(N)ever Halt The Limits Of The Body

Melbourne's Halt Ever surreptitiously brought out a new EP last month, Body Limits (out through Unwound Records). The 6-track 10" covers the gauntlet of raucous post-punk narcissism stretched and contorted, taut and strained, a razorwire enclosed case of tunnel vision.

Cuts and bruise prevail.

It's about thrashing the demons before the demons thrash you, in a vacuum of space, time and mind. The guitars in 'Growing Pains' for example build and build like pressure in your chest; your breath catches; sweat stains your upper lip; you threaten to drown in your own uneasy anticipation. It's an incredibly frantic and brutal instrumental display. The vocals though are equal parts Tom Lyngcoln-esque in their ocker banality/ferocity, and bottom-of-the-well-esque in the reverbed anguish and self-deprecation to the point of self-flagellation.

Cuts and bruises prevail, all right, and trust me, you will love how the sting lingers.




Body Limits can be picked up here. A full length album will be out in 2015 on the suddenly out of hibernation (and ever excellent) Lost Race Records. Halt Ever play alongside Bloodhounds On My Trail, Old Love and Midnight Bloom at Melbourne haunt The Public Bar this Friday night.

Lost In The Caprice With The Old Man And You

You might know Michael Whitney from underrated Brisbane brooders Nite Fields (who actually have that long-gestating album on the way - Chinese Democracy mk II!!!) but he has also been floating around in the ether as the incredibly difficult to do anything with moniker, You. The subtle, embryonic pop that Whitney styles as You has brought about some intimate and affecting shows in the past. Having brought on Luke Zahnleiter (ex Tape/Off and The Rational Academy guitarist) though You takes on a new light, with Whitney becoming increasingly bolder in his compositions. His first physical release is coming in the form of a 7" out through Lost Race Records (responsible for Nite Fields, Cobwebbs and Loomer releases), and you can sample the discombobulated jazz blues of 'Caprice' below. The haunting sax is such a beautiful touch here, somehow sparking Whitney's dreary, downtrodden warble into life (just) and providing a shimmering layered sound. Then there is the B-side 'Old Man', which is a studied strum on laconic downer spirals, designed solely to spirit ice down your spine. Breathtaking.


You can get You's limited edition 7" on Friday - pre-order it here. You plays in full band mode (Heidi Cutlack and Alec Tullio round out You) Thursday August 7 at The Bearded Lady in Brisbane alongside SM faves Dag and No Magic.

The Shady Ways of Barbiturates

There is something Gerling-y about Barbiturates. That's a big compliment. The dreamy nature of the production and the wobbly nonacceptance of the norm hark to that same backpack-wearing spirit. What they have in those backpacks is another question....

The concentric circles on the cover of Shades set the tone for the album. Delayed and looped against a background of metallic silver; alien colours for alien sounds. There's also something playful here, giddy even - a kind of nod to the absurdity of a life where we know more trivial details then we were ever designed to know. What happens when, for whatever reason, they all burst out of your head? Barbiturates' Shades is one answer.
  

Beam yourself up a copy (limited to 50 10-inches) from Lost Race here.

Looming On The Vinyl Ceiling

This has been in the wind for about a year now, but excellent local label Lost Race has finally released Loomer's debut LP Ceiling on vinyl! I was lucky enough to be walking past Rockinghorse Records on Monday after Lost Race's Danny Venzin dropped off some preliminary copies (the release date isn't until May 30). Originally out on CD in December 2010, Ceiling showcases the burgeoning talents of the dark shoegaze-driven quartet. I got to see them support Swervedriver in 2011 (which I reviewed here), and looked forward to their imminent explosion as the year went on. Unfortunately that was not to be - the band imploded, with members going on to focus on other sonic efforts such as Per Purpose, Spite House, Slug Guts, Eastlink and Lakes. Thank God for Lost Race then, because Ceiling is a minor masterpiece  all atonal bluster and feedback wash corralled by Brea Stanbridge's soothing vocals, a hint of menace barely held in check. This kind of music is a rarity in Australian circles, and almost never done this well. The vinyl sounds incredible too, and fittingly displays a band that could have been so much more.

You can pre-order Ceiling here (there are only 100 copies, which is Lost Race's MO). You can also get it from Permanent Records here.

The Vice Of Clearing Out The Cobwebbs

I have been intending to write about Brisbane psych/garage rabid hybrid Cobwebbs' debut LP All Around for quite some time now. Its official launch came back in November at label Lost Race's inaugural festival (which was killer, and rumours afoot that it will back up for another shot at the title this year), and the vinyl version has been selling steadily. But now is a good time to shine a light on this record for two reasons - rumours also persist that the record has sold out therefore are as rare as hen's teeth (which is kinda true - there were only 100 initially pressed), which was purported by the second reason this article exists - the abortion that is this review by Vice.

I don't want to get into a slanging match about the shortcomings of this kind of "journalism", or indeed Vice itself - the magazine has come up with some amazing articles and ideas over the years, and as Black Lips is its "house band", it surely has its fair share of kudos coming to it. But offering a review that tells you nothing other than an album is cool because its hard to get and hard to understand (possibly - I'm not sure the reviewer even got that much across) is poor. I'm probably adding to the fire by wasting oxygen and energy writing about it, which then fuels Vice's stance as a hipster bible - but fuck em.

So, money/mouth time - how is this album? All Around is certainly murky, a racket that revels in its chimera-like interchangeability.  I have the luxury of having seen these guys live many times since their inception - I started out thinking they were a fresh counterpoint to the garage rock that seemed to flow out of every corner of Brisbane in 2011, infusing something a little more sinister into the mix; but now they are an entity unto themselves, spawning their own harem of likeminded collectives (Barbiturates, Occults, Caterpillar Hood) whilst growing in stature and confidence. And those live performances flesh out the very lo-fi production here. But newcomers should still revel in this bottom of a metal barrel aesthetic, because the eight tracks on offer are drenched in the kind of fetid, lurching swamps of feedback and bile that nevertheless  is steeped in classic rock and roll tropes a la The Animals, The Troggs and The Kinks. Acid tones to melt your bones, All Around is the kind of album that deserves cult status because of what it is, not what some fey douchebag says it is.

You can still get All Around too - right here. Or click below. Can't get much easier than that.

Cobwebbs - Ice Melter

Field Vacation By Nite

 

Brisbane sonic diviners Nite Fields have only been on this mortal coil for just over a year, but the inroads made into their quest for aural evolution have been bountiful.

The next step across their causeway of lysergic discovery comes in the form of new 7” Vacation-Hell/Happy (out through Lost Race Records). Mining the depths of Joy Division post-punk atmospherics, shoegaze washes and Snowman baroque gloom and suspense, the dour drone that the insidious bassline and all-pervading synth creates for Danny Venzin’s purposeful vocals to finally shine through is easily the best sounding platform the quartet have put to tape yet. Two snapshots of an ever-expanding act, one that should be making an indelible impact on the local scene in 2013.

 

Nite Fields are playing at the Lost Race festival at Coorparoo Bowls Club on Saturday November 17, where they will be launching the 7” alongside Blank Realm, Secret Birds, Do The Robot, Cobwebbs, Dreamtime and so many more – It'll be great, make sure you're there (all for $20 and 1976 beer prices). If you can’t make it, you can pre-order the 7” (there are only 150 available) here.

A Secret Avian Hexagon

Secret Birds, a local noise experiment in mood and temperament, has been consistently ruffling the feathers (sorry) of the global avant garde community for some time now, with prolific output of releases in all forms and a guerrilla style of playing that expands and contracts in membership and sonics depending on the environment and availability of willing participants. At the epicentre is one D. Black, and his excursions into the farther recesses of drone music's consciousness. In Hex was recorded last year when Black was hunkered down in Tokyo, and has more of a loop-oriented focus than much of his other fare, yet still holding onto the spaced out fascination with oscillation within a textured aural wasteland. At once hypnotic and energizing, In Hex is yet another shuffle towards enlightenment by an artist who is unafraid to play with repetition, texture, pace, rhythm and space, always searching for the darker answers in the spaces in between.

In Hex is out now through No Kings. Secret Birds will be playing the Lost Race Festival at Cooparoo Bowls Club in Brisbane on November 17 opposite the likes of Blank Realm, Dreamtime, Cobwebbs and Nite Fields, where he will officially launch this and another release. Get on down.

Secret Birds - In Hexagon

Lost Festival In Race To Become A Local Classic

 

Lost Race Records are a new boutique "un-pop" label here in Brisbane that over the past year have put out the Happy New Year/Nite Fields 7" split, the Caterpillar Hood cassette and have the new Cobwebbs, Nite Fields and the long-awaited vinyl re-pressing of Ceiling, the only album from the sadly now defunct Loomer records in the wings. To celebrate they are putting on their own day-long festival at Cooparoo Bowls Club on Saturday November 17. Besides Nite Fields and Cobwebbs launching their albums on the day, Secret Birds will be releasing their In Hex cassette (a review is on its way) and hopefully some vinyl, whilst one of Australia's best young psych bands Dreamtime have their second LP ready too! PART-Y! Along for the ride are a plethora of local and interstate bands. This is going to be goddamned incredible, and being the day before Harvest, will mean a weekend of excellent music the likes of which you aren't ever likely to see! Tix to the show are $15 here, or $20 on the door - talk about a bargain!! See below for a list of bands with links, and a "mixtape". SO GOOD!

Bands playing Lost Race Festival:

Cobwebbs
Nite Fields
Secret Birds
Dreamtime
Blank Realm
Do The Robot
Primitive Motion
Naked Maja
Occults
Pale Earth v Subsea
Day Ravies (Sydney)
Four Door (Sydney - Holy Balm/Naked On The Vague)
Charles Buddy Daabul (Sydney - No Art)
Uplock
Black Vacation
Greg Boring

Faux-mixtape!

Melting Cobwebbs All Around You

Another Brisbane band making waves is Cobwebbs, a four-piece that has evolved substantially since I saw them support Times New Viking last year. Back then, they were still a garage-blues band in a wild showman in Sam Wightman. Since then their sound has gotten considerably darker, murkier, yet still with that surly sneer plastered across their face. Their support of The Laurels at The Beetle Bar was acid-tinged shambolism at its height. So it comes with great delight that the band have announced the release of their debut LP through local label Lost Race. Its called All Around, and if 'Ice Melter' is any indication it will be fucking killer - I can't get it out of my head.

Don't Let Caterpillar Hood Evaporate

This has been out a whiles (sorry Danny!), but new local "un-pop" label Lost Race Records has released a cassette from new Cobwebb on the block Caterpillar Hood entitled Evaporate. I tend to be a sucker for these ambient downer sounds, whereby I feel like I'm listening to someone shred A Scanner Darkly, Snow Crash and 1984 into confetti, blend it with ketamine and resin, distill it into an amorphous, gelatinous substance, before forcing it into your ears. it's a fugue state whereby everything and nothing makes sense, and Caterpillar Hood pretty much nails it. The only predictable thing here is its unpredictability, and its immersive to the point that it feels interactive, especially on headphones. It seems to be an incredibly busy album sonically, yet everything is in its right place. I'm a big fan.


Evaporate is available over here.

Caterpillar Hood - I Was Born Then I Was Dead

Sonic Masala End Of Financial Year Party Profile #3 - Bottlecock

Two more sleeps until the greatest 2012 end of financial year party ever, and Bottlecock are raring to rip into it. The local trio are steeped in grunge's afterbirth, sounding like early Magic Dirt yet with even more heroin. They have an elongated song that lovers of punchy grunge music hate, but I love. They are a sight to behold. They are some of the loveliest people Ive ever met, although they look like (and probably will) punch you in the face because you are wearing a Nirvana T-shirt. They just played in Melbourne last weekend with Penguins, another amazing noisy racket of a bunch, but also mnttaB - so they are primed for destruction. Above all else, they will melt your face off and give it to you in a Pablo Picasso Paster of Paris mould. That's worth $10 in itself.



Check out the deets to the Sonic Masala part-A here. Here is a funny write up about mnttaB from Nite Fields/Lost Race Records' Danny Venzin for website The Thousands. If that doesn't get you hot and bothered - then we just ain't compatible.

Happy New Year With Some Happy New Year On The Nite Fields!!!

YAWN.

Sorry guys and gals, but Ive been hibernating for some time, no? I best get back on the horse and mainline some tunes into your psyche. Some new music fit for 2012 is warranted after such a long time away, right?

Here is the radtacular 7" split between Brisbane soulmates Happy New Year and Nite Fields (on Lost Race Records). Both groups share a moody avant-pop air, with Happy New Year leaning more towards pop territory, and Nite Fields having more of an ambient-punk vibe.

Brooklyn based and Brisbane born Eleanor Logan's music embodies the 'art of noise', with a pop base and focus on producing avant singles. Her songs blend DIY recordings of percussion, drones, and tech sounds with silky vocals to create pop music that's equally as explorative as it is addictive. Her contribution takes the bitter pain of love and loss and turns it sweet as sugar.

Happy New Year - High Sea

For Nite Fields, a SM fave who graced our Sonic Masala Presents showcase back in December, this split see the first release for this young moody group. Taking cues from electronic and shoegaze spheres, to post-punk, and weaving in some goth rock basslines, Nite Fields are forging a new explorative rock sound coming out of Brisbane sharehouses. Having been together for less than six months, Nite Fields are already establishing themselves as a force, not of nature nor of reason, but an innate neurological urge to enter a Lynchian coma en masse. Which actually sounds like a good thing, if the Mayans would have the apocalypse come our way this year...

Nite Fields - Come Down

Grab the 7" here - its sex on wax, and with only 150 copies available, they will fly out the door. Happy New Year kids!