Rancid Mutton

I somehow missed commenting on this brutal bile-fuelled band at the beginning of the year, then again when they supported Sonic Masala Records' own Gazar Strips on their Sparkling EP tour in May. Well I'm sure these guys don't need much of an introduction if you are into gutter noise punk rock outta Melbourne. To the rest of you - introducing Mutton.

I first heard 'In Between The Dirt', the last track off their self-titled EP, and thought of fellow trash Batpiss (one of my favourite breakout bands of last year). But this is even more indebted to Yow and his acolytes than most of the pricks running around Brunswick, and that alone makes them an exciting proposition. you can't state that this is particularly "new" - but what's original when you are flailing on the floor trying to gouge your eyes out with a broken pool cue? Plus they have a band T-shirt of Sam Kekovich being torn apart by rabid sheep - an in-joke for the Aussie AFL/lamb-eating crowd, sure, but that imagery alone buys them miles of shit-stained cred.

Mutton are already aligning themselves with some of the gold-flecked detritus of the Australian underground, playing shows with the likes of Sewers, Cuntz, White Walls, Scul Hazzards, Worm Crown, Bone and the excellent DEAD - but these guys are flaying themselves to the front of the pack. Join in on the flagellation.

Four Score Ebb And Thrall Of An Alpine Decline

I was sent one of those anonymous Bandcamp emails yesterday, telling me that Shaun over at Tenzenmen Records was releasing yet another album. I still haven't paid lip service to some of the killers that have come through this year (sorry Birdstriking, apologies White+), yet some are frontrunner favourite albums of 2013 (hello Yes I'm Leaving; hi there Bone) so I thought I'd head over and look. It was Disappearance, the third album from Beijing-based band Alpine Decline. But as I scrolled down the side, I saw that there were a glut of albums that Tenzenmen had put out, or were about to put out - and all were from Alpine Decline. Investigation, both aural and journalistic (well as journalistic as I get), was necessary.



Seems that the band released their self-titled debut in 2010 (which comes across like Built To Spill in a near murderous sonic sense of brutality) in LA, where they had formed, then travelled to China and into the Himalayas, before coming back and recording Visualisations later in the same year. It follows a similar pattern to Alpine Decline, yet with a wider expansive of crackle and drone - it was like the trek had started opening a hitherto unknown propensity for languidly and porous drone, albeit still kept in check by an innate drive for melody and conciseness.



Yet something had been awakened, and the band could not sate this creative hunger. In 2011 the duo returned to the studio where they recorded Vizualisations (again helmed by M Geddes - who had helmed productions of Robedoor and Pocahaunted records in the past), and the resultant works, collated into third album Disappearance (the album that brought me on this mystic journey) is decidedly more insular yet kinetic; more warped and yet more focused than their predecessors. The third eye was well and truly alive within these two. A deliberate exercise in hypnosis and concerted, controlled elongation (yet with the inherent melody and groove a cell-level mainstay), the twelve tracks on offer still remained succinct, yet each appeared to contain their own alien technology, their own enveloping worlds. Such strong and clear evolution in such a short timeframe is frightening.



Then the duo disappeared, back to the outskirts of Beijing, for a year. Finally they returned with a fourth album tucked firmly under their grimy arms, and Night of the Long Knives was another transmogrification of Alpine Decline - this time more contemplative, more glazed, more ethereal. There was more of a thousand yard stare here - like returning from self-imposed exile to find the world you left behind rent asunder, nothing left behind, nothing recognisable. There are songs that still echo the very best, maudlin BtS (see 'Sleeping Gas' for example) yet with a gauzy, dystopian hue.


These four albums are still sinking in - yet I think I may have stumbled across a band that is creating albums that I will fall in love with for different reasons; that will seep into my very being; that are, in other words, quintessentially essential listening. And the more that these albums are listened to, and embraced, and revered, the stronger Alpine Decline's id grows - the albums will continue to tumble forth, fully formed and magnificent - and the world will evolve along with them.

Grab all four albums here. Seriously, for the betterment of mankind.

Getting Boned, Just To Feel Something

I know next to nothing about Melbourne band Bone. I was sent a couple tracks from their forthcoming album For Want Of Feeling by a friend from the band Nikko. And holy shit. I know I gushed about Batpiss' debut LP Nuclear Winter (and I still think its a stellar release - with an interview to come, we here at Sonic Masala HQ will be harping on about it for some time), and these tracks immediately had me reaching those teeth-gnashing heights. This is dirge, gruelling, bulldozer-relentless. Jesus Lizard/My Disco/Kong - repetition, bottom end, bottom fed. Depressive yet undeniably powerful - moving mountains under great duress and monotonous chagrin, only to move them back again, ad infinitum. I really need to know what grit these boys are huffing down; we all need a little metronomic evil in our lives.

I was going to post about For Want Of Feeling yesterday, but as luck would have it Shaun Tenzenmen sent me a line to tell me that Bone is wrapped up in the Tenzenmen fold  - it'll be out in August at any rate. Any and all info to add to this, please comment below - I needs to get more Bone. Hopefully they make it up here in the next month or so.



Here is an excellent EP they released in 2009. How Face Prison didn't kill a few thousand men on its way to the top of the body-strewn top is beyond me.