Entoomed On These Crystal Shipsss

Let's whisper in the white noise of the weekend twilight with some outlier music from two European explorers...

Jacob Faurholt continues to mine sepulchral waters as Crystal Shipsss, with latest track 'Metal' (the precursor of a mysterious new album due later in the year) being no exception. A low hush emanates for 20 seconds before a deep bassline seems to herald the end of times...but an industrial apocalypse is eradicated with the drum machine and the high-pitched, aloof vocals that take us into Bauhaus' lair, even if we remain wallflowers at this Gothic ball, unable to fathom the machinations of what is at play. Crystal Shipsss have caught the support of Nadja in their hometown of Copenhagen in March - nice one guys!

Back in 2012 I wrote about a UK artist called Silver - you can read and listen here. The artist, Molly Macleod, has changed her name to TOOMS (I'm desperately hoping in reference to one of the best TV villains/monsters, The X-Files' Eugene Tooms?), and she is back into the looped pedal blues with new EP Misophonia. The industrial crawl that permeates these tracks produces a palpable dread, a creeping knowledge that the spectral guitar drone and haunting, layered vocals/moans is drawing us inexplicably to a definite truth of being that our minds are incapable of comprehending. The sawing opener 'Aeolian' in particular is cathartic and haunting in the darker sense; the closer 'Flesh & Veins' a folk lament from the bowels of the earth. It's a richly seductive siren call into the moors of lament and regret, a supernatural sworl, a churning elixir of dawning, ecstatic horror. Brilliant.



Sweet dreams...

Belated Friday Cover Up(s) - Nadja, Powder Blue, Jack Lee

I'm a bit rusty with the posts - I'm even getting the Friday Cover Up done on a Saturday! Pay no mind, though, as I have three beauties for your perusal... Starting with something a little more psychedelic, with this slow cerebral interpretation of The Rolling Stones' 'Play With Fire' by Canadian quartet Powder Blue. This is the kind of slow-burn, subtle psych that my head needs right now, and the female crown lends this that little bit more melancholy laced with menace. I need to hear more from these girls for sure!

Now let's scruff it up some. Jack Lee is in Sydney's slacker beer swillers Beef Jerk (they wrote that addictive tune 'Schooners' last year) and is venturing out with a solo release on Osborne Again Records. Here is the first taste, a cover of Australian indie stalwarts The Cannanes' 'Stories To Be Kept Under Lock And Key' (we all have an abundance of those...). It's a predictably scrappy affair with a healthy does of sunlit brevity, tilted off-key warbles, and wasted grins. Perfecto.

Finally let's drone ourselves into the ground with the ever excellent Nadja. They have covered The Cure's 'Faith', a 12 minute delving into the underworld that you can find on Berlin label SPÄTI PALACE's second compilation collection, which you can get for free here. It's incredible, and also includes songs from SM fave Crystal Shipsss and also Soda Fabric, who you will hear about also soon enough...but until then, revel in the down.


If you are in Brisbane tonight, get along to either the Mad Nanna show out at Chardons Corner, or Canadian punk reprobates Thee Nodes will be smashing the 199 artspace with help from lurking jerks from Melbourne Gentlemen - you will see me at either/both.

Dirty Dancing On Crystal Shipsss

Yesterday I showed the Lee Ranaldo video for 'Fire Island (Phases)' that featured Berlin act Crystal Shipsss. That momentous occasion isn't the only thing keeping Jacob Faurholt and his cronies busy though - they have released a new LP Dirty Dancer. The album accentuates the creaky meandering nature of Faurholt's musical imaginings; a nebulous pendulum of dark and light quirk, refusing to sit still, to coalesce into something fully-formed. Due to this, and Faurholt's unique, shrill vocals, Dirty Dancer has wrongfooted a lot of critics, frustrated with the artist's knack of straying off the designated path of an album, or indeed a song. It is true that the album veers in all kinds of directions, thus connecting with the material requires dedication and attention. From choral drifts to lo-fi guitar jams, minimal scratchy beats and broken synth lines, anger that evaporates, despair that congeals, glee that drips maniacally from the fangs... Dirty Dancer is unapologetic for its schizophrenic meanderings and quick-cuts. Focus instead on Crystal Shipsss as something of a stream-of-consciousness flume ride through the mind of a beguiling artist, and you might start to get the idea. Give this Dirty Dancer ago, see if you don't get swept away.

You can pick up the album here.

VIDEO VACUUM - Scott & Charlene's Wedding, Lee Ranaldo, Angie, Cuntz

Sometimes it's hard to take life seriously. If you get thrown enough curveballs and low blows, you either shrug and laugh and find the stuff that makes your world go round, or you curl up into the foetal position whilst chewing a dogshit-stained shoe. Today could have gone either way. But a handful of Aussie degenerates and one sonic youth on his crystal ship(sss) got me across the line, just in time to neck a bottle of red, watch the new episode of The Walking Dead, and be thankful I get another day to get things right. Maybe these tracks will help you too, hmm?

Craig Dermody of Scott & Charlene's Wedding has a proclivity for suburban malaise and chagrin, yet on this latest video for 'Jackie Boy', he's taking no prisoners. A typically laconic take on the Rocky male fantasy, the clip sees Dermody jogging around NYC, looking decidedly weedy but with a puffed out chest and a decidedly grimy gray tracksuit (hopefully from Lowes),punching wet carcasses and looking to make a difference in this mixed-up world that we live in. And when Dermody mumbles-shouts 'When you've got nothing left you've still got rock'n'roll', goddamn if it isn't a mantra after my own heart. TKO, dude.

Lee Ranaldo - "Fire Island (Phases)" from Mouca on Vimeo.

The latest solo album from Sonic Youth alum Lee Ranaldo certainly divided the pundits what with its somewhat traditional mode of songwriting (well, at least for this progenitor of no wave nihilism and explorer of atonal terrains). Between the Times and the Tides is more about looking for more nostalgic and referential ways of telling stories, as opposed to crafting something outside the proverbial box, and in the main I'm a big fan. This six-minute clip for 'Fire Island (Phases)' is an ode to the Berlin winter, an experience that brings goosebumps to my soul, and he also garners help from skronky folk weirdniks Crystal Shipsss, which is pretty ace too. Ive been lucky enough to interview him AND speak to him in person - still one of my all-time highlights - so the bias has only risen, but I really appreciate the guy for forever being honest and subversive (even if that means travelling straight on when everyone else wants him to zig and zag).

ANGIE - PARALLELS from Angela Garrick on Vimeo.

If you want to circle back on the olde days of Sonic Youth, this might be your best bet. Angie is the new project for Angela Bermuda, the outlandish performer who props up the likes of Circle Pit and Straight Arrows. On 'Parallels' she gets the dirty, warbled, hypercolour VHS no-fi down pat, whilst the track itself is both Aussie pub rawk guitar noodling, buzzbin fuzz, and disaffected lyrics. It's a killer track, one I didn't see coming, and spiked my will to live even further. Nice one, Angie.

"Never Felt Better" - Cuntz from Tahlia Isabel Palmer on Vimeo.

And lastly, Melbourne's Cuntz deliver the knockout blow, ensuring that I've never felt better with, well, 'Never Felt Better.' Still giving out dark, despairing punk spirals, all the time. Despite the whole thing is a constant drunken shit-stir, you can't help but get swept up in the nihilistic charm of its atonal wares. This is actually a depressing song, isn't it? Fuck it. Scream to your heart's content, drink a shit tonne of beers, and hold the baby.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Hippy Hypocrites On Crystal Shipsss

A triptych of warped warbles of varying degrees of low fidelity, here are three releases likely to blow your mind and fill your ears with white fuzz and ear-candy.

Danish-born, Berlin-based psych pop wizard Jacob Faurholt has been on Sonic Masala's radar ever since he entered the fray under the moniker Crystal Shipsss. His Yay release made an impression, and now he (along with a band of willing  wanderers) is back with not one but two releases slated for 2013. First cab off the ranks is this self-titled EP, available on cassette through Three Ring Records, Mouca and Raw Onion. The 5-track EP are scuzzy to the point of obstructive - this is Demo 101 territory, almost to a fault. Yet whether the band are opening up the throttle or quietening down to a soothing idle, Crystal Shipsss is never an easy proposition - a wayward journey into the counterculture of the backwaters of your mind. Yet in the past year they have traipsed across stages alongside TEEN, The Black Heart Procession and Grizzly Bear, and these three best represent where Faurholt and his acolytes are heading. It's a great taster for Crystal Shipsss's next full-length Dirty Dancer which we will see before the year is out.

Another lo-fi gem that struck a chord here at Sonic Masala was Tweaker In The Park, the debut LP by Indiana's guitar-pop malcontents  Hypocrite In A Hippy Crypt. Tweaker Two (out on 12" vinyl through Tree Machine Records) continues the weird themes and tin-cans-and-shoestring budget, yet offers more semblances of spit and polish alongside being anchored in more grounded, maudlin concerns such as fading youth and imploding dreams. Its hooks are surreptitious, then the penny drops - once you are familiar with this world, it becomes a second skin, with all schizophrenic connotations to such a notion held intact. Elliott Smith suspended in formaldehyde, preserved in sepia and seedy chagrin. An addiction worth having.

Finally we have Brooklyn's Hippy. Reminiscent of the nascent garage punk and guitar pop amalgams that the likes of Harlem (seriously, where have these guys gone???) and Black Lips dish out at regular intervals, the trio's new (debut) record Almost Live is in turns buoyant, ridiculous, bilious and carefree - tonguing the power socket whilst outta your gourd kinda fun. Hurts so good (c'mon, baby now...)

Sssailing Away On Crystal Shipsss...

Jacob Faurholt is the man behind the warped lo-fi meanderings of Crystal Shipsss, and his first longplayer under the moniker Yay is one that buries under your skin effortlessly. With most tracks under two minutes, it would be fair to think that these songs are a little undercooked or throwaway - au contraire, it has me wondering why three minutes is the quintessential length for a successful pop song. The Danish producer is based in Berlin and has supported the likes of Efterklang, Grizzly Bear, and The Black Heart Procession in Europe, so his talent is recognised, yet on Yay I get a sense that Faurholt is taking things up a notch. There is something fragile and passionate in these songs - the haunting lilt of 'My Dark Slimy Soul', the misty-eyed nostalgia of 'Smile', the slowburning tension of 'Crystal Lipsss' - that makes them relatable, and inherently infectious. Faurholt states that his friends in Montreal were making music as their living, which changed his outlook on the medium, and in 2010 began writing these songs only when motivated and without over-thinking things - just letting it happen when the need arose. Such aspersions are eveident throughout and have helped to inform some beautiful compositions. Faurholt's high-pitched wavering vocals may take some people out of the frame at first, but persevere for there are some incredible tracks here. In the same vein of Beach Fossils and Hanoi Janes as far as lo-fi aspirations, albeit in a quirkier vein, Crystal Shipsss is a project that we all should keep an eye on.


Yay is out now (on sweet mint-green 10" vinyl too) through Raw Onion Records and Three Ring Records. Grab it here.

Crystal Shipsss - Uh Huh
Crystal Shipsss - Crystal Lipsss
Crystal Shipsss - Burning Kingdom