Hellish Highlife Made

I have to say I am a little confused by Making... I was pretty sure the Sydney trio were breaking up. But seems I was (thankfully) entirely wrong, as they release their new LP Highlife next month through Trait Records. I have been a fan of theirs since hearing their excellent self titled EP and this lives up to the long expectations. The first track that really grabs me is the fourth track on the album, 'Come To Me' - it has that My Disco brooding pendulum rhythm and clipped/barked monosyllabic vocal approach, but then it explodes into something altogether more gnarled and corrosive. 'Zs' also fits into this vein, although there is a heavier metallic expulsion here that pushes them into noisier terrain. 'Dream Job' lurches forth, a metallic monster, deliberately unsettled and unsettling, serrated and scabrous, forcing the bile into the back of the throat. Then 'Amazon' has a more sinuous groove inherent, something Battles might produce without all the theatrics; 'Pascal' has moments of reflection in the middle third that allows for the pummelling bookends to smash forth with more controlled venom; and the psychotropic freneticism of the closing title track is the weirdest yet most cathartic song on the album. It does take the foot off the neck a bit, so to speak, and it is essentially what enlivens Highlife and makes those moments of black tension and white-hot release so potent. The production is powerful and precise too, thanks to Ivan Lisyak (Narrow Lands, Tanned Christ) and Lawrence English.


Preorder Highlife here - it's a corker. Making hit the road in Australia to launch the album on these dates (which also features Sonic Masala Records band Danyl Jesu in the mix!):

5th September - Crowbar Brisbane

w/Sewers, Danyl Jesu vs Pale Earth + Nature Trails 

11th September - Black Wire Records, Sydney 

w/Marcus Whale (LIVE), Mere Women + BV (connect the dots)

12th September - The Public Bar, Melbourne 

w/Diecut, CAMP COPE + JAALA

Julia Wheel

I’ve written about Sydney trio JuliaWhy? before, and have even reviewed their album Wheel a few months ago (you can read that over on The Music website here), but thought I would give it a little lip service today seeing as the band are really getting some strong footholds this year, what with their Canadian Music Week shows and supporting hyped degenerates Fat White Family.

Anyway, Wheel is pretty solid. Maybe it’s the main riff throughout opener ‘Turntable’, but I am reminded of Joy Division, although the sound is more akin to fellow Sydneysiders Mere Women (with a few extra streaks of sunlight and a few extra tears of gutter punk). The gritty riffs that kick off ‘Bride To Be’ are certainly at the forefront of Aussie rock circles thanks to Courtney Barnett’s garage conflagrations, yet this is more aggro in the rolling drums and shouted vocals, which slides into the pastel abrasion of ‘Painkiller’. To flail from post-punk machinations to garage chugging to raucous punk implosions over three songs and five minutes may seem schizophrenic on paper, but the sonic throughlines are held firmly together by Julia's energetic vocal delivery and a tight engine room. ‘La La Love’ fucks with the formula some, highlighting a proclivity for doo-woop garage that explodes into more serrated fare without a second glance, whilst ‘Just One Night’ is the closest the band comes to a straight-up mainstream hit, a power-pop trip that keeps it strong and simple, stupid. ‘Flowers’ is the kind of song Frente would have thrown out if they were more hedonistic; ‘Im Not Gay But Your Boyfriend Is’ grunges things up and brings the tone down even further. Yet for me the propulsive closer ‘What You Want’ is the clincher, a Sleater-Kinney echo down the line, showing serious chops amidst the gurning. A lot of fun indeed.

Get Wheel now through Exxe Records.

Psalm Beach Is Nowhere In Particular

This record is a year old but I feel it warrants a mention because it has been my go-to for the past week. Victorian trio Psalm Beach have been plying their trade around the traps for a while now and have not garnered anywhere near the adulation they deserve. Their album of last year Nowhere In Particular is a perfect case in point, a circular black-and-white cast of tension, taking its time to build its slow yet ultimately devastating post punk delineations. There are some bands around at the moment that are delving into similar sine waves - Mere Women and Hoodlum Shouts are two in particular that come to mind - but Nothing In Particular is a glaring reminder that the name Psalm Beach should be murmured just as fervently. It came out not long after they headlined one of the Gazar Strips EP launch shows in Melbourne - I didn't realise how well this would come together. Anyway, if there is anything you do this month, on the anniversary of its creation, buy the 12" here - you deserve it.

Video Vacuum - Ty Segall, Cloud Nothings, Goat, Mere Women

Not sure what you are doing on a Friday night. I just worked my first shift on the other side of a bar in about six years, and am now drinking in my lounge room, thinking where did it all go wrong. Not really. This beer is pretty killer. Plus I have all this good music to keep me company...

There used to be a time when just about every second post here was about Ty Segall. Don't worry - the love affair continues. I just don't need to go on about it - everyone is in on the secret. The wunderkind's new record Manipulator is rad as, and whilst the video for the title track is better, there is something perennial about 'The Singer' that I never get sick of. Truly inhabiting the British side of 60s rock here, with flushes of Bolan-esque grandiosity - what's not to like? This song is like the day I spent an entire day drinking in a pool on my own, beer bottles floating around my inflatable lounge, the occasional spliff, and T-Rex, Masters Apprentice and The Kinks blasting out of the stereo. I can't remember much about that two year stretch of 2003-04, but damn that was one of the best bloody days of my life. Thanks for reminding me of the best times, Ty.

Let's get even more blasted then with Goat. These guys don't know how to water down the smoky broth, do they? This film clip for 'Hide From The Sun' (the song reminds me of the Swedish band's attempt at covering the weird Soundgarden song 'Half' for some reason - and making it infinitely better) is filled with masks, excellent paper animation a la Where The Wild Things Are, pagan iconography, primary colours, ritualistic dancing... If Tarsem Singh could learn restraint without giving up his incredible artistic visuals, this would be the type of film he could make. Man, imagine him remaking The Wicker Man...actually, don't.

I just saw Frank last week. Like many things, my fiancee and I totally disagreed about it. I thought it was a pretty great insight into experimental and experiential creativity. Now I'm not going to say that Cloud Nothings give me that same kind of insight - and yeah, the papier mache head in 'Now Hear In' is the main connection here - but the freedom that Dylan Baldi seems to have garnered since leaving his (still pretty great) sugary sweet guitar pop behind for 90s indie-inflected grunge angst seems to have opened the floodgates to a vitality that was hitherto absent. I'm sure my fiancee would disagree though.

I like seeing landscapes shot from moving cars. I don't know why. I guess I like movement and landscape and travel. So there are elements in Mere Women's 'Heave Ho' that I am inherently drawn to. I love the dude visiting the aquarium even more though. So many videos claim to invoke a "character" living out a day. This narcoleptic sojourn through Tokyo feels more lost-in-translation than Lost In Translation - its surreal and hallucinogenic and vague - feels like my life. Plus it's the visual accompaniment to a track from one of the most intriguing albums of the year. If you haven't bought Your Town yet, DO IT NOW YOU IDIOT! And buy a jellyfish while you're at it.

Carry on.

No Home For Mere Women

I stumbled across Sydney's Mere Women through true global sonic seeker of truths, Tenzenmen Records, in 2012 (along with Hira Hira and a bunch of other Australasian acts I couldn't believe I lived without before then). That album, Old Life, was pretty good, an edgily awkward post-punk slanging match of a record that showcased a trio of young people agitated yet rudderless - like Batrider, but with the lower-intestine bile and overt angst. Fast forward to now. Mere Women know what they are doing now - at least I think they do. The ten tracks that grace Your Town are spirited eve as they languish in a quagmire of reverb and missed chances, airs and graces, rolled eyes and fraught thoughts. The mood that pervades the album is something akin to being forever caught in the shade, behind the 8-ball, gripping barbed wire, seeing the greener pastures wither and die whilst the wheels continue to futilely spin. Despite this melancholia that emanates from the tracks, there is a forcefulness that underpins everything; the baring of teeth; the wanton brandishing of sociopathic disdain (something they share with another great Aussie band, Bare Grillz). 'Heave Ho' even has a bit of the Zola Jesus about the vocal delivery - no easy task. Your Town isn't happy, but it potentially will make you happy, even as you like sliding down the razor blades of oblivion.

Poison City Records keeps hitting home runs, picking these guys up. It's a great release.

FOOTY BRAH

Seriously, I don't know how to review Jersey Flegg, the debut (and possibly only ever) album from Sydney band You Beauty. There are so many contradicting variables here that should make this record bloody terrible. First of all, just look at the band photo. Not that these guys look terrible - they just look like a quintessential 2010's era guitar band from Australia. You Beauty looks like dolewave writ large and at its worst - the Urban Dictionary definition image. Secondly, the album is a concept album. Jesus, this is diving. Thirdly - it's about a faded rugby league player suffering with faded glory days, heart pangs, alcoholism and his own sullied self-worth. Fourthly - it's called Jersey Flegg. That is like park footy basically.

But...BUT...

The four piece are from Sydney bands who are steeped in angular seriousness - Hira Hira, Absolute Boys, Mere Women, Ohana - and are all technically great. Each song on Jersey Flegg is meticulously constructed and paced. It's funny and memorable (which has it elevated about many of their contemporaries right there).

Then there are lines like this:

"They wanna know about 93 when everything looked so good for me/Id pull up to the ground in my LTD with its grain on the dash and leather seats" and "I bought a house for me old man/And one for me mother/That's where I live now" (both from 'Mennal Mondays')

"Saw you at a thing for children's TV/The club sent me cause I had choof in my pee" (from 'Ann-Maree')

"You coulda had Whispering Jack play at your wedding day" and "It's back to chasing thrills down at the Cross" (both from 'Now Her Skirt')

"Went to training drunk...fuck it!/Had to have a spew in the oranges bucket" (from 'Crummy Thoughts')

Seriously - the whole album is inimitably quotable. This is littered with Australian colloquialisms that not only makes me laugh, but are sung with such honesty by Will Farrier that you can't help but believe in this inner west Sydney underdog story. Favourite song? 'Scent of my Youth'. Brilliant guitar line, even better drumming, and the vocal delivery of Farrier as he details the protagonist's grassroots, working class childhood and the clear trajectory he was always destined to follow...but then it bleeds into the bizarre yacht rock love song 'Ann-Maree' - and then there is the penultimate mentor track where he actually meets "Rabbits" Warren, the famous rugby league commentator...then there is the wry redemption song 'Off The Bench'...

Do you see? None of this should work. It should be a bad, mistimed joke, worthy of a grin filled with chagrin, missed opportunities and Matty Johns in a mawkish, mugging cameo. And it's so Aussie, and even niche within the demographics of stalwart NRL junkies. Instead, it's an incredibly well crafted album, and deliberately not twangy, twee or too easy to play. It's got the cast off swagger of an 80s pub/lounge band swinging from post-punk brevity and New Wave wistfulness. It's about fucking rugby league. And it's possibly the best album of 2014 - GLOBALLY.

Go figure.

You really need this album. Grab Jersey Flegg on digital here, and on cassette through newly-minted Brisbane label Second Empire here.

Southpaw Women Look At The Mirror

This isn't so new now - most Australian websites mentioned this about a month ago - but Sydney band Mere Women (whose Old Life album of last year was an underrated gem) have a little release coming out soon on American label Southpaw Records (who've put out gear from the likes of Ty Segall, Warm Soda and Bare Wires - excellent garage rock, in other words). Not the kind of avenue I would expect to pick up the band at the best of times; furthermore, the track they are airing from it, 'Hands & Face', was NOT what I expected. That faint, sinuous synth for starters is something you expect to hear emanating out of a Not Not Fun cassette. This is all lysergic menace, with spectral guitar moaning in the background, Amy Wilson's vocals elegiac yet defiant. It's a cavernous slowburner - and I never expected to use either of those superlatives to describe Mere Women, but there you go. And you know what? I goddamn love it. What this means for the weird, cantankerous trio for the future remains to be seen, but if they can balance this kind of track with more virile fare, then 2014 should be a huge one.

Tenzenmen Terrorists Take 2 (Sydney Killers)

A second batch of Australian releases from excellent tenzenmen Records...


Sydney's Mere Women is a tight, menacing ball of barely-tempered vitriol, and their cyclical brand of post-punk is something to behold. Old Life is their debut, and it's pretty damn killer. Shouts, breathy whispers, skitchy pop, serrated post-punk, singsong lullabies, sunny soundchecks crashing into a overcast sea of noise - it is all wrapped up here, often in the same song. I've heard some exciting things about their performances, and they are promising a sojourn north later this year, so I for one wait with bated breath.

Mere Women - TB
Mere Women - Amends


Also hailing from Sydney is Hira Hira, five guys take brooding yet hook-laden punk and cram it through the anguish wringer. Now Here Forever is the result of a lot of blood, sweat and tearing of flesh, and it's slick as all get out. It's skittering punk is muscular yet sinuous, difficult to get a hold on until its choking you to death. Also promising a Qld trek this year, get acquainted with their gear now.

Hira Hira - Bugs

Shaun assures me there's a hell of a lot more where this stuff came from, so stay tuned... In the meantime, pick up these great albums here and here.