Tape Deck Mountain Holds Sway

I had ideas for posts for today. Honestly, I did! But they all fell out of my head the moment I put on Tape Deck Mountain's latest tracks from his upcoming LP Sway (out in October on principal TDMer Travis Trevisan's own label Nineteen98, which also houses the great WRITER whom we wrote about only last week). I loved loved LOVED their Secret Serf EP back in 2011 - but something tells me the year Trevisan spent in Austin, Texas is going to channel something brilliant into his sonorous shoegaze shtick. You probably have already partook in 'Always Lie' the first cut off it - and seriously, it's a goddamn killer of a track. Trevisan's vocals/lyrics are at times uplifting and weighty, the gravity that pulls you down before you soar into the stratosphere. But it's his guitar that will be the focal point - and with good reason. It's hard to truly explain how glorious the guitar is on this track, and yet so loud. Shoegaze done so right, Kevin Shields should be taking notes. An opiate for the masses. Then there is the more instrumental leaning 'Mystics', which is a much more subdued affair - feeling underwater, 20,000 leagues under the weather, weightless, wondering, always wondering. Its ponderous tone echoes the restrained fare of Mogwai's latter works, albeit with that familiar shoegaze wash, and it seems like a masterstroke after the overt excellence of 'Always Lie' - like a rebuff, 'Mystics' dampens the rampant anticipation, the curveball that only serves to heighten anticipation for those in the know. Sway is now in my top five most hotly anticipated releases in the back end of 2013.

Stay tuned.

Riding Canoes With Soccer Mom Brides

 

Remember Soccer Mom? I’ve been a big fan of the Boston noisemongers ever since they got in touch regarding their Bill Cosby In Glamorous Chains single back in 2010. Since then they released a great lil EP You Are Not Going To Heaven, and currently have this 7” out (again through 100m Records), which continues their quest for finding the plateau where walls of noise meet angularity, pop nous and a sliver of hope amongst the towering banalities of life (frontman Dan Parlin describe’s the band’s sound as simply “loud”, which is as succinct as you can get). Brides/Canoe flows on their already sizable adulation of the shoegaze aesthetic, yet we see more of the severer, acerbic lashes that has helped the quartet differentiate itself from the ever-burgeoning pack. The key is in the melody, something that many other Shields acolytes are blinded to, and will only become more defined over time. Another solid stepping stone towards that much-feted first LP…

 

You can get the 7” here, along with the EP. Soccer Mom is (apparently) hard at work molding what will be their debut album for later in 2013. If they continue to hone their craft, looking for nuances amongst the fuzz and feedback, Soccer Mom could provide one of the sleeper gems of the year. Here’s hoping.

Soccer Mom - A Canoe Shy

Dreaming of Chasms

Yeah yeah, it's been quiet etc. Here's something special for you then.

Brand spanking new label Dream Recordings have their first release out, When It Comes by San Francisco duo Chasms. These tracks are brooding, bruising, melancholy excursions into a Gothic afterlife, a miasma of lush beats and sonorous vocals that is interwoven with ominous grooves and the occasional spike of soaring guitar and white noise. The red cover with swirling black membranous shadows is pretty apt - this would score a great Giallo erotic thriller directed by Trent Reznor and Kevin Shields. A cold, cavernous ride that offers moments of warm respite amongst the black frost, When It Comes is a promising debut.


You can grab the When It Comes EP on cassette here. Dream have some very solid guys behind it - expect to hear more stellar releases coming out of their stable soon...

Chasms - Headwound/What's Real

Return Not So Yucky

2011 has been a Yucky year. The quintet from London have really come into their own, dominating most festival stages, being at the pinnacle of the hip as fuck blogosphere intelligentsia, and raping the slacker rock songbook writ large.

As you can see from the above, I don't have the biggest love.

It stems from the only time I have seen them play, as a support for another massive band that I don't "get", Real Estate, back in January last year. Real Estate I found to be incredibly boring - I spent most of their set standing at the downstairs bar at the Lexington drinking Jagerbombs and talking shit to my sister and some other person to this day I cannot remember. Yuck and Colours supported, and whilst both acts exploited the Pavement MO, it was actually Colours who came away with the most points in my opinion that night.

Yet the release of Yuck has gone gangbusters for the Londoners, and although im happy for them, I haven't really given them the time of day (except for Mogwai's ace remix of 'Rubber'...). It seemed that they filled out the right questionnaire or application form, for, like Colours, there seemed to be many bands mining the 90s penchant for noodling guitars and haphazard pop hooks yet they remained on the periphery, whilst Yuck conquered the US and jammed with Jools.

Now Fat Possum is re-releasing Yuck as a double LP stacked with B-sdies and rarities. The editor at Time Off magazine in Brisbane implored me to listen, to be more forgiving (as he has seen millions of bands on many different continents, it kills him to know that he hasn't seen Yuck, an employee has, and said employee slags off his favourite new band on regular intervals).

TRACKLISTING

Get Away
The Wall
Shook Down
Holing Out
Suicide Policeman
Georgia
Suck
Stutter
Operation
Sunday
Rose Gives a Lily
Rubber
Milkshake (previously available on limited vinyl only, streamed digitally)
The Base of a Dream is Empty (vinyl and digital B-Side to Rubber)
Cousin Corona (iTunes bonus)
Soothe Me (brand new)
Coconut Bible (B-side to Holing Out)
Doctors In My Bed (vinyl B-side to Get Away, only streamed digitally)

So I have. And it's...pretty good. Im not changing my tune too much - I really don't get hooked on these tracks at all enough to spin the record on frequent occasions - but it's ok. Right place, right time perhaps? 2012 will tell...

Below are two of those "new" cuts. Believe me, there is substance here. 'Soothe Me' has seen a lot of press due to the blatant Kevin Shields stealing, but who doesn't in this day and age? It is also a sound that is stolen precisely because its a style that can go with almost any other genre, and its cool as fuck. And it probably isnt their fault that they have been lauded so hard. AND, as seen by my intermittent Real Estate posts, I will give bands a second chance if it's deemed warranted. And on the strength of these two tracks alone, I may still be bemused at the level of hype and adulation, but it has me soothing the previously held rage. These kids seem ok. Bring on LP #2.





Before the band retreat into the studio however, they are slamming the UK in one final jaunt - although the London show is already sold out (again, THAT confuses me...)



UPCOMING LIVE DATES

November
14 – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
15 – Academy 3, Manchester
16 – Leadmill, Sheffield
18 – Academy 2, Newcastle
19 – Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh
20 – King Tuts, Glasgow
21 – 53 Degrees, Preston
22 – Wedgwood Rooms, Portsmouth
23 – Waterfront, Norwich
24 – Electric Ballroom, London
26 – The Button Factory, Dublin
27 – Speakeasy Bar, Belfast

Sonic Masala Becomes Acolytes To Zond

Warning - this review has been done by a person whose head has been totally blown...

Zond are an Australian band that I didnt even know existed until about a month ago. Admittedly I have been out of the country for about three years, and a lot can spring up and die away in that time. Nevertheless I was surprised when I heard their debut, self-titled LP. Why? Because its a fucking brilliant aural assault, all aggression, squalling distorted guitars and distanced vocals. Its not new, but it does sound fresh - as if the early Blonde Redhead maintained the Simone Pace vocals and Sonic Youth no wave leanings, then stole Kevin Shields' amplifiers and hooked them up to an imploding power plant. Zond opens ubiquitously - 'Io' spend half of its five minute duration meandering through an ambient, grey soundscape - before we are hit with bolts of sonic blasts barely reined in by guitarists Marney Macleod and Justin Fuller, as if the track had a mind of its own - and this continues with tracks like 'Choam' and 'Blue Haze'. The engine room - anchoring bassist Stephen Thomas and eight-limbed drummer Tym Krasevac - could let this all become a reverb-drenched mess, but it is their manic yet measured interplay that pins down the Zond sound, thus rendering it irresistible. There are more pop-sensible song structures in songs like 'Stupid Gods' and 'Dunvegan Castle', whilst the coalescing phoenix that is 7 minute 'Blind' places all of these elements together into a prolonged schizophrenic orgasm.

This is the dark, dirty, dirgey kind of shoegaze that I am particularly fond of - and is not expected from the island continent. The fact that these guys excel is an even greater admirable feat.

So if, like me, you hadnt heard of Zond before, become very acquainted. This album is just their stepping stone. Furthermore, in June last year Lou Reed himself invited the band to join him at the Vivid Live Festival at Sydney Opera House (yes, that's right, Bardo Pond were there too...). I can see the connection - laconic, wasted, acerbic, austere, nihilistic, nebulous. If My Disco, another amazing Melbourne band, were to do the opposite of their intensely reined in minimalist miasmas, Zond would be the result.

Im a convert - join me.

Zond is out now on RIP Society Records.

Zond - Choam

Zond - Stupid Gods

Album review - Broken Water's Whet

I know Ive posted about Broken Water before. The Olympia, Washington three piece rose out of the ashes of Sisters to create something that held onto the Sonic Youth noise, but brought to the fore the elegaic, raw and ghostly vocals of drummer Kanako Wynkoop (such a juxtaposition will be explained shortly). They are still a relatively unchampioned band however, which is a massive shame, for if their debut LP Whet is anything to go by, these guys are a force to be reckoned with.

There is no doubt that Whet showcases a sound that is steeped in the late 80's to the early 90s - heavily distorted drudging guitars, echoed vocals, sharp sparks of noise - everyone of that era, from Kim Gordon to J Mascis to Kevin Shields, have had their playbooks scrutinised, with Broken Water using it all to their own nefarious means. Opener 'Say What's On Your Mind' opens with a white noise blaze before settling down into a Dinosaur Jr wail of guitar - even guitarist Jon's voice has the affected tones of J Mascis, which is in fuller effect in 'Memory'. Kanako is the mainstay vocals wise here though, and second track 'Hear' has a slower grind to its pulse, the echoey chamber of the guitar slowing things right down, before amping up in a Raveonettes circa Whip It On scrawl. The vocals evoke Corin Tucker, a bit of grrl riot to go with your grungey squall. Elsewhere on the album, 'Web' has a more lo-fi styling a la Vivian Girls, yet with a sunnier disposition (a la Best Coast?), whilst 'Kamilche House' drawls away hazily, Kanako et al sounding like a disaffected Sub Pop cast off (in a very good way). Therefore experimentation is very much the key here style-wise, yet is all firmly entrenched in pre-Seattle explosion era, and yet somehow sounds both new and vintage. A constant juxtaposition that enhances the album rather than hinders it.

Overall though Whet is refreshing in its use of noise to harken back to the days when it was ceremoniusly linked to harmony. Broken Water have constructed songs that are both abrasive and sensuous, joyous and melancholy - with their eyes nailed to the floor and their hair in their eyes one minute, their instruments in a pile and a maniacal grin on their faces the next. Its nothing new per se - but it is something that is done impeccably well. Whet to be in the running for my top ten list come December - yep, its that good.

Buy it! Vinyl via Night People; Cd via Radio Is Down. The pic above is the vinyl cover sleeve.

Broken Water - Say What's On Your Mind