Aural Australia #2 - Apocalyptic Gifting

Christmas garbage filling the outer aisles of the supermarket, all while Trump rattles the doorway to Hell and we are dragged behind him in a hand basket. I am hoping that Tim Allen does another Santa Clause film, but it's set in the future with Furiousa helping him deliver presents to chroming baldies and models dressed in hessian and prosthetic pregnancies. At least there is hope in that future...Oh, and then there is music. There is always music...

New Brisbane label Coolin' By Sound (run by two of the raddest people ever, Belly and Shell) have two releases coming out this month, with some even bigger announcements on the way. First cab off the rank though is SM favourites Thigh Master, who release their debut LP Early Times today. It's been a long time coming - Thigh Master have been scarring the land with their scuffed, scuzzed and skewed guitar pop for almost five years now. It's an old offering in some ways - originally recorded in 2013, then redone when grand Dag Dusty Anastassiou layered more guitar over the top. The songs include contributions from multiple members across their revolving ensemble (the four piece have seen six incarnations, with Matt Ford and Pat Byron the mainstays throughout) and perfectly encapsulates the loose frivolity and looser hooks lathering their live sets. The band have made lackadaisical lambasted and loose-limbed jams seem both effortless yet frantic - 'Company', 'Treehouse A.P.' and closer 'Flat City' being golden examples. But there are times when they lose the slacker cap and try more melancholic, laconic speeds - the Brisbane downer drawl of 'Brunno Brawl', the Superchunk via Dunedin cheesed melt of 'Canned Opening', the languid malaise of 'Baroona'. The solo 'Hassa Been' is a cracked bay croon, caught on the back deck in the inner suburbs, 44 seconds of lightweight browbeating. Pretty indicative of all facets of what makes Thigh Master an indelible part of the Brisbane musical landscape. Get Early Times here.

Craig Dermody's Scott and Charlene's Wedding releases Mid Thirties Single Scene on Bedroom Suck and Fire Records, and it's a shaping up to be his best effort yet. His band has solidified to include members of Terrible Truths and Beaches and uber producer Jack Farley, and there is a muscularity to the musicianship this time around that, rather than showing a rock lash out or change in direction, it shows a confidence in the laconic, lugubrious, whimsical nature of ambling through the world tasting simple pleasures and grinding down the hours that comes with maturity. I am talking about music of course - Craig will always be a knockabout journeyman in life, taking knocks and giving back a languid grin - and what more can you ask for? 'Maureen' and 'Don't Bother Me' are already classics in the making, which bodes well for their upcoming album and Euro tour - Ill be catching the guys at Brunedell Social Club in Leeds on October 22, but there will be ample opportunities to catch them across the continent.





Now to another supergroup of sorts. Melbourne's God Squad features members of Cobwebbs, Black Vacation, The Kremlings and Sewer Side, and take on a woozy lounge groove take on post-punk doom and gloom. It was very much a time-and-place collaboration, but on the strength of these off-cuts the dudes should make this a bit more of a concern. There is gold in them thar hills, gentlemen...

I intend to do a much more in-depth look at this artist later on in the year, but I am so glad to hear that Greg Charles is releasing new music again. Having flitted around the edges of Brisbane music scene for over a decade in the likes of Blonde Cobra, Charles Curse, 6Magick9 and the Ex-Catholics, Charles has been an enigmatic yet fleeting presence, each appearance full of cracked genius, pastoral awe carved out of personal anguish, tragedy, punishment and redemption. Those who have heard his as-yet-unreleased 2007 album The Wrecking Moon have rued the fact that Charles' spiked and ambling, wasted yet eloquent rock hasn't been embraced by more. He has taken himself out of the limelight and has been fairly prolific; and in December he will be releasing his first release under his own name, Rough Music, recorded with Ben Thompson (The Rational Academy, Pale Earth) and Cam Smith (Ghost Notes, Tape/Off) on band duties. Highly literate about bruising ennui and catharsis, filled both with gutting hubris and garish gallows humour, Charles' songs will make you laugh, cry, and be happy to be alive. I will write more as the album comes to the fore, but in the meantime, here is a taste of what's to come...

One of my all time favourite artists in Australia right now is one of its weirdest outliers - Orlando Furious. The Melbourne provocateur has now moved into the hinterland of Queensland's Sunshine Coast, but his warped sense of humour riding a gnarled seductive lysergic techno ooze is firmly, synthetically intact. 'Sedyouse' is the perfect example of the cracked genius that OF is capable of. Every line is barbed with sardonic wit fused with silliness, but the beats are real - these songs are designed to bewitch. Performance art which revels in acerbic hilarity and ridiculousness - it's Liars for the Bi-Lo generation. I fucking love it.

It's fitting then to segue into Yaws' newie, 'Yuek', seeing as Orlando Furious both stars and directed the video. The techno noisenik is now back in London, but his sojourn back in Australia has only helped to fuse his warped dystopias with a wider zeal... Doubt is an amazing 12" (the first release from Purely Physical, you can get it here), and this video does everything to amplify the dazzling weirdness. The Squatter board game? Cyclone screen doors? Yaws google searches, thus promotion within promotion? Orlando trance dances? A ball pein hammer? A candle in a bar fridge? The ritual to be Yaws is complete.

Let's finish on brand new band Life Strike, who features members of Deaf Wish, Dollar Bar and The Rational Academy. The first sounds to come out of this collaboration merges The Kinks, The Chills and The Cannanes, with a smidgen of Robert Forster there as well - warm hooks that feel evergreen, yet with a 90s Gaslight Radio-meets-Sekiden geeky-pop-with-an-edge opaqueness that throws shadows over the pastel tones. This is likely to become murkier - the boys promise apocalyptic visions mixed with noise rock and punk as well. But for now, ride these two bliss bomb waves like Snake Plissken and Peter Fonda.

Melting Focus

Cassette label Whalesmouth (Cool Sounds, Cat Cat) have put two great releases out over the past couple of months. I'm going to start with Theta Waves, the debut album for Melt, the solo guise for Jordan Rodgers from Wives (another release that slipped through Sonic Masala's clutches...) It's a stunning suite of spartan motorik guitar jams that coalesces in weird and wonderful ways, with the creme de la creme of Canberra's musicians offering their dulcet tones over the top. It winds sinuously from the seductively sparse 'Wait' to the percolating march of 'Sydney To Canberra' (which reminds me of Mark McGuire's Innertube efforts), the mid-career Blonde Redhead post-punk of 'Good Form' or the deliciously off-kilter 'Ancestor' (featuring the ever excellent work from Orlando Furious).

Then there is Rastrejo, another moniker, this time for Spanish musician Jose Guerrero. His band Cuello blew me away with their last album Mi Brazo Que Te Sobre (read about it here), and have another on the way. But Lamina Focal is just one of many albums Guerrero has put out under his own steam, and the first on the Melbourne label (and their first international release). It's an experimental drone blast that is far removed from Cuello's grooves - a jagged tantric spiral into chaotic sonic prisms of affected light, the kind of cyclical drone that would echo in a never ending Vaseline-lensed Giallo yellow and red drenched fever dream

Girls Scrying On Girls Scrying

If there is one thing that is always assured, it's that a Girls Pissing On Girls Pissing release is going to be dark, garish, disturbing, visceral and seductive - something like an Argento film, directed by David Cronenberg circa '79, from a script co-written by Ben Wheatley and the Soska Sisters. The band played one of my favourite ever Sonic Masala shows back a few years ago now (also playing - Orlando Furious, Adam Cadell/Tony Irving and Blank Realm side-project Huge Nudes - truly unhinged night). I love these guys, their stilted, dark goth noise always a multimedia concern, with zines, books and artwork intrinsically entwined with the twisted sonics on display. Scrying In Infirmary Architecture is all of this, and more. There is the haunting sultry strike of 'A Fraud, Abroad', the most "accessible" the band have truly been (you could see this being called post-punk, even), an oddly beautiful track. 'Beyond The 12th House' and the excellent 'Pollen Moon' are more in sync to what GPOGP do best - with guitarist/madman Casey Latimer howling out obtuse and disturbing lyrics over visceral, giallo-esque instrumentation that inevitably pierces the sinister mood with spikes of cantankerous noise. 'Darwinning' is even more brutal, flaying and flagellating, with Steven Huf's trumpet a slow yet somehow seductive boil low down in the mix; while 'Scrying' is an uneasy melding of the two extremes. Catherine Cumming's plodding drumming is inexorable, the inevitable pull into the mouth of madness, aided by Huf's bass that seems at once easy, obvious, uncompromising and off-kilter - and I have no idea how that can be true, but that's how it plays out. Ak Buk's vocals are less screaming here than they were on Eeling, their last album, more intent on enticing us down a Gothic wormhole on the aforementioned 'A Fraud, Abroad' and 'Ceramic Miscarriages' (which sounds a lot like defunct Perth band and one of my faves of the last ten years, Snowman). Then there is the weird pop bliss of 'Rainbow Islands' which I can't help but feel like is a cover - I'm pretty sure it isn't, but it sounds so different from what's come before, and  yet is quintessentially GPOGP in every way (including the yacht-rock sax solo at the end, which to me makes this track all the more otherworldly). Finishing with 'Scissoring', another track that sonically feels like an urban nightmare giallo score, with added vocals by Shaun Ryder, Scrying In Infirmary Architecture is one weird, glorious ride. You will feel unclean after listening, irrevocably changed, possessed. You will feel the internal mark of the devil and will repeat in an endless mantra - "I love Girls Pissing On Girls Pissing." Get Scrying In Infirmary Architecture through Muzai Records here or here.

PREMIERE - Primary Colours Keep It Basic With Compact Disc (VIDEO)

Today I kiss the ground of Australian soil for the first time in nine months - AND IT FELT SO GOOD. Ill be offline for a few days as I lose myself in the Victorian countryside (and head to Golden Plains too), so let's welcome each other into a warm embrace by premiering the new Primary Colours video, 'Compact Disc'. It's their scrappy post punk nonsense, which gets heady and serrated if suitably loose, but the looped, VHS faded, cartoon cigarettes, smiles and starts-imposed clip is its own streamlined beast.

Primary Colours are about to embark on a tour to launch their Compact Disc/Services Rendered 7" release:

March 14th @ The Phoenix Pub Canberra w/ Bare Grillz 

March 20th @ Black Wire Records w/ Sadfaces + Twin Rover 

March 22nd @ The Grace Darling Hotel for Minimum Wage w/ Orlando Furious.

High and Mightily Furious

I spoke about High And Mighty, Melbourne's resident genius weirdo Orlando Furious' new tape (out through Cinnamon Records), briefly when vibing out on his 'Fresh' video. But I really think High and Mighty needs more recognition.

I'll start with 'Dogs' the last song on side A. Why? Because I can't figure out if Orlando is doing some weird British Caribbean quasi accent. Because when he says 'Who gave me constables?' it sounds like he is saying cunts. Because when he says 'Who gave me dogs from the east?' he immediately ratifies the statement by saying 'Obviously I'm not being serious but, like, who told me about the dogs from the east?' Will the brain be expected to fail? The songs winds down with warped voices echoing over Orlando, the oxygen being weaned, stolen, suppressed, expunged. The static beats maintaining a narcotic pulse until it becomes erratic, then stops. It's kinda dumb, but also kinda genius. And that is High and Mighty, and indeed Orlando Furious, to a tee. The aberrant yet charismatic vocal rants are at once absurdist, nonsensical and rapturous. His is an addictive presence. The slightly sinister beats/rhythms (which are great all the way through High and Mighty, by the way) of 'Assets' propels the forever-on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown vocal stressings of Orlando to a plateau where he overlooks us all - as he is no coward, no drifter - he is 'the master'. Hot tamales, anyone?

Even when 'Peace' is nothing but a coalescing disturbance, a tape-loop explosion, it falls into a VHS vortex of Korine-like despair and gurning grotesqueries. And hearing 'Fresh' as the closing statement rather than on its own, it underscores my initial correlation with Liars - but I feel like this is more truly 'experimental', pushing aural, lyrical and physical barriers rather than setting the quirk flag in weird yet nonetheless familiar territory (and I love Liars). This stuff will always be an acquired taste for many - but Orlando, give me your 'Porkrawl' any day of the fucked-up week.

Dissolve yourself in High and Mighty here. Orlando Furious' next hit is supporting Old Mate launch their excellent LP It Is What It Is this Saturday at The Tote in Melbourne (also with Cool Sounds) - get there early if you know what's good for you.

Video Vacuum - Crystal Stilts, Orlando Furious, Invisible Threads, Naked Bodies

Here is an old(ish) Video Vacuum that I've been meaning to post for about a month and forgot about, slipped through the cracks of time etc etc. Sorry about the delay. But now revel in some A/V madness...

One of the first interviews I ever did was with New York's psychers Crystal Stilts early in 2011. I was recording from home, had just bought a dictaphone (that I still use) and was interviewing singer Brad Hargett as the band tripped from Austin to New Orleans. It was a disaster - the mobile phone played havoc with the frequencies of the dictaphone so I had to try and shorthand on a small scrap of paper as Hargett spoke. People who know me can attest that my writing is pretty abysmal at the best of times, so it took a hell of a lot of deciphering and second-guessing to get the article to come to light. It's actually a pretty good end product. Mainly because i loved the band so much, and the experience, so it all stuck with me. If I had to interview some pop punk band again and that shit went down, I'd probably think "Fuck it" and walk out of the room. ANYway, we now come to their video for the excellent, EXCELLENT song 'Star Crawl' from last year's Nature Noir LP. Vistas in washed out colours, inverted colours, UV raided rays. It fits the wasted malaise of this "ballad" perfectly. As an added bonus, here is a more punked-up track, in line with where they are headed next...

And now for something completely different...

Melbourne's Orlando Furious recorded this back in June. It's on his fresh EP (watch this space regarding that...). Ben is a performance artist, there is no doubting that - but not only is the film clip suitably weird and crazy, but the track 'Fresh' is emblematic of the kind of lo-fi electronic nonsense that ...So We Drowned era Liars revelled and excelled in. It's an amazing song, and proves that Orlando Furious could very well be a fucking genius.

Here is a duo from Auckland playing a warped drone pop a la Wooden Shjips being bled out into the veins of Japandroids (yes I'm into my band comparisons today - sue me). Its standard band-playing-in-a-room fare, with footage projected over them, weird unrelated footage woven together, some slightly Satanic imagery subliminally jumping forth. Above all its a loud as all get out song that really promises a lot. The scrawling squall at the last ten seconds that shows the underbelly of Invisible Threads as masked madmen is a nice touch also.

And let's finish with another guitar feedback heavy song, this one in the stretched out cosmic psych variety, from another Melbourne outfit, Naked Bodies. Another clip relying on incredible editing of bizarre archival footage. And again, when done right like it is here, it is some of the most evocative, alluring, hallucinogenic imagery that you can imagine, and infinitely heightens the appeal of 'Ride On'. In fact the clip is so good it actually supersedes the song. Not a bad thing - it means I have heard 'Ride On' twice as much (if not more) than I would have had the footage not been there. 

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!