top of their game, so this is an amazing opportunity to see original, creative music up close and personal. The supports aren't to be sneezed at either, with local SM fave Mr Maps and Melbourne's Margins offering different vocal-less counterpoints.

Tortoise is playing at The Zoo tonight - grab tix here. And if you aren't excited about this show, just listen to the below track. Easily one of the best headphone tracks ever written - scratch that - one of the best songs, period.