Stalking An Androgynous Mind Throughout the Night

Avid readers of Sonic Masala (I think there are four of you?) might remember that we started out as a duo, myself and the enigmatic Paul M. We were (and still are) mates that revelled in scouring for and discovering new music, basking in the glories of old classics, emerging from the fiery waters of noise newly cleansed. That first year, 2010, was an exciting one. Albums like Liars' Sisterworld, Emeralds' Does It Look Like I'm Here? and Rangda's False Flag fuelled furious, likeminded debate, amorous adoration, and weekly excuses to go to shows and get wasted.

One band we both fixated on was Canadian killers Women. I still get a catch in my throat when I listen to 'Eyesore' off their second album (and our favourite of the year) Public Strain. Unfortunately I never got to see them play live before they went on hiatus, and even sadder was the news that guitarist Christopher Reimer passed away in 2012 due to complications from a heart condition. So it’s with great pleasure (and more than a little soft lense nostalgia) that I have welcomed Androgynous Mind, the new project for Women frontman Patrick Flegel (joined by Morgan Cook).

Nightstalker (out on the rad Faux Discx label) has had some pared back comparisons to Harry Pussy - wow indeed. The first two tracks are certainly indicative of such maniacal nihilism. But 'Knock On My Door' is something else, a languid, dead-eyed pop confectionery, a replicated artefact from Manson's Laurel Canyon, all sworling sepia, brown-tainted shadows, echoing eloquence and that iconic Flegel sharp jangle, a knife's-edge piercing of the dark. Fucking exciting.

You can buy Nightstalker here.

Opening The Cerebral Frame Of A High Wolf

I have to say that this year's Sound Summit in Newcastle looks to be by far the best one yet. Headlined by the inimitable Blues Control (whose Valley Tangents LP I am yet to hear, but all reports is it's a best of 2012 contender), Home Blitz, Rites Wild, Twerps, Straight Arrows, Mist - and French avant garde sound extrapolator High Wolf. Now it is highly unlikely I will make this year - I will working on a special project, more about which later, that goes into the first day of the conference - but it is likely that I will get to see most of these acts.

First one announced to come say hi (other than Straight Arrows playing the BigSound convention mid-September) will be High Wolf who, along with USA-based multi-instrumentalist Benoit Pioulard and synth cowboys Mist (which includes John Elliott from Emeralds) are a part of Open Frame 2012, an initiative at the Brisbane Powerhouse put on by Room40 to celebrate the sonic Underworld. High Wolf is a master of mystic interrogation and manipulation, playing with form and repetition to reconnect with the third eye, holding a strong connection to Middle Eastern and Asian musical tropes also. He puts out many releases - the current one doing the rounds at Planet Masala is the Know Thyself cassette he put out through Sun Ark, contemporary Sun Araw's label - and this promises to be an electric, eye-opening program. Not to be missed.

The first Open Frame event featuring, Benoit Pioulard, High Wolf and Mist is on at the Powerhouse on Thursday October 4. You can get your tickets here - I strongly recommend this to anyone who likes to be adventurous with your sonic palate. Your earbuds will never be the same.


You can grab Know Thyself (and by extension a plethora of High Wolf's releases) here.

High Wolf - Side A (from Know Thyself - song titles are Landslide, Obsessions History, and MLK)

Surf On, You Crazy Emerald

Back in February we had the fortune of having brilliant Emeralds guitarist Mark McGuire grace us with his parents in what was one of the best gigs of 2012. However it was supposed to be with The Skaters/Monopoly Child Star Searchers wizard Spencer Clark in tow, to champion the collaboration the duo created in the form of Innertube. Incorporating the ethos and mantras of the surf movie, Innertube is a collection of warbling instrumentals that encapsulates the surf movie, casting aside all that has been called surf-rock in response to an honest approach to what made films like Big Wednesday the multimedia wet dreams of the sunny 1970s. Complete with scratchy VHS quality production, Innertube is like finding your favourite tape from when you were a kid, hunkered in the den on Saturday mornings, marooned by land but still smelling the imaginary salt on the breeze. For me? Weirdly - The Coolangatta Gold. Go, Grant Kenny! A time capsule and an ode to childhood climes, McGuire proves that he thrives under any guise.


Innertube can be gleaned here - this is a great record, have at it people. Plus, it might get you psyched for the weekend - if it's Summer, easy pickings; if, like me, you are in chillier realms, it'll ignite the synapses of nostalgia and have you gearing up for the turn of the seasons. Win win.

Innertube - Omeletter Psychosis
Innertube - Faisal's Pad

Have a great weekend people!

MV & EE

Matt Valentine and Erika Elder are the kind of rustic Americana nymphs that will always be playing music whilst ensconsed in the earth from whence they came - no matter how warped that music may become. As MV & EE, the duo have managed to simultaneously evoked a languid style of neo-folk rock wizardry whilst crafting deceptively lithe musical arrangements - looking laidback, but always on the ball. On their latest LP Space Homestead the magic continues. The atmospheric opener 'Heart Like Barbara Steel' is more like Mark McGuire/Emeralds ambience territory, before breaking into the woozy folk of 'Workingman's Smile', the reverb-heavy and C&W-in-sepia 'Sweet Sure Gone' and the ethereal 'Moment'. As always it isn't so straightforward, and the haunted blues of 'Shit's Creek', the lagorous guitar solo on 'Too Far To See' and the cathartic sprawl of 'Wasteland' show their psychedelic hand in full glory. It's a strangely alluring album, much like the couple themselves, and is likely to grab you gently but firmly and lead you into the woods, never to be seen again.


You can grab Space Homestead (out through Woodsist) here.

MV & EE- Workingman's Smile
MV & EE - Wasteland

Steve Hauschildt

Last week's Mark McGuire show was nothing if not incendiary. I have spoken about his brilliance on this very blog many a time. However, he is not the only member of the beautifully eclectic Emeralds collective to step out under his own name. The solitary figure of Steve Hauschildt has been the steady fulcrum to McGuire and John Elliot's more out-there performances, yet he brought out last year's Tragedy & Geometry, an album full of nuance, shade and light that is at once an obvious progression from the band and a chance to expand boundaries in a different conceptual tone.

A nice way to ward off the cold and bring forth the astral sun; a stroll down memory lane of synth's historical flights of fancy. Is it just me who hears Tangerine Dream in the wings? Yet there is an inherent warmth here that actively distances Hauschildt's efforts from his influences, and that is what elevates these sounds. They bleed together like any synthscape is wont to do, but it's a pleasant, at times euphoric experience. I really like this.


Tragedy & Geometry is out on Kranky Records now.

Steve Hauschildt - Polyhymnia
Steve Hauschildt - Tragedy & Geometry

Mark McGuire gig

Room40 + The Judith Wright Centre present an outstanding night of eclectic guitar tomfoolery with Mark McGuire (Emeralds) taking residence in the Shopfront tonight!

We fucking love him around these parts - his Living With Another record was my second favourite of 2010, behind Women's Public Strain and his 'day band' Emeralds' Does It Look Like I'm Here? - so to see him on his lonesome is going to be ultra special indeed. One of the central figures emerging from the USA underground, Mark McGuire’s solo releases places him smack bang in the middle of the killer vibrations flooding forth from America's underbelly. With numerous releases on eMego, as well as countless other labels, he’s developed an incredible live looping setup,through which guitar is transformed into a cosmos of sound! Joined to the hip is one of Brisbane's finest (although I can't get em to play a SM show yet - Ill get there soon...) Blank Realm.

It's gonna be soooooooooo good! No amount of o's can equate to how awesome this potentially will be. It is limited capacity though, so try to snavvle up the last tix here! See you tonight - and if you're unsure, listen to the glorious track below, try not to shed a tear, and man up and put the bread on the table!

Mark McGuire - Brothers (For Matt)

An Emerald Refusing To Get Lost

Mark McGuire continues to be stupidly prolific. Not content with having two of the best albums of 2010 (Emeralds' Does It Look Like I'm Here? and the amazing Living With Yourself under his own name), the guitarist has Get Lostready to drop (it's out through Editions Mego - you can get it here...) As always, the jawdropping element of these droning suites is the fact that McGuire is an insanely gifted guitarist, his major key plucking augmented by the synth burbles and recorded bursts that lie underneath. The fact that it becomes a cocoon to wrap yourself in and hibernate the winter away is proof in the pudding that this kid knows exactly what he's done, and he insists on doing it well - and he's only getting better.

Mark McGuire - Get Lost
Mark McGuire - When You're Somewhere

McGuire Rises Above

I dont know how Mark McGuire made it to the end of 2010 alive, let alone in one piece - a man with this much positive creative energy must surely spontaneously combust! With six individual releases, one of which was a 2010 highlight (Living With Yourself), plus the amazing Emeralds album Does It Look Like Im Here?, plus the myriad releases he has put out in the past as cassettes and CD-Rs, you'd think that there is a lot of flotsam buried amongst the quantity of sounds on offer. Yet I think it would be an error on your behalf if you wrote anything off, which is why I have gone back to High Above The City, a four track opus that perfectly captures McGuire's guitar musicianship plus providing a template from which many of his Emeralds compositions must surely pour forth from. It is clear how strong McGuire is as a guitarist and composer here, with each song breathing in and out like living beasts, the ebb and flow of his guitar noodling organic to the point of otherworldly. The looping effect of these tracks fit into the essence of drone music, but McGuire crafts songs that are clearly a defined extension of himself - there really isnt anything else out there that can imitate his style, or vice versa. With this and Living With Yourself he is showing the strength to define his sound - 2011 could be the year that he produces a masterpiece.

Mark McGuire - Part 2

Sonic Masala's Top Ten LPs of 2010

So this is what it all comes down to, the most important list of them all, Sonic Masala's Top Ten LPs of 2010. So in reverse order...

10. Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal

This album took time to grow on me, in fact I think Brooklyn based Daniel Lopatin's beautiful drone masterpiece is still growing on Brendan, but in time I'm sure he'll be won over. From the chaotic noise opening of Nil Admirari to the dense shimmer of Describing Bodies and even its blissed out drone wanderings of Stress Waves - this is a sublimely gorgeous abstract work.

Oneohtrix Point Never - Stress Waves

9. The Young - Voyagers of Legend

Out on Mexican Summer, this Austin rock four-piece seems to have been overlooked by many this year - but not Sonic Masala. The most considered raucous pop-punk album of 2010, jagged and rough but touched with a solemn emotive mood, this is like fighting with tears in your eyes.

The Young - Bird In The Bush

8. Emeralds - Does It Look Like I'm Here?

Simply this years most beautiful album. The Cleveland trio really have captured something timeless in Does It Look Like I'm Here? With its delicate variations of mood and intensity each track seems to build its own momentum. Something I'm sure this album's reputation will do also, building momentum to be regarded as a modern classic.

Emeralds - Double Helix

7. Drum Eyes - Gira Gira

If there is one album this year that relentlessly pushes the totally insane card, then Drum Eyes' Gira Gira has to be it. Brooding, maximalist sonic expressions of the most warped minds. One minute sci-fi futurisms, the next driving trash insanity. A scarily fun riot of epic soundscapes.

Drum Eyes - 13 Magician

6. My Disco - Little Joy

My Disco is yet another band from Australia I wouldn't have found without Brendan's guidance. Criminally overlooked this year, Little Joy is the Melbourne trio's third LP. Pounding but calm, it is a work of rhythmic subtlety and relentless drive.

My Disco - Sunray

5. Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky

Right from the start Brendan has been telling me that My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky is one of the albums of the year, and just like the 13 year long road its taken Swans to reach this point, it took me a little while to see the true genius of this album. More approachable than the Swans' earlier brutal work but no less uncompromising. Swans with humanity and beauty? Maybe. Epic? Yes.

Swans - You Fucking People Make Me Sick

4. Liars - Sisterworld

Even with its early release Sisterworld was always going to be up there for Sonic Masala. The fifth Liars album is relentlessly tense, full of surreal imagery and anxiety. Strangely it didn't make the impact on the year we thought it would, but for us its the Liars at their most contagious.

Liars - Scissor

3. Zach Hill - Face Tat

Zach Hill is a sticksmith genius, that can't be denied. But Face Tat, his second full solo LP, underlines his credentials as a truly innovative musician. Astrological Straits was truly a bizarre and mesmerizing album, but Face Tat really takes Zach's solo work to a new level with the ferocious style with which he assaults his drums underpinning it all. Intense, deceptive, challenging, Face Tat sounds disorienting and alien at first, thanks partly to Hill's bizarre sound sources - but the more you delve into this 40 minute frenzy the more you are rewarded.

Zach Hill - Memo to the Man

2. Rangda - False Flag

Super groups are a strange thing. Whilst the depth of talent that makes up the Rangda trio is eye wateringly impressive - guitarists Sir Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls) and Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) and drummer Chris Corsano - it can be hard for the end result to be greater than the sum of the parts. However, Rangda's False Flag so is. An uncompromising beast of a record, it is simultaneously brutal and dynamic, subtle and beautiful. Rangda landed and took our breath away.

Rangda - Serrated Edges

1. Women - Public Strain

So here it is, the Sonic Masala best LP of 2010. Surprised? Maybe, but its not a compromise. In fact we really didn't want our end of year first to be just what we agreed upon, this choice has got conviction behind it. Some may have dismissed this album at first listen. In fact I almost did, such was my love of Woman's self titled debut. But give Public Strain repeated listens and its infectious off key claws and howls work their way into your soul. We're not calling Public Strain a grower - oh no, it much more deadly than that.

At first Public Strain's sunny rhythms might come to the fore, but as the drone driven aesthetics build from behind the scenes it becomes a different beast, sweet but sour, bleak but beautiful, crisp but soaked in reverb. Those chirpy tempos hiding its dark noise underbelly waiting to leak into your consciousness. With Women's first outing pop sweetness was kept separate from dark drone noise, but here Women have spawned something of frightening beauty. Public Strain is Sonic Masala's record of the year and its been quality gaining ground since August - now we can't let it go.

Woman - Drag Open

So there you have it, we left the list late so we knew we had everything. There's nothing more annoying than an end of list that drops in early November, we're the polar opposite. So what do you think? Have we missed anything? Is there a gem you'd push to the top? Let us know.

Dont Live With Yourself Without Emeralds

This is a double post, for two reasons. Firstly because these two releases are interlinked. Secondly because they are two of the best albums of the year, hands down. And if I never gave them the attention they deserved, I may as well pack up Sonic Masala right here and now.

First up, we have Emeralds, a band I mentioned relatively quickly - no, uber quickly (I listened to Lake Snow Effect without knowing a lick about em) here. The trio from Ohio have been together under the mineral moniker for just over 5 years, yet their output is astounding - combining their CD-Rs, cassettes and 'proper' releases they are close to clocking half a century of material. Each piece emanates from a mood and space in time - tempo, length, technique often slides about from one touchstone to the next, yet every piece is unequivocally an Emeralds gem (sorry...). Dipping their toes in everything from post rock, ambient minimalism, drone squalls, 80s synth compositions, frequency manipulations and Krautrock, the road they have carved is ever winding and stretches to an indeterminate horizon that is always beyond reach. And in Does It Look Like Im Here?, their latest on Editions Mego, Emeralds have constructed a crystal castle of insurmountable beauty. Known for their improvisations (read: very long songs), the album on the most part tones this down, creating instead a clearer vision of what its like to be caught up in their whirling prism of sound. The way in which each sound wraps around the next in a double helix of noise fuses within an unique DNA, something which many will aspire towards but never achieve, let alone surpass. Does It Look Like Im Here? is such a delight that it hurts my brain to think of the right superlatives - because there arent any.

Not content to focus on this alone though, the members of Emeralds all have their own projects. One of the trio, Mark McGuire, released an album of his own, Living With Yourself, a month ago - and in my eyes at least, has matched the majesty of his own output, making an album that, whilst vastly different in size, temperament, sound and scope, supersedes it through warmth and emotion. McGuire's guitar collages are more leftfield when it comes to sonic exploration, and whilst still displaying the adventurousness and virtuousity that is his finger-picking trademark, he changes gear here to tell a much more personal tale. Combining his guitar-driven compositions with home recordings that his father made when he was a child, you get a real sense that this was not just a labour of love, but in some ways a diary, a fond look back at one person's specific yesteryear – with added effects and noise. The bubbling of children’s voices that begin opener ‘The Vast Structure Of Recollection’ is the pivotal moment of the album in my mind, and as the acoustic strummings enter the fray we are transported into a hyper real yet sepia toned landscape of memories. Amazingly, the album plays as a narrative sans vocals (using the field recordings as a common thread like Explosions In The Sky’s ad hoc story of how their van broke down whilst touring, The Rescue), further augmented by the titles themselves. ‘Around The Neighbourhood’ is meandering and filled with ponderous whimsy; ‘Clouds Rolling In’ evokes the darknesses that tinge the moment when a child’s innocence takes its first knock; the melancholic matter of factness of 'Two Different People'. 'Clear The Cobwebs' is the rawest track here, and evokes the feeling of one who has dreamt vividly about his childhood to wake up in a strange room, not knowing where he is, afraid to find out, desperate to climb back into his own brain. But the closer is the clincher. 'Brothers (For Matt)' opens with the recordings of McGuire's father interviewing his sons, primarily about girls, before exploding into a maelstrom of Mogwai proportions - yet if you can take in its euphoric 10 minutes and not feel dampness on your cheeks, you aren't human. Living With Yourself is brilliant - by far the best instrumental record of the year in the sense that it is predominantly one instrument, talking. An amazing feat.

Two breathtaking albums in one year - and McGuire is only 23. Fuck.

Emeralds - Candy Shoppe

Mark McGuire - Brothers (For Mark)

Jewel Of The Nile

I don't know a single thing about Emeralds. Other than this one track. And I likee. A lot. Fin.

Emeralds - Lake Effect Snow