Stroke The Illegal Squirrel With Invisible Hands

Haha, lewd innuendo, always gets the Interwebz a-goin...

Charlottesville pop transgressives Invisible Hand released a cool little cassette a little while back called Squirrel Jail on Funny/Not Funny Records, and I've heard naught about it. A crying shame, because it is 19 songs - that's right, 19 songs - of awesome sonic flavours. What's more, it isn't an album but a large collection of demos and outtakes, on a cassette, so there is no reason why this should be as great as it is. Instead of lo-fi farts leaking out from the bottom of the funeral pyre of a thousand sacrificed vanity projects, we have infectious hooks ('Eating Out'), raucous energy that echoes of the better side of British paisley rock from the 60s on steroids ('Lowbaude'), warped Beatles-baiting psych melts ('Squatters Rights'), broken GBV spits ('Wounded Eels') and languid space-outs performed in aeronautical hangars ('Everything's Fair Game'). Brandon Flowers wishes he had written 'LIES LIES LIES'; Nathan Williams can't muster the warmth of 'Smile Forever' from a million smouldering alien bongs; and closer 'A Song Called Krautrock' has the gall to run almost eight minutes, play loosely with more 60s paraphernalia (this time pastoral psych pop) and be worth every second of the beautifully elongated outro. Stop it, Invisible Hand - it feels too good to be right - but how can this be wrong?

You can still buy physical copies of Squirrel Jail for $4USD here - far too generous of you!

Tapped On The Shoulder By The Invisible Hand

 

Here’s another record that escaped my attention – but a little differently than most of the others. Funny/Not Funny Records sent me a copy of the Invisible Hand’s Aja EP last year, and I actually listened to it. A lot!

The Virginia are fidgety folk, playing within the garage format, lacing through some powerpop, 60s paisley psych, and some emotive riffs and wah’s so much that it’s hard to sit still yourself. Yet somehow I negated to give it the lip service it deserved. So here it is.

There are some thumping rock moments like ‘Psychic Cat’ – if anyone can tell me why this reminds me of Titus Andronicus, please help out, I can’t figure out why, it sounds nothing like them but that reference ALWAYS jumps in my head! – but it’s the psych moments with the organ and strings on ‘Home At Last’ (I thought it was going all ‘Baba O’Reilly’ there for a time, these painkillers are doing their duty) and the “earnestness” of ‘Bleach Bums’ that are the real home runs.

Invisible Hand are the real deal. Not really interested in the stadiums, but capable of it, if only the powers that be knew what was good for them. Seriously, these guys need to be much bigger. STAT.

 

Aja is still available here. It’s a great little record, I highly recommend it.

Invisible Hand – Psychic Cat
Invisible Hand – Eating Out

Finding Diamonds At The Center Of California

Another 7" I've been itching to get to. Funny Not Funny Records have put some ace music out in the past - their Super Vacations/Eternal Summers and Elephant Child/Demon Beat splits were especially great - and here is a newie, a two track sprawler from Virginia act The Diamond Center. It's a delight to have a 7" run for almost quarter of an hour, and the quality on offer is devastating. The tracks have a heaving quality, an intake of breath, that pulses like a living organism. The quiet/loud dynamic that is prevalent in psych music is evident, but also warranted, driving the tension in these tracks, yet also handled with warmth and care rather than haphazardly bludgeoning their songs to death. It's a lullaby of a release - deceptively beautiful, seductively soporific.


You can grab the 7" here.

Diamond Center - California

Hits From The Box #50 - Half Century Blues

And they said it wouldn't last...but here we are, two and a third years into the bizniz and fifty Hits From The Box later. Lots have gone down since we thunk up this bloody thing over booze, drugs and a broiling broth of curry, but one thing is certain - music is everything. So before we start getting all misty-eyed, let's have at it, shall we? And let's get as eclectic as ever...


Remember that night that Hawkwind and Can made out and mutated babies and their progeny formed a band too? No? That's because it never happened. But if it had happened, said band would be Eyes. A Candle In The Crown Of The Dawn is a frenetic release, relentless with its rhythmic assault (seriously, the drummer doesn't quit!), 'Far & Away', the opening track, is a parallel ancient Greek soundtrack - with V shaped guitars and bongs! It rocks and is a hell of a lot of fun. The groove slows down, but the intent to snuggle inside the 70s stoner prog afterbirth remains. It's out now through excellent Portland label Field Hymns, grab it here. NB - this is actually TWO YEARS OLD! They have two other releases out, Ill aim to do a follow up shortly!)

EYES - Far & Away
EYES - Grey Moss


Coming from the same label stable, Susurrus is a Portland electronic noise outfit that offer some serious nose-exploding industrial drone. Starting off with two minutes of dead air, 'Mvt. 1' winds up the tension. It ebbs and flows, offering orchestral flourishes amongst the artificial squalls and screeches. 'Mvt.2' is just as synthetic, yet is creepier in a fashion, utilising the silences between musical stages and incorporating sounds like mobile phones and frog croaks. It's techno horror, yet somehow beautifully rendered, an incredibly interesting listen. Great headphone music - but not whilst walking alone at night...perfect 21st century horror soundtrack right here, something like The Signal or Pulse... Susurrus is out here.

Susurrus - Mvt.2


Offering a change of pace, the alluring Ariel Starling is a 20 year old Austinite (IE lives in Austin Texas). Starling claims to spend most of her time in the closet recording weirdly thoughtful pop songs about vultures and dead babies on cassette. Sounds fair to me. Her debut EP Black Dust is sparse, mostly Starling and her electric guitar, and is equal parts melancholic, introspective, yet on 'Armadillo' we see her rock side. Overall, a lovely introduction. Time to get out of the closet and onto the street.

Ariel Starling - Celeritas
Ariel Starling - Armadillo


Who wants some backwards music? Lucky that we have Edward Korft in the back pocket, then. The Brooklyn musician has created some excellent sinuous ambient grooves here. You can grab it, and his new track 'I've Got The Shit To Pull This Off', here.

Edward Korft - modnaromem
Edward Korft - enola


Funny/Not Funny Records have helped to put out No Jams, the second record for North Carolina band Naked Gods (and 1st on the label). It's jam-packed full of short guitar pop numbers that love their guitars and whimsical lyricism (listen to the excellent 'Shaq & Diane' for evidence - oh, the pun there, zing!). There is an element of White Denim in the schizophrenic nature of these tracks, which is a great thing. Grab No Jams here.

Naked Gods - Shaq & DianeNaked Gods - Soft Drugs


And because we can never have enough raucous punk rock from New Zealand, we will finish off this 50th HFTB with Raplh. The duo played in band FATANGRYMAN that I spoke about last year here, whilst Jessica went on to Kitsunegari and Ary was in Onesie. Both bands have unfortunately broken up, so they started Ralph together. It's similar discordant snotty grungey punk to their initial times shackled together in the dustbins of rock, a bit like current faves Fever Fever and Bitches, but with more rabies, which is more than fine with me. Hopefully we can hear more from them in the near future.

Ralph - Broley Westenra
Ralph - Reek

Happy Wednesday!

A Demon Beat And Elephant Child Split Is Funny/Not Funny

The fine folks over at Funny/Not Funny Records have sent me a swathe of releases in the past months, and I haven't gotten to them - yes, I suck, seriously! So I aim to rectify that, and the first cab off that rank is this beauty of a split between Virginian brothers-in-arms The Demon Beat and Elephant Child.


The Demon Beat dominate the split with two raucous, ball tearing tracks that take to task every other poseur that claims to be "garage". Not saying the trio are shitting on everyone else's parade, just that they threw a cluster bomb underneath the leading float and wallowed in the aftermath. Not saying they are psychopaths either - but they are pretty killer...

The Demon Beat - Teenage Wasteland


But don't hold off from breathing in Elephant Child's heaving pile of excrement either - it's fresh, fertile and ready to drown you in its sloppy warmth. I was hoping that this was a legitimate sequel to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' 'Under The Bridge', something akin to Metallica's 'The Unforgiven II'. What an amazing song that turned out to be... Alas, instead we just have a killer tune that stands on its own two feet, no Kiedis holding its hand whilst freebasing in Frusciante's garage, no Chad Smith aping Will Ferrell, no trousers-made-out-of-plush-toys Flea. These boys like to party, plain and simple. And if it happens to be under the bridge where I drew some blood, it isn't their fault if I can't get enough - is it?

Elephant Child - Under The Bridge pt 2

Grab the split here.

Super Summers! Eternal Vacations! Sounds Good, But...

We here at Sonic Masala are massive fans of Virginian duo Eternal Summers - their Silver LP was an underrated gem of last year, fitting in perfectly with mates Reading Rainbows' Prism Eyes (also underrated, and as an aside the two bands are touring the US together - an ace show to catch guys!!!) We are also impartial to fellow Virginians The Super Vacations, whose Thicker Milk album also took me by surprise. So when the news came out that the two bands were doing a split 7" called The Mystic Fortress Sessions Vol 1, I was more than a little excited.

Sadly, however, the end result wasn't as great as it could have been. Put out on Funny / Not Funny Records, the two bands put out some new tracks, and for me, 'On My Honour' is on of Eternal Summers' least endearing tracks. It is something we have heard them play before, yet here it is almost yawn-inducing - the conviction that we know in love has gone MIA. Their "acoustic" number, 'Half The Time (Stripped Back Version)' is a warmer, more interesting take, in that it is accessible and shows some of the indelible traits that makes ES such a lovable band. The Super Vacations fare better, as the slightly crisper production values here infuse 'Picnic' and 'Beer League' with an inherent garagey goofiness, inclement of the heat of summer which the Northern hemisphere is exiting and us Aussies are getting the thirst for.

So it's not an out and out loss at all - its just that when it comes to Eternal Summers, I hold a high bar - and although they only clipped it by a fraction, they still clipped it.

The Super Vacations - Picnic
Eternal Summers - Half The Time (Stripped Down Version)