Believe in the Leaper

Toronto duo Beliefs have crafted a buoyant dream pop winner in their LP Leaper. Starting with the typical yet nonetheless sunnily ebullient 'Tidal Wave', the band take some nicely carved tangentials - '1992' comes out like the calendar-similar Smashing Pumpkins track covered by mid-era Blonde Redhead; the soft-lens narcoleptic grind of 'Drown' ekes out a Dinosaur Jr vibe, albeit one in the Kurt Vile end of the noise pop pool; and the title track fully embraces the duo's penchant love for Sonic Youth angularity and spoken obliqueness. It is clear that Leaper revels in the 90s afterglow - its a steady stream of a dream. Pre-order Leaper through cool little label Hand Drawn Dracula (who also put out stuff from the likes of Fresh Snow and Vallens) here.

Wringing Out The Broken Water

Olympia's Broken Water have always been a pretty exciting band for me - one of the first entries into the Night People label for me, their mix of atonal distorted quicksand and opaque melodic pop evoking Sonic Youth or early days Blonde Redhead with a bit of Widowspeak colouring the edges. New record Wrought certainly upholds this sounds - listen to the sonorous squall of '1984' or the spoken word and no wave guitar squall histrionics of 'Choice' for example - but there is a cleanliness and effortlessness to some of these tracks that suggests the trio may not have waded out of the deep dark waters of distortion, but have at least found cause to don their Raincoats. Opening gambit 'Hi-Lo' is the clearest indicator that sunshine permeates the darkness, even if opaque ('Am I right or am I wrong/All I know is I do not know'). 'Love & Poverty' is a song in the same world - imagine a Fortuna Pop alum covered by Electrelane at their most pop esoteric. 'Close' floats in on a percolating wave of shoegaze fuzz, before Kanako Pooknyw's vocals takes a downturn, things grind to a low rumble, before we amble along to a wistful close. Elsewhere we see Jon Hanna take vocal duties on the likes of 'Wasted' (whose gravel-ripped round-voweled vocals feels like other 90s progenitors of alternative rock (when that was a positive term) Screaming Trees and Social Distortion) and 'Psycho Static' which feels more akin to Thurston Moore having a narcoleptic dream, eyes at half mast, slight left jaw paralysis, simple strumming, late sun dreaming, before the requisite distortion kicks the needle into another direction but still feels like an amble at its feverish height. Hanna's vocals find another sideways slide on 'Set Free', carved out of a Mascis drawl and a Vedder howl. 'Stone' has more in tune with the lo-fi machinations of Veronica Falls coupled with a high, ragged tempo that Vivian Girls often conjured up. These somewhat obvious touchstones may read as lazy observations, but they help assuage the idea that Wrought and Broken Water themselves are steeped in recognition while upholding their subversions - railing against the surveillance police state of '1984', the soul-crushing monotony of low-level jobs on 'Close'.  The elongated closer 'Beach' though gives us the truest sense of where the band has ended up - on the waterline as day starts its transformation into night, at first ethereal, before the cold whips at the edges of your bones, the stars prick holes in the darkness and start to swirl, convex lines of light, before they shatter and fall to the earth in cacophonous glory. A dreamscape? A nightmare? Reality and fantasy, originality and familiarity, fuse together into one main constant - that Broken Water lapping at your feet. Pick up Wrought here.

Blue Trupa's Double Headache

This one blindsided me. I had never heard of Polish band Trupa Trupa before, true; but more for the fact that it came from Blue Tapes, a label that is admittedly eclectic in sonic output but is generally more to the abstract noise/ambient outliers of the musical spectrum (Tashi Dorji, Henry Plotnick, Father Murphy). Headache, Trupa Trupa’s third album, is not like this – more akin to noisy indie rock meltdowns than overtly electronic  or jazz-inflected experimental fare. Their listed reference points include Swans, Sonic Youth and Slint. But then it isn’t as brazenly atonal as you may think based on these signifiers. 

‘Snow’ is a rambling unruly maudlin pop song with blown-out guitars, reminding me of 90s guitar bands like Australia’s Gaslight Radio. ‘The Sky Is Falling’ feels like a later-era Beatles track with a Soundtrack Of Our Lives vintage/homage aftertaste that explodes in the mouth with a cathartic rally of arms. ‘Wasteland’ has a chaotic musical middle third not far removed from the orgiastic, sumptuous noise tapestries that Blonde Redhead have become experts at weaving. In fact, Headache is simply a great record, regardless of the perceived influences – the minimal brooding and hushed vocals of ‘Halleyesonme’, the twisted shuffle leading into an inexorable organ-led miasmic meltdown on ‘Getting Older’; the liberating rise and fall of ‘Rise And Fall’; the motorik tension of the title track. Most of the songs dish out crescendos, but not in the cheap cop-out mould – every build up and release is poles apart, plumbing a different emotional depth and offering a respite, sonic acupuncture. 

By the time we get to the post-punk sworl of closer ‘Picture Yourself’, you will be begging to get to Gdansk and see these guys in person, rope them into being your theme music band, and have them follow you around every day in real time, scoring your failures, triumphs and ennui. Do yourself a favour and pick up a copy of Headache here.

Angular Death Hearts, Dressed in Black And White

Swiss-Canadians Peter Kernel have just launched an angular, aggressive little number in LP White Death Black Heart. I played their first single 'Anthem Of Hearts' briefly here, and it is a weird one - Barbara's chants are kinda off putting to me. Well, the rest of the album explodes. Caught between the crossfire of Blonde Redhead at their most Sonic Youth (in no small part to both Aris' nonchalant snarl and viscous guitarmanship), and the Coathangers, White Death Black Heart is a roiling ball of kinky aggression, one that grooves and thrashes in equal measure. I liked the band before - I love their moxy now.


White Death Black Heart is out now on AfricanTape. Its a nice piece of vinyl, for an electric release. Get it.

Peter Kernel - Panico! This Is Love
Peter Kernel - I'll Die Rich At Your Funeral

Color Radio Crash Into The Architects

The love pouring forth from Crash Avenue continues. Chicago's Color Radio are releasing Architects, and its an album that is awash with 90s math indie rock, some kitschy organ and a lot of spunk. You hear Blonde Redhead in the opening third, a splash of Cold War Kids or Tapes n Tapes in their early years before they lost their way, and a striving for a English-style sonic tapestry (especially on tracks like 'Sharks [in a sequence]') that enriches the sound of Architects tenfold. Its an immersive listen, and one that rewards repeatedly - a nice little surprise from a small, little known band.


Architects is out in October - pre-order it here.

Color Radio - Vespers
Color Radio - Sharks [in a sequence]

Broken Water - Stars On The Peripheral...

I think that one of the most underrated bands of the past twelve months is definitely Olympia, Washington's Broken Water. I love love LOVE last year's Whet LP - it was one I didnt put in my top ten much to my chagrin, and should have been in there, not enough people havent heard it and should! (Here are two instances last year that I talked about this stellar album (count em, one...two...; plus a piece on their Nothing Normal Happened EP is here). Well they have brought us another release called Peripheral Star (out on Perennial Records) and it is fantastic! Opening with the title track, these tracks ebb and flow along the faultlines of grunge, no wave and pop, mining territory that early Blonde Redhead harvested before glamming up their production and arting up their vision - and the trio are producing far more impressive results. I cant even decide on a favourite track. Ive listened to this pretty much non stop since getting it last week. Its been the punctuation marks between all the other albums and releases that have set down on Planet Masala (and that's including the new Panda Bear, Ponytail, Young Widows and Lil Daggers albums).

I implore you - please get into these guys ASAP and buy this! They're a must!

Broken Water - Peripheral Star
Broken Water - Kansas

Sonic Masala Becomes Acolytes To Zond

Warning - this review has been done by a person whose head has been totally blown...

Zond are an Australian band that I didnt even know existed until about a month ago. Admittedly I have been out of the country for about three years, and a lot can spring up and die away in that time. Nevertheless I was surprised when I heard their debut, self-titled LP. Why? Because its a fucking brilliant aural assault, all aggression, squalling distorted guitars and distanced vocals. Its not new, but it does sound fresh - as if the early Blonde Redhead maintained the Simone Pace vocals and Sonic Youth no wave leanings, then stole Kevin Shields' amplifiers and hooked them up to an imploding power plant. Zond opens ubiquitously - 'Io' spend half of its five minute duration meandering through an ambient, grey soundscape - before we are hit with bolts of sonic blasts barely reined in by guitarists Marney Macleod and Justin Fuller, as if the track had a mind of its own - and this continues with tracks like 'Choam' and 'Blue Haze'. The engine room - anchoring bassist Stephen Thomas and eight-limbed drummer Tym Krasevac - could let this all become a reverb-drenched mess, but it is their manic yet measured interplay that pins down the Zond sound, thus rendering it irresistible. There are more pop-sensible song structures in songs like 'Stupid Gods' and 'Dunvegan Castle', whilst the coalescing phoenix that is 7 minute 'Blind' places all of these elements together into a prolonged schizophrenic orgasm.

This is the dark, dirty, dirgey kind of shoegaze that I am particularly fond of - and is not expected from the island continent. The fact that these guys excel is an even greater admirable feat.

So if, like me, you hadnt heard of Zond before, become very acquainted. This album is just their stepping stone. Furthermore, in June last year Lou Reed himself invited the band to join him at the Vivid Live Festival at Sydney Opera House (yes, that's right, Bardo Pond were there too...). I can see the connection - laconic, wasted, acerbic, austere, nihilistic, nebulous. If My Disco, another amazing Melbourne band, were to do the opposite of their intensely reined in minimalist miasmas, Zond would be the result.

Im a convert - join me.

Zond is out now on RIP Society Records.

Zond - Choam

Zond - Stupid Gods

Deerhoof By Numbers = Colourful Colourings Outside The Lines

It seems a little redundant to review a new Deerhoof record – you pretty much know what is inside the box, so to speak. Its not like they are going to pull a Blonde Redhead on us, are they?

Are THEY?

Haha, no, they aren’t. Chances are you've heard most of this album in bits and bobs due to the rad idea of releasing the tracks on various global blogs over the past month - check out where here. Deerhoof Vs Evil is all you’d expect – crazy syncopated drum rolls, pixie-on-meth-and-helium-bumps vocals, guitar noise skritching- yet I was still taken aback by some of the beauty within, such as the ethereal 70s shimmer via flamenco flourishes that is ‘No One Asked To Dance’ or the 8-bit via Seattle dirge that drives ‘Super Duper Rescue Heads!’ surprise in the way that these Bay Area misanthropes continue to strive at adding more bows to their quiver. Whilst being a massive fan of their live component, I haven’t really embraced their studio output as something worthy of a multitude of listens (except maybe Milk Man, and that may be only because it reminds me of when I heard them for the first time), and Im not sure that this album will buck this trend. I tend to choose tracks from various releases and make my own definitive Deerhoof playlist. Nevertheless, it is a true to form Deerhoof release – so for fans, keep salivating. And if you haven’t seen them live yet, do yourself a true service and get yourself a ticket this year – I know I will be first in line.

Deerhoof Vs Evil is out January 25th on Polyvinyl Records.

Deerhoof - The Merry Barracks

Deerhoof - No One Asked To Dance