HMAS Scrap Rock Gods

Finishing off the week with not one but TWO Hobart-related posts, because. Homeless Records have not steered me wrong once, so when Richie sent me through the archival material of lost Tassies hMAS, as if I wasn’t going to dive headlong into the murky waters without testing the depths. Sure, Fear God Honour The King has enough aural debris, sonic outcroppings and shaggy rock to knock someone out, but these are the types of waters I regularly bathe in. Recorded in 1997 (!) and remixed by lazy sonuvabitch Mikey Young (and mastered by Ben Crothers), this bears much resemblance to the kind of fuzz-damaged literate silliness that Sonic Masala band Tape/Off spew out at irregular angles (‘Fungus’ sounds like the broken bridge between EP and album for the Brisbane slackdog millionaires), and is the unassuming cesspit that geographical brethren Treehouse sprouted from. Richie’s phrasing of hMAS as ‘pointless yet essential’ is a great way of describing the bent and blasted guitar rock here, as concerned with smashing things in some form of identifiable tempo and melody as they are at being noisily indecipherable – it’s the kind of cacophonous mess that is also bristling with hooks, tone deaf yet glistening with naïve-pop noise. The backwards oscillating loop that sounds like an stoner experiment takes up the first half of the appropriately titled ‘Absurd’ (the second half is a demo-esque punk blast of questionable quality, but what good punk isn’t?); the pig-fuck scrawl that permeates the pub-punk sweat-flecked ‘Bucket Boy’; the Devo-meets-addled-Jim-Carroll-with-added-space-wah ‘Friend Is Dead’ – it is all a bunch of friends fucking about. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be heard. Thank the Lord for Homeless that hMAS now has a home.

You can grab Fear God Honour The King here - be quick though because there are only 3 left! If you are lucky you can get versions of the other two releases – The Computer Tape, a experiment (hMAS to a tee) of their songs reconditioned to a Commodore Amiga 500, vocal melodies and all. A Kraftwerk-meets-Devo reimagined score of an Atari 8-bit version of Mad Max III: Beyond Thunderdome. Weird – and pretty amazing. Then there is 1996’s Goes Pop!, which was originally released for 25c with an added A4 zine, and has had some of the hiss and banter cut out. Lowest fidelity, the mud at the bottom of a creek beer, misplaced, waylaid, laced with memories. A remnant of what may have been, a holographic projection of fizzing, sparking, faux greatness. Get in.

Hidden Amongst The Silhouettes Of Viet Cong

The Canadian band Women has been a common reference point here at Sonic Masala. The sadly defunct band (splitting after a somewhat public disagreement between the Flegel brothers, then the untimely death of Christopher Reimer) produced two brilliant albums in their 2008 self-titled debut and 2010's Public Strain, which was our favourite album of the year. So whenever any of the remaining members put something out it is feverishly exciting to me.

Last year, when Blank Realm were in London, Dan Spencer picked up a vinyl copy of Viet Cong's EP Cassette. Featuring ex-Women Matt Flegel and Mike Wallace, with Scott Munro and Daniel Christiansen, Viet Cong produced an album that was a little closer to the pigeonholed sound they were inadvertently placed in - which was excellent, of course. But now that the self-titled debut is just out (via Jagjaguwar) they have beefed up the sound and upped the ante. The noise is a pleasant addition, yet their presence is as much in melody and elegance as it is aberration and dissolution. 'Continental Shelf' is the perfect amalgamation of the old and the new. Its bombastic, almost arrogant in the way that the various elements of the more abrasive end of the rock spectrum are given room to breathe in a prism of pop sensibility - I can't help but think of Pixies when they disappeared a little further down the rabbithole, bereft of their knowing smiles and kitsch. It's good to have you back, boys.



And then there is 'Silhouettes' which marries this to a Joy Division/Kraftwerk frenetic heart skip/synth gloss. What a heady brew we are in for.

Viet Cong is out now. They are playing in London on February 4 at Hackney Oslo, with support from fellow Canucks and motorik fiends Absolutely Free. Grab tickets here.

Superhuman Slices of Shimmering Pop Pastiches

Indiana duo House of Bread have just released their self-released 3rd LP, Superhuman Tomb, and its a great little number. In this day and age of bedroom pop navel gazing brought to us from the arse end of some rusty cans and a piece of mouldy string - whether it be due to DIY necessity or just because its so in right now - it is not only refreshing to hear something that takes care in the intricacies of sound production, but are stretching out far and wide to discover how big their sound can be, whilst perfecting the art of the silence. It shouldnt be a surprise that House Of Bread can construct well realised songs - members Omar Azfaal and Bob Haddad have been in bands All Nite Skate and Castles together, and have been toying with this band's sound since 2006 - and yet there is a real sense of freshness to this offering.

Opening with soaring instrumental Nebula A908 - a mixture of Sigur Ros' eccentric musical interplay and shimmering guitar - Superhuman Tomb leads into Flying Nomads, Azfaal's vocals only on a slight reverb (read: the effect enhances his vocals, not a device to disguise the fact that the guy cannot sing) as he plays back up to some chugging guitar lines that canter into the sunset... 'Artificial Man' offers up some Krautpop tinkerings with elegaic vocals before stretching out in a Yo La Tengo pop mangling. Further along the track we get 80s Bruce Springsteen with synths-meets-Electric Soft Parade Hazy Boy, the quirky and ultra catchy Bunfs and the slow drum MOR of Snow Globe Smasher II, before closing the mish-mash behemoth that is 'Bloody Scouts', where every influence they can think of (Super Furry Animals, Flaming Lips, Machine Translations, The Cure, Devendra Banhart, Kraftwerk, Yo La Tengo...) is thrown at the canvas. Its this culminating track that probably encapsulates Superhuman Tomb the best - moments of fun and cerebral noodling amidst washes of aped classics of yore.

And to be honest, why not? The production shimmers with a glossiness that is somewhat lacking in most 2010 releases, and the guys really have put some heart into their babies here. A rough yet substantial gem.

Superhuman Tomb is out now.

House of Bread - Flying Nomads

House of Bread - Hazy Boy

A minimalist folk/Krautpop car crash - that's nice to watch

Hortlax Cobra. Good name. It is the side project of John Eriksson, of Peter Bjorn and John fame. Not so good name (or band). Hey they are OK - that whistling song was catchy, before driving many to suicide due to ridiculous over rotation and product placement overdrive - but I like the new sound a little more. Its got a definite Kraftwerk/Notwist sound to it - it is ultra simplistic - and its a little innocent in its lustrous wonder. Eriksson claims that Hortlax Cobra is a futuristic pop/art amalgam, and that he was inspired by paintings, collages and sketch drawings when creating these sounds. Definitely worth checking out, that's for sure.

Hortlax Cobra - This Time That's It