The Men Are Electric

 

The Men played in Brisbane as part of this year’s Laneway Festival, which also featured the likes of Cloud Nothings, Japandroids and Twerps. It was quite a good lineup. I was supposed to go. Alas, what has stopped me from going to most gigs the past three weeks – the fact I’ve just had major surgery, and cant do much for a sustained period of time without wanting to collapse – stopped me from attending. The Men are really killing at the moment, and I hope I get a chance to actually see them live in the near future.

At least I have the Electric/Water Babies 7” to soothe my troubled soul, with the nearby release of their New Moon LP to come out on Sacred Bones very soon. If you have seen The Men, leave your experience in the comments below – it may hurt, but I need to know, and it’s no worse than losing an organ…right?

 

Get the 7" here.

The Men – Electric

Don't Call The Curtain On This Team Of Ghosts

 

I enjoy a little M83 – 'Midnight City' is pretty rad, and their Before The Dawn Heals Us LP of 2005 was at one point in my life a high-rotation chillout album. But after the screw around that was their closing slot on 2012’s Laneway Festival in Brisbane (which wasn’t entirely their fault, but after a day of rain, ridiculously priced midstrength drinks and reviewing an entire festival ON MY OWN, my patience left the grounds hours earlier) I've cooled right off the French band. So when I saw that Team Ghost’s frontman was Nicholas Fromageau, once one half of M83, I was book/cover dubious.

Lucky I pay attention to well-worn clichés though – I dived straight into the Parisian quintet’s new EP Curtains and haven’t yet resurfaced, preferring to remain submerged in the glassy darkness. Fromageau describes the title track as trying to sound like Thurston Moore jamming with Peter Hook, with electronics filling in the blanks. It makes for a dissonant track and the perfect introduction into the squalling futuristic hell that Team Ghost champion. A good song that tips into serrated greatness halfway through, it’ll leave you salivating. Great stuff.

 

Curtains is out later this month through wSphere, with their debut LP Rituals following suit in March. Can’t wait. Don’t expect them down on Australian shores anytime soon – but they are playing in London – Birthdays to be exact (and a lead-in to my next post…) – in April, you lucky sods.

Backwards Looking Forwards 2011 - Bad Sports, AIDS Wolf, Acid Baby Jesus

OK, so here are three more releases that I "discovered" over my two-month sabbatical that, whilst not anything overly groundbreaking, were a hell of a lot of fun.


Bad Sports, on their 2nd LP Kings Of The Weekend, have chiseled out some major disaffected pop rock that'll tear holes in the seat of your jeans. The Denton, Texas trio are made for summer benders with a sleazy bent. Dirtnap Records put out this fun-loving, fuzzy gem, and it reverently does what it says on the tin. I guess there are elements of Bare Wires about Bad Sports, albeit with more protopunk snarl, which makes me like these guys all the more.

Bad Sports - Can't Just Be Friends


Richie Follin's sister Madeline of Cults' fame will be here on Saturday as a part of the Laneway festival, so it would be remiss of me to mention Guards' Do It Again 7" that came out in December that I found quite delectable. Put out by White Iris, these tracks cement two facts - that Richie Follin knows how to pen a heck of a hook, and that they need to bring out their debut album STAT.

Guards - Do It Again


There was a stage when I seemed to be listening to a lot of Athens, Georgia acts back in 2010 - kickstarted probably by my love of Tunabunny - and it's more than possible that Acid Baby Jesus is going to bring that love full circle. Yet these clowns are from the "other" Athens - the one that proclaims to be the capital of Greece, the starting point (and possibly the endpoint - oh, political controversy!!) of civilisation as we know it. Their self-titled debut came out in October last year on Slovenly Recordings, and it sounds like another 2011 fave of mine, Human Eye, in its insistence of sounding like psych punk played by Ming The Merciless off Flash Gordon. Such space jams are morbid and strange, and oh so goddamn rad. This is a pretty killer album, and may have made the top 40 of 2011 if I'd heard it sooner. 2012 also has them firing up to join the biggest and best lineup yet for the Austin Psych Fest. Live long and prosper, you awesome weirdos.

Acid Baby Jesus - Tooth To Toe

Dancin In The Street

The 2011 St Jerome's Laneway Festival kicks off in Australia today, taking residence in the Fortitude Valley in Brisbane. Its a sweet lineup too - Deerhunter, Warpaint, Holy Fuck, PVT, Blonde Redhead, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, just to name a few. Its good to see little 'boutique' festivals like this one flourishing Down Under, when held in comparison to the behemoth (and bogan-filled) Big Days Out and the like. And Im heading along - a unexpected birthday gift - so Ill give you a report of the weird and wonderful next week!