Aural Australia #1 - Catching Up On Lost Time

So much has gone by in the past four months that it is impossible to catch up, really. So I am going to give a series of longer posts over the next fortnight, mainly showcasing the music from Australia that I feel needs to be heard. This first one is Brisbane oriented, unashamedly so. Friends, foes, new and old, it's going to be a wild old ride.

I have been a massive fan of no-wave acolytes No Sister since they burst on to the Brisbane scene back in 2013. Their sudden rise and seeming implosion was the stuff of minor legend, the stuff we didn't think we would see again. But they were not dead - Mino and Tiarney merely moved to Melbourne, roped in some more heathens, and now have released in my mind the best Australian album of the year. Their self-titled debut is nothing short of mind-bendingly brilliant. The thing about the band that has been difficult to describe to others is that there is no half-hearted aping or hacksmithery here - they are earnest about their influences, astute in their constructions and desultory in their deconstructions. Hell, they have a song called 'This Heat' - what isn't there to love? But it is more than that - the incessant motorik rhythms that stutter and shudder in and out of focus, the frayed jangle and throttled feedback, the blood-splattered and screwdriver-molested fretboard, the atonal belligerence, the confident leer, the lack of fear. Disconcerting, manic, nightmarish, and very very present. Closer 'Passing The Divide' is the apex of this - a inexorable downward spiral, evolving as it frays and dissipates, eating its own tail. It's hard to say without sounding ridiculous - but No Sister have crafted an album for those who miss Sonic Youth, Arab On Radar, indeed This Heat, and rather than getting a carbon copy, wonder what they might do if they hit the reset button.

(Sleepwalks circa 2010 - they aren't very photogenic...)

Brisbane's Sleepwalks haven't been the most prolific of acts - their debut, The Milk Has Gone Sour, came out in 2011, recorded with stalwart Steve Albini no less. They play sporadically, usually to friends, barely ever tipping over a twenty minute set time, and otherwise life has gotten in the way. In the meantime the Aussie grunge "renaissance" has fully hit its stride courtesy of hometown stalwarts and Footy Show dividers Violent Soho. Even their latest album, Kingdom, has been around for a while, sitting on the shelf - I did a piece on one of the songs off it, 'Dry Gulch', what seems like aeons ago. The boys are sparser, more angular, wonky, darker-hued, and intelligent than many of their contemporaries though, which makes Kingdom a weirder, much more enriching listen. Their Sonic Masala Fest set was rough-hewn and with a Mclusky cover to boot. Someone oughta put some money behind these guys - they could carve their own peculiar niche in the woodwork.

Another act that started out in Brisbane but have winged their way to Melbourne is Dag, headed by lovely stringbean and font of laconic goodwill Dusty Anastassiou. They are about to launch their new album, Benefits Of Solitude, the recordings of which feature members of Bent, Thigh Master and Sewers. This sounds nothing like those bands. It makes sense that Joe and the Bedroom Suck crew would be drawn to this (seeing Kitchen's Floor, Scott & Charlene's Wedding and Bitch Prefect amongst many others have made it through their hallowed halls), but Dusty has an inimitably iconic voice all his own that, if you believe it, reaches higher than these incredible acts manage to climb. A massive call? True - but listen to 'Staying Up At Night', a magical three minute ramshackle amble that manages to shares echoes of some of music's Antipodean heroes (Paul Kelly? David Kilgour?) and look into the grey of dawn with a melancholy eye, while imbuing all with an aura of hope that outshines such downcast musings. Benefits of Solitude won't be out until next year, but rest assured that we will all benefit from the perennial fight for that lopsided smile in the morning light that tells you that everything will be all right.

Grace Stevenson from 100% (which we will hear from in a minute) has burst out into her own warped spotlight under the guise of Rebel Yell, a ice-laden techno trance dirge that remains somehow euphoric, in a synthetic dungeon fever dream kinda way. The "pop" inverse to brother-in-arms Yaws and DNA spliced with Kirin J Callinan, Rebel Yell both invites and repels; violence and eroticism offered simultaneously. Rice Is Nice seems an atypical choice for label, but her debut EP Mother of Millions is stunning in its stark beauty. Eyelids fluttering coquetteishly in the black UV before the gas filters through the bunker dancefloor - Rebel Yell grabs your cerebral vortex and never lets go.

100% continues the cold synth pop bubbling under the surface of the backwoods heat of Brisbane's musical frontier, and their You Are 100% 12" (out through Moontown Records) manages to both sound intimate, distant, cheesy and otherworldly. Mastered by Roland Hlavka (Cobwebbs, Drug Sweat, Barbiturates), the tracks evoke Angelo Badalamenti, Jenny Hval, Yello, Asylum Party, And Also The Trees, Circuit des Yeux -  but all imbued with a light touch, the drabness eschewed for frosted pastel shadings. Such ebullient touches, rather than make the tracks lightweight, provide a sense of intimate acceptance oft missing from music like this. They are already getting amazing support slots over the course of the year - expect something bigger as this lands.

Finally, and still in the same realm, we have Pleasure Symbols, whose latest release has been picked up for distribution throughout Europe by Avant! Records, so should tell you what to expect. A lethargic coldwave classic, cavernous and clearly at home in Scandi states of mind (ie dark, cold, glittering light shimmering off translucent ice and stylised leather), 'Underneath Your Skin' couldn't be more aptly titled. The monotonous vocals carry an androgynous sensuality to them, the beats a relentless march through the urban gloaming, the guitar pinning down a Gothic tension that is pregnant with foreboding.



This is just the beginning!

Skeleton Bent Around Moontown

Brisbane's bent trio Bent are following up debut release Non Soon with a self-titled 7" on Moontown Records - and they have totally upped the ante. Four jagged shards of post-punk, keen on atonality, brevity, and cheeky chaos. 'Skeleton Man' has more bristling intent than past sounds, courtesy of Glen Schenau's nerve-wracking frayed fretwork and Skye McNicol's octopi-in-tantra drumming. The focus is still Heidi Cutlack's broken vocals, roping around in cut-glass whispers and banshee wails, the bass thick and unwieldy yet intent on providing a sinuous frog-march to the edge - the cracked laughter pushing things over. 'Where's The Fire' simple in its tightly-coiled implosion - no need for smoke when the intensity is burning within. 'Sock Holes' is reined in, a quiet moment of wasted sweatbox ennui, with bruises, stains, holes and tears along the seam. When Bent are so broken, why fix it? Grab Bent here.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE - Hierophants Have Got A Nervous Tic

I got to see that gangly maelstrom of giddy energy Jake play in his Ausmuteants mutation last Wednesday night at the Shacklewell Arms here in London. They were a brilliant ball of synth punk energy, with UK barbs thrown with gay abandon. Jake can't rest easy now that he is back in Melbourne-town, because Aarght! Records are preparing to launch the looooong-awaited debut album of one of Jake's other bands, Hierophants (whoda thunk it?!) Parallax Error.

It fits perfectly on the Aarght! roster, especially seeing as it was originally started surrounding one of my favourite Aussie bands of recent years, Ooga Boogas, what with the stilted post-punk synth madness and all (see songs like 'Taste' and 'Think' for a direct relation; perennial knob twitcher Mikey young did the final production glossage too). In other places there is an early Mint Chicks fuzz (like 'Nervous Tic'), but mostly Parallax Error marks another sonic seismic shift for the Geelong-via-Melbourne four-piece. Their propensity for writing songs at the drop of a hat isn't really in evidence on the album - it's a tight synth prog playground and you're all invited to bomb-dive the ball pit.

Here is the video for 'Nervous Tic', directed by Moontown's Danny Wild. A lurking number that is fun for all the wrong reasons, like a high that starts to get the wobbles as you realise you are running with scissors barefoot across broken glass across a peak-hour highway. If the video tells you ANYTHING, it's don't eat drug-laced chocolate cake slice that has been sent you in the mail. Or, actually, eat the whole lot. And wait til you get to the surprise cameo! When is your next sequel, dawg?

Parallax Error is out soon - keep eyes peeled!

School Break Ups

(NOT a pic of the band - but you get the idea)

Australian musicians are the fidgetiest bunch. Most are in a multitude of bands, with one the focus but a myriad of half-cooked ideas floating about spilling out in weirder and wilder realms. School Damage is no different - and yet definitely IS different, in that this relatively new four-piece seem fully formed. Formed by Jake Robertson (Ausmuteants, The Hierophants, The Frowning Clouds, Drug Sweat etc) and Carolyn Hawkins (Chook Race) with Danni Damage and Jeff Raty bringing in the rhythms, School Damage is the perfect amalgamation of all these exterior pursuits - synth silliness, mewling guitars, loose-limbed garage rock bluster, B52s-esque garishness run through the rusted grinder of grit-in-the-wound punk, monotone vocals...it all adds up to a night with a beer-stained shirt and a shit-eating grin, loving life even while vomit flows down the slides at the local children's playground at three in the morning. They put out a cassette, Deep Net, on Moontown Tapes, and now have the impending 7" Break Up coming out of Detonic Recordings (Multiple Man, Diesel Dudes). All elements are present and accounted for on these three tracks, especially on the title track, which plays like a slow-swaying synth number of doo-wop-less pop before crashing into a guitar wash meltdown.


Grab your copy of Break Up here. School Damage launch this puppy on Friday August 29 at The Grace Darling alongside The Clits and Waterfall Person.

Throwing Gold Shade On World War 4

Sam Wightman and Roland Hlavka have a lot of time on their hands. Not content to have second LP WORLD WIDE WEBBS out (through Sonic Masala Records no less - get at it here), the duo are involved in a myriad other projects. The most prolific of those is Hlavka's solo outfit Barbiturates (often with Cobwebbs drummer Elliot D'Arcy at his beck and call), whilst Wightman's Police Force continues to get better and more malignant. Yet there are other, more festered outlets for these boys to let the demons out (these guys have a hard drive of material that may never see the light of day), and Canberra-based label Moontown Tapes has seen fit to give undead life to two of them. A split that is fused through communal spit and unease, the cassette opens with Wightman's World War 4 - and first track 'X-Ray Visitor' is the cleanest thing I think he has ever committed himself to. Drone crawl from the bottom floor, invading the senses, hip hop beats and lysergic treats for the narcoleptic dranker in us all. Then there is Hlavka's Gold Shade, a even more twisted chemtrail of an excursion, burning across the ozone like a VHS nightmare in neon chrome. 'Super Survivor' could be a Not Not Fun banger hit of the apocalyptic summer. Yes, these guys are in too many bands. Yes, they are all varying levels of awesome. Get this now - it's too good to ignore.