Racing The Chooks To Your Door

The beginning of last year Melbourne's Chook Race finally brought out their debut record, the aptly spun About Time. I really liked it - it had the right mix of The Clean, Electrelane, Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Dick Diver coursing through its veins. Well the trio aren't sitting on their laurels this time around - they have linked with the excellent Tenth Court Records (Wireheads, Thigh Master, Mope City) for their follow-up Around The House later this year. The first taste of it is 'At Your Door' - not really a Paul Kelly nod, but there are some similarities when you consider the lyrics - the plaintive Aussie blue-collar Romanticism of grafting out your own patch, from the ground up. The difference here is the wistfulness is palpable - this house built out of wood and clay may be a short-lived Valhalla, if not a perennial pipe dream. The ramshackle nature of Chook Race's delivery makes things feel loose and carefree, but that just helps to further underscore the melancholy shadow underneath. Australia has this bright spark instrumentation/maudlin content delivery down pat - I think it's a good thing, it's dry, it's unsentimental. Can't wait to see what else is dredged up around the house.

Drowning Under Bird Blobs

This is an album I haven’t been able to stop listening to since stumbling over it again a few months back. It’s not like I never got into Aussie gutter gurus Bird Blobs in the past, but possibly because the re-emergence (or reawakening) of the nastier nihilistic sewer rock here in Australia over the past few years it’s resonating all the more. The band split in 2006 to form other bands (Minimum Chips and Degreaser are the two most prevalent of these future projects, but also includes Coconuts, Bushwalking, St Helens, Mum Smokes and Mad Nanna amongst others) but it’s hard to pass up their 2004 self-titled LP for lightning-in-a-bottle feral ferocity. Seriously, with Tim Evans' guttural spew of a vocal delivery and songs that covered the detritus of the debauched masses (‘If I Could Kill’, ‘Stealing Again’, ‘Settle Down + Breed’, ‘Drunk At The Mill’), the guitars rolling drunkenly and wilfully into every sensitive corner of your inner ear, the drums pounding rabidly until they break the bedrock beneath – it was a fetid mess, but this four-piece had tapped the open vein with gleeful aggression. I always return to the bookends of Bird Blobs, ‘Billy’ and the aforementioned ‘Drunk At The Mill’ – the former is squalling, spewing venom at its most freebased; the latter for its dessicated rhythmic roll through the scorched undergrowth and throat-tearing screams puncturing the senses. In fact the opening drumming gambits for most of these tracks are killer - Steve Masterson proves to be a hedonistic animal on the skins, and his subsequent efforts with New War exemplify this.

Is this still available? Worth finding out. In fact, maybe Sonic Masala should reissue it? It’s an awesome idea, because Bird Blobs has now fused with my DNA. You see, once you taste Bird Blobs, it infiltrates and desiccates; it mesmerises and maims; it hypnotises and horrifies. And for me, that is some of the most viscerally exciting things music can do.

Maximum minimalism

I havent had access to my iPod for quite some time in 2010 - first I couldnt afford headphones, then I lent it to some people...so this weekend has been an exciting time for me as not only do I have it back in my possession, I spent a fair chunk of my spare time cutting and replacing albums. This can be quite a distressing time - I still cant fit all I want onto a 30GB unit, not by a long shot - and sometimes tough decisions need to be made. However, in doing this I 're-discovered' some acts that I loved, still love, and hope to move that love forward. After all, Sonic Masala isnt all about whats new and whats coming up, but also what is behind us, close to our hearts. So this week will have a few showcased artists for this very reason.

First cab off the rank is Melbournites-via-Brisbanites Minimum Chips. Formed in the mid 90s, the four piece crafted some amazing minimal rock, firstly on brilliant small-scale independent label Chapter Records, then more so with Trifekta. Each song is a small, simple idea overlaid with intricate interplay and beguiling vocals that provides - a true jigsaw puzzle that gives constant morsels of abundant joy. They have been well liked too - supporting fellow music magicians Stereolab and Pavement...

It would be well worth your time hunting down any of Minimum Chips' many releases - so listen to this and get hooked. Tomorrow - another criminally underrated Aussie band...

Minimum Chips - Cold Afternoon