A Final Rush Of Cheer Before The End Of The Year...#1

Looking at the amount of unread emails in the inbox and the piles of records/cassettes/CDs cluttering my room and desk, there is a LOT of good music I haven't gotten around to talking about this year on Sonic Masala. So in a last ditch effort to right at least some of these wrongs, here is the first in a short series of posts that gives a few choice words about releases that deserve so much more...

Three great friends as two great acts, forging to form one cataclysmic collaboration in All Wet. The manipulated tape black noise and drums of Danyl Jesu melds with the more subdued sonic explorations of Pale Earth - and creates something of a minor masterpiece. The dronal pummelling hypnosis of opener 'Abdelazer' alone is shocking in its muscularity, yet maintaining an immersive tractor-beam rhythm that actually gets stuck in the brain. The creepy twilight subversiveness and sub-Berlin monochrome sleaze of '8 Seconds' (it's much longer than that), the staccato vocals over the buzz and malfunction of 'Young Withcott', the chaotic euphoric inherent in 'Cheyenne', the industrial Giallo of 'The Rugged Old Cross' - these are new worlds, my friends.

Quetzal Snakes is a heavy psych outfit out of Marseilles in France. II is the brutal blast you have all been waiting for - as they growl on 'Brutal Beach', "I want your soul/I want your DNA". Based on the blasted brilliance of this song alone, I am hooked. There is a feral intensity here that is missing from most psych rock bands, so Quetzal Snakes have my vote, all the way.

The Altered Hours was slammed into my inbox in excess of ten times over the course of a couple weeks. That is usually the time I ban the sender and slag them off. But it wasn't the band's problem, just a ridiculously overzealous promoter. The RIYL included Sonic Youth, which I will always check out. The latest taste off their incoming debut LP In Heat Not Sorry, Silver Leather', is much more indebted to the likes of My Bloody Valentine in its sonorous noise and Brian Jonestown Massacre in its plodding yet intoxicating psych squalls. 'Way Of Sorrow' has a darker, more insistent post-punk bent, more feverish and desperate. I am looking forward to the album - and the live shows, as they have a massive tour of Europe lined up for March.

I've been trying to corner Eugene Quell to headline a Sonic Masala: London show for a few months now. It's been tough, seeing as their latest EP I Will Work The Land has just been released on Exploding In Sound Records... It is excellent - a lopsided, scruffy affair - the opener 'London Pollen' is a woozy, maudlin masterclass in slacker ennui infused with gritty enthusiasm, while the next two tracks show a distortion-heavy wash over cracked pop melody that we haven't heard since the late 90s. 'RRW' ends things on an acoustic lo-fi meander. Keeping an eye on this.

The rise and rise of Russian shoegazers Pinkshinyultrablast continues on 'The Cherry Pit', a cathartic shoegaze bliss bomb and first taste from their upcoming sophomore album Grandfeathered (coming out again through Club AC30). It showcases exactly why the quintet are blowing away fans everywhere - they take the hallmarks of the hallowed genre and through euphoric vocals, showering-sparks instrumentation that lights up the darkness so that when the wall of noise invariably comes it becomes a transcendental experience, something emotional and connective.

Birmingham garage pop tarts The Castillians are prepping a PNKSLM release in their second LP, You And Me. 'Piggy In The Middle' is the second single from it, and it's the kind of brazen, braggart garage rock that both label and band are synonymous with. There is a throwback haze over the swagger, with added horns from Sweden band Pinemen (another act I will be speaking about in time).

I have mentioned the somnambulist musings of London's Lake Michigan in the past - his releases through Brisbane-based Ruined Smile Records have impressed. He reminds me of the pastoral, poetic simplicity of Soda Eaves, with the deep drawl spoken vocal delivery that reminds me of James X Boyd & the Boydoids. He has another release on its way in Further (another split label release that'll include Ruined Smile), and 'Boxes' is the perfect encapsulation of what he does best - a dark ruminative presence in the early hours, contemplating life, love and loss, desperately clutching the guitar as a mystic piece of flotsam, while trying to sort out the banal minutiae of the everyday before disappearing into the ether.

Atlantans Mtn Isl have just released their self-titled album on cassette. I have often mentioned my guarded trepidation with cassette releases - I know their value as a cost-effective physical release, but I often think when something impressive has been achieved, that there must be a better way of distribution. (Who know - Sonic Masala Records might end up doing CS releases come 2016, totally eschewing such thoughts...) This is a great album, a mixture of rugged math rock, blasted stoner drudge and cathartic post-hardcore - a sandpaper cleansing with gravel-throated epiphanies. It reminds me to a degree of a flannel-warped and bourbon-drenched Chavez. All in.

Another Exploding In Sound release here (I don't think I pass any of these up). Kal Marks have passed around 'Dorothy' to precede their new album Life Is Alright, Everybody Dies. Carl Shane's garbled, gurgled drawl isn't everyone's cup of tea, and their subject matter is often downhearted, almost dystopian (or maybe Shane is the ultimate pragmatist), but their shuddering instrumentation evokes the best of the EiS stable (thinking of Pile and Porches., among others). 'Dorothy' shows a degree of empathy towards the downtrodden rather than a sense of defeatist nihilism, and reminds me of early-doors Something For Kate when they were post-punk and Fugazi centred before becoming enamoured with the middle of the road. Love it.

Finishing off this initial flourish with Murals, a Kentucky-based trio from the Fire Talk stable (with bands like Erasers, Dreamcrusher and Media Jeweler releasing excellent albums this year, this label has been on point in 2015). Violet City Lantern is an album imbued with a cavernous rabbit-hole production, as if these folk machinations were emanating from a jewelry box crackling through a broken radio from a parallel universe version of the 1970s. It's beautiful - not something I would normal imagine entrancing me as much as it has. It isn't out until February, but listen to 'Long Bridge' and prepare to be transported...

Hellish Highlife Made

I have to say I am a little confused by Making... I was pretty sure the Sydney trio were breaking up. But seems I was (thankfully) entirely wrong, as they release their new LP Highlife next month through Trait Records. I have been a fan of theirs since hearing their excellent self titled EP and this lives up to the long expectations. The first track that really grabs me is the fourth track on the album, 'Come To Me' - it has that My Disco brooding pendulum rhythm and clipped/barked monosyllabic vocal approach, but then it explodes into something altogether more gnarled and corrosive. 'Zs' also fits into this vein, although there is a heavier metallic expulsion here that pushes them into noisier terrain. 'Dream Job' lurches forth, a metallic monster, deliberately unsettled and unsettling, serrated and scabrous, forcing the bile into the back of the throat. Then 'Amazon' has a more sinuous groove inherent, something Battles might produce without all the theatrics; 'Pascal' has moments of reflection in the middle third that allows for the pummelling bookends to smash forth with more controlled venom; and the psychotropic freneticism of the closing title track is the weirdest yet most cathartic song on the album. It does take the foot off the neck a bit, so to speak, and it is essentially what enlivens Highlife and makes those moments of black tension and white-hot release so potent. The production is powerful and precise too, thanks to Ivan Lisyak (Narrow Lands, Tanned Christ) and Lawrence English.


Preorder Highlife here - it's a corker. Making hit the road in Australia to launch the album on these dates (which also features Sonic Masala Records band Danyl Jesu in the mix!):

5th September - Crowbar Brisbane

w/Sewers, Danyl Jesu vs Pale Earth + Nature Trails 

11th September - Black Wire Records, Sydney 

w/Marcus Whale (LIVE), Mere Women + BV (connect the dots)

12th September - The Public Bar, Melbourne 

w/Diecut, CAMP COPE + JAALA

Barge With Jesu

Today is the launch of SMR006 - the split between Brisbane's two most underrated noisy outfits, Danyl Jesu and Barge With An Antenna On It.

Danyl Jesu is a duo obsessed with the transmogrification of bowels-of-the-earth tape manipulation, vocal viscera and percussive brutality. Lachlan Malone (of metal degenerators O) and Tom Roche (skinsman for a bevy of acts such as the aforementioned O, the Rational Academy and Roku Music) eschew the tropes of the metal genre by casting off guitars altogether, instead intent on melding a contemporary synthesis of electronic destruction, organic percussion and tape manipulation. Celebration is the first stage in this dark manifesto. Danyl Jesu has crafted a serrated capsule of early industrial white noise, artificial drone and shoegaze wash, coalescing into an abrasive sound that is easy to swallow – a corrosive opiate for the masses.

These dark-art manipulations are juxtaposed with the six high-octane metronomic brain-snaps that are vomited forth by slacker noiseniks Barge With An Antenna On It. The ridiculous nature of the band’s moniker holds true to the nature of the organic relationship between Steven Schnorrer (a true itchy-feet genre hopper, with self-recorded work including experiential maelstrom Locust Revival floating around the ether) and Dylan Jeffreys (the Alan Moore doppelganger whose maniacal drumming belies a gentle soul and deft recording touch – he was responsible for Brisbane band Bent’s latest release). Forever pummelling for the abject fun of it, finding patterns and rhythms in the coarsest of materials, the preciseness of BWAAOI is at once beguiling, bewildering and blistering. Visual stimulation through aural repetition, precision and sonic avarice – or for the excuse of drinking a beer and making a racket.

The bands launch the album alongside Spirit Bunny and Brainbeau at The Bearded Lady June 12. 

Sweet Spirits

The kaleidoscopic confectionery that is Brisbane's Spirit Bunny continues to swirl out into the cosmos, like a multi-coloured fairy floss, all sticky, sugary, and pulsating with synthetic energy. Their new single 'Marshmallows' sees Joel Saunders' vocal delivery veer closer to the tortured pop of Architecture in Helsinki, yet these handmade synth demons (Saunders and Kate Thomas, with whirling dervish Cam Smith on the drums) imbue the track with decidedly darker hues. The squelches and howls of sonic squall towards the end, like scratching a key along an acrylic artwork, somehow heightens the colourful maelstrom that comes before it. There isn't much like this out there - get behind this!

The trio launch their EP Marshmellow Friday June 12 at The Bearded Lady. This is especially exciting for Sonic Masala as it will serve as the first official launch show for our split release of Danyl Jesu and Barge With An Antenna On It's new EPs - so it'll be a triple EP launch! Neither Nathan or I will be there - we are both ensconced in Europe then - but there will be SM goodies at the show too. And the most excellent Brainbeau will also be playing - how can you NOT go to this???

IT'S TIME - SONIC MASALA FEST PART DEUX

That's right people, after the success of last year's inaugural Sonic Masala Fest, we are ready to throw down again. Descending once again on Brisbane's Greenslopes Bowls Club on Saturday March 14, we bring you 22 bands from across the land for a day of music, food, booze and barefoot bowls. We are opening up channels to buy an early bird ticket of $15 (and some bundles with records and T-shirts of the design above, made once again by the brilliant Phoebe Paradise), which will go up to $20 after February 1 - which still works out as less than a dollar a band, so win win. So far the lineup is pretty stellar if I say so myself!

SCREAMFEEDER

WHITE WALLS

SUMMER FLAKE

GHOST NOTES

DOLLAR BAR

DANYL JESU

UNPEOPLE

THIGH MASTER

BARGE WITH AN ANTENNA ON IT

PLEASURE SYMBOLS

MCKISKO

PRIMITIVE MOTION

THESEASHALLNOTHAVETHEM

GOLDEN BATS

ULTRA MATERIAL

GO GO FISH

VULTURE CIRCUS

JULIA R ANDERSON & THE JOHNNYS

With more bands and added extras to announce, including criminally cheap Cooper's Pale Ale schooners once again, and as another excuse to fly back into perennial sunny good times, I for one am pretty excited.

SONIC MASALA RECORDS PRESENTS: GHOST NOTES' MOONLIGHT STATE

Today is a special day, as we unearth Moonlight State, the sublime new album from Brisbane instrumental ensemble Ghost Notes.

Oppression takes many forms. Drudgery and alienation seem an ever-present. Sometimes overt, but mostly subtle; we bury ourselves under our daily practices.

Moonlight State is Brisbane instrumentalists Ghost Notes’ third album. Largely written and recorded during the same period as the band’s previous release, Hidden Horizons, the new album occupies an altogether different space to its twin. Where that record wandered through bright and distant open lands, Moonlight State is firmly set amidst the dim claustrophobia of our own backyard, while still reaching for an inherent beauty.

Littered with references to the humid, hazy shadows of their hometown’s recent past - none more deliberate than the title track - Moonlight State is an album for present history; for the return of ‘Pig City’, the soundtrack to the G20 and VLAD and unchecked political power. The single ‘Freedom Scouts’ furthers the theme, taking its name from a local survivalist militia, while ‘Split Solitary’ harkens back to the darkness behind youth spent in idyllic rural areas. Here are the murmurs from sun-beaten sheds looking out through rust spots in corrugated iron.

Moonlight State represents a musical end point for Ghost Notes. Designed from inception to be a long-term project, the band have reached their most dynamic and bombastic with this album. The music demands to explode and destroy, and yet even at its most unhinged Ghost Notes repeatedly turn inward. The band’s signature musical spaciousness remains, but their Morricone-meets-Bitches Brew instrumental rock moves in darker territories on this album, from melancholy folk eulogies to noise-rock freak-outs. Nowhere is this breadth of sound more evident than on the album opening ‘Vanishing Point’, a 13-minute epic that travels through starkness, Steve Reich-esque polyrhythms, Kraut-rock freakouts and Sabbath grooves before finding itself back where it began only with a newfound sense of triumph.


You can buy it now!!! Ghost Notes will launch the album in Brisbane on Friday December 5 at The Bearded Lady, with support from other excellent acts Danyl Jesu and Pleasure Symbols.

Celebrate The End With Danyl Jesu

Here is a band that will be huge. I guarantee it. Danyl Jesu is an electronic metal outfit comprised of members of Brisbane acts O, Roku Music and The Rational Academy, and whilst it marries some of the dire spirals of darkness that the former band reside in, the four track EP Celebration is a new, blackened beast of a creation altogether. The brutality of 'Abandon' is the epoch of fury, and the synthetic whirr that winds things up to a coiled tension is a bubble that refuses to burst. The tension continues in 'Gathering' where the drums hold a metronomic death-call akin to My Disco's relentless meticulousness, and whilst the sonic squall at the halfway mark lets the air seep into the void for some much need catharsis, the vocals remain tortured and stressed. There are no guitars here - I repeat, no guitars. The distorted wave of noise is an electronic maelstrom, a melange of tapes and effects that inexorably bleed and bash into and through one another, becoming a transmogrified black mess of unadulterated id. Aptly titled closer 'Exhaustion' is a slow grind into the cracked earth, all efforts rendered useless. There is definitely a sense that the duo are still at the fledgling stages of their powers; still toying with the capabilities of the destruction at their disposal. They travel to the US in 2015 to record their album with Phil Elverum (Mt Eerie, The Microphones), a master at sonic tape manipulation - expect Danyl Jesu to fuse solid, liquid and vapour into one after that collaboration bears brutal fruit.