Bowing At The Altar Of A Scattered Purgatory On Sundays

Two-thirds of excellent Brisbane psych rock band Dreamtime have launched their own booking and touring platform, Altar of the Thirteenth Eye. Their first venture brings forth two equally brilliant acts from Asia, Taiwan's Scattered Purgatory and Japan's Sundays & Cybele, to Australian shores for a bunch of shows.

Scattered Purgatory is an ambient drone three piece that are ultimately interested in the swirling viscera left when sound is stripped of location and place, a discombobulated tonal salve against the scorched soul. Their last release, Lost Ethnography of the Miscanthus Ocean, is a serpentine temporal shift of wavering tension, as calming as it is unnerving. The looped guitars and synth, combined with the shimmering and clashing of gongs and cymbals in spaced out abbreviated bursts, takes on a tactile quality, a trance in amber.

Sundays & Cybele on the other hand are more traditional psych in the sense that we have the laidback grooves and sepia-tinted tones that combust into elongated liquefied-heat meltdowns at the blink of a third eye. Somehow displaced from the 70s acid trip hangover of the 60s, their album Gypsy House is a mystical blast.


Both bands have been put out by Tokyo label Guruguru Brain. Here are the list of shows, Australia - do not miss these guys in action, with some excellent support:

BRISBANE 

Thursday 21st May (SP only) 

Trainspotters

With FROWN and special guests 

SYDNEY 

Friday 29th May 

Presented by Octopus π

The Red Rattler Theatre 

with Broadcasting Transmitter and special guests 

MELBOURNE 

Saturday 30th May 

Presented by Psychedelic Coven

The Tote 

With Pearls and Power 

Sunday 31st May 

Presented by Psychedelic Coven 

The Public Bar

With Council of Elders

BRISBANE 

Thursday 4th June (S&C only) 

Beetle Bar

With Special guests 

More shows to be announced!

Octopus Pi's Not Waving But Drowning

Sydney purveyors of psychedelic outliers Octopus Pi have put together this great compilation Not Waving But Drowning, showcasing their eclectic roster plus a few other familiar faces. Kicking off with the deliciously off-kilter 'Bon Voyage' from the inimitable master of the lackadaisical faux-yacht rock Nathan Roche, the collection also includes cuts from Psyclops Eyepatch, Dead Radio and two tracks by Subterranean Rain. Favourite offerings - Roche's effort (obviously), The Holy Soul's 'Psychotic Notions', Wild Cat Falling's 'Dead Beat Walkabout', and Mickey Gloss' 'Heart Inside My Chest'. The compilation has been put together as a fundraiser for the Refugee Council of Australia - read more here. Not Waving But Drowning is available as a digital download for $5, pick one up here.

Brutally Populating Narrow Lands

Fresh out of the hellwaters that fork from the fiery rivers of Tenzenmen Records and Octopus Pi comes Sydney band Narrow Lands' Popular Music That Will Live Forever. It may surprise some to introduce the four-piece as such, seeing as their self-titled EP, whilst a decidedly dark affair, was a moody crawler with whiffs of post-punk inebriation; this record is much more bottom-end brutality. Heaviness pervades, the feedback much more condensed and foreboding, and whilst the tongue-in-check acerbic barbs still litter the record, this is more than cajoling the masses into the pit - this is lunging out of the shadows with a sledgehammer stuff. I mean, listen to the doom dirge that opens up awesomely-titled first track 'Triple J Drive Time Hit' - it's disturbing in all the right ways, ratcheting up the tension in a way that listeners instinctively know must burst in an avalanche of throat-tearing vitriol. It's electrifying stuff - you can see why they have shared stages with Yes I'm Leaving, for example - and a welcome addition to the burgeoning pantheons of modern Australian noise rock gems.

You can pre-order Popular Music That Will Live Forever here - it doesn't come out until Nov 20 - hopefully Sonic Masala or someone equally as rad can bring these guys kicking and screaming into the Queensland sunlight soon.