Wash Pet Rocks With Healing Crystals, Get Drunk, Eat Sun, Figure It Out

A ridiculously long title, me marrying up the band's first three cuts from their album...ah well. It;s the first week of 2016, and already there's an Exploding In Sound roster album to look forward to. Brooklyn duo Washer are finally prepped to bring out their debut LP, Here Comes Washer, in the latter stages of this month (you can pre-order limited edition orange vinyl here). Like many of the excellent albums on EIS, Washer specialise in grunged out guitar rock that cracked, bent, cryptic, hilarious, garrulous, gritty. The instrumentation and Mike Quigley's vocal delivery immediately evokes Pile, EIS' flagship band (in my opinion anyway). the new one, 'Got Drunk And Ate The Sun', has been launched on Stereogum today, and the other two are below. Look at the plain, naive art weirdness of the cover art too - if you haven't taken in how this is already pushing to be a big album around these here parts, listen harder.

A Distant Fist Krilling

I haven’t been able to sit down and listen to Boston killers Krill's 3rd album A Distant Fist Unclenching since just before it came out back in February (through Steak Club in the UK/Europe - Exploding In Sound/Double Double Whammy had it out there in the US in time for Xmas last year). Not that listening to anything is hard per se, but with my sabbatical from the Sonic Masala website for a couple months I stayed clear of the emails and forgot to put this on the playlist. Now that I am back, I am free to wax lyrical about how great it is, a brooding, off-kilter rainbow-coloured gut punch. Starting with the schizophrenic 'Phantom' - a track that begins with a bustling gait before switching gears and direction two minutes out, wild frontman Jonah Furman's voice getting more unhinged in the higher octaves. It is understandable why there is mutual love for EIS stablemates Pile, what with their communal adherence to outre rhythms and suddenly serrated riffs, combined with lurid, at times gloriously indecipherable metaphors and euphemisms. There are elements of playfulness here that shines out from previous recordings - 'Torturer' is a great launchpad into this shift. It all hinges on the seven-minute 'Tiger' - that distant fist unclenches, the pain goes away, we breathe, we live on. There is a liquidity, an aural succour, to the flightiness and anxieties of the past. Furman may still find pain in internal torments, but Krill are learning to embrace the hurt.

Total Babes In Their Heyday

I'm loving Heydays, the second LP from Ohio (and Cloud Nothings offshoot) Total Babes. It reeks of a slacker guitar pop vibe that Malkmus et al might have nodded nonchalantly to, if they infused their sound with a little more distortion and serration. It isn’t overtly serious though – come on, they are called Total Babes! – and it is this precipice between earnestness, aggression and flippancy that they teeter confidently on. The addition of Emeralds alum John Elliott on synth has infused tracks like 'Repeat Gold' and 'Can I Turn You On' with gravitas while opening up new, unexpected horizon. And Cloud Nothings’ frontman Dylan Baldi pops up on 'Circling', delivering a skronked-out sax throughline that helps to elevate an already nutso track (Elliott's space-invaders effects are most prevalent here also) to a delightful level of aggro intensity.

I actually was reminded of retired Brisbane band Nova Scotia when listening to segments of Heydays, especially tracks like 'We'll Come Around' and the title track. There is a irreverent racket imbued with an innate sense of melody and a sunny disposition that makes the album a blessing, just on the cusp of summer. Pre-order it here (out through Wichita Recordings later this month). Total Babes are supporting the brilliant Pile in London on the 10th and 11th of June (at the Lexington and Old Blue Last respectively) - cannot bloody wait.

Another Lash Of Bloody, Acidic Spray Paint

One of my favourite bands of the last few years has been Austin angular misanthropes Spray Paint. Their self-titled record on SS Records was an unheralded sucker punch of a record; and at the tail end of last year they followed it up with a great 7" on London's Upset The Rhythm label in Cussin and a new album in Clean Blood, Regular Acid. I have spoken about this excellent record already, but feel the need to mention it again as it is being released in Australia this month (through the excellent Homeless Records via Monofonus Press) and it inexplicably slipped through my fingers first time around.

Suffice to say that Spray Paint's third album is a tour de force of rusted and warped guitar, slow yet incessant drums, a fetid heartbeat bass and barbed, deadpan lyrics chanted with narcotic-numbed nonchalance (Homeless' head honcho Richie claimed it as his album of the year in 2014). Kicking off with the discordant twangs of seemingly incompetent musicians, the uneasy metronome that develops into a mordant urgency on opener 'Wet Beer' is maintained for the entirety of the album. 'Texas Talking Powder' comes across like Supersuckers boiled to their basest elements and lit with bare wires; 'Threesomes Can Wait' takes some of the anodyne precision of Disappears, flays it open with the brutality of a drunken butcher while The Cramps and B-52s beat each other to death with their own shoes on the crackling, blood spattered wireless radio.



There is a rich seam of American rock music at the moment that maniacally latches onto the literate outliers, intent to amuse and unseat, to entice and endanger. Parquet Courts are the light; Pile lurk in the dappled shadows; and Spray Paint twitch and mewl in the darkness, seemingly lost of faculties, ranting pitch black platitudes, all the while luring you closer and closer until you wake up, a jittering soothsayer, covered in filth, viscera and arcane words spiked in Nikko. Buy Clean Blood, Regular Acid here - you'll thank me later.

Better Than A Pile of Birthday Fish

Another Feb the 4th, another birthday. Yay. It's dark outside, I'm on my way to work while the rest of the world sleeps (well there are heaps awake but let's keep this dramatic, OK?) I need something to get me over the line. Let's Pile it on then.

The Boston quartet have released another cut from their upcoming album You're Better Than This (out through Exploding In Sound/Fierce Panda Records), and 'Mr Fish' is effortlessly fitful, drawn-out, restless, spaced out, sparse, and crowded. You can't be called Pile if you can't pile it all in to one song. Rick Maguire's agitated-soporific drawl echoes across the bar as he rips out a story of broken thoughts, dreams, glasses - shit I don't know. The sinuous musicianship ripples within itself, turning itself inside out as it chugs and churns, a kaleidoscope of teeth-grinding dexterity that comes from manic expression. Dripping was - is - one of my favourite albums of the past few years, and I cannot fucking wait till this record comes out. If these guys aren't big by the end of this year, it'll be a bloody shame - this is what Modest Mouse used to be to me, and as far as I can say, that is the highest praise I can give this.

Today is gonna be a good day.

Piling It On For A Second Hit Single...

Boston band Pile is one of my favourite finds since I've been writing Sonic Masala - it's highly unlikely I would have heard about them in Australia if it weren't for my connection with the excellent Exploding In Sound Records. Pile's 2012 album Dripping was one of my top albums of that year, and is still one I regularly throw on - a sign of a stellar effort. It may be three years since then, but who's counting when the news hits that their album is only a couple months away? You're Better Than This features the track '#2 Hit Single' and its as frayed, frenetic and fucked up as you'd expect, with Rick Maguire his manic and maniacal self. It's also back to the angular, breakneck pace that Dripping pinned down after getting longer and weirder on their Special Snowflakes 7" earlier last year (which, as you can imagine, is still bloody amazing).

Pre-order You're Better Than This here - expect to hear more about this come March.

Giving A Shandy Toast To The Stranger Nallo (PREMIERE TRACKS)

It's a matter of hours now before Minneapolis four-piece Nallo releases Breather, their follow up LP to 2012's Mechano & The Trees (that I took a shine to). Breather comes out tomorrow, and it is a gold nugget of an album for those lucky enough to discover it - and now that I've blabbed, I hope the stocks rise by one or two people (I think that readership still exists???)

We are pretty stoked to be giving you an exclusive taste of the album with the one-two gullet punch of 'Shandy' and 'Stranger', a diptych that are entwined in their country twang, slow burning elegance and rugged expulsions of noise. The last two minutes of 'Stranger' has me thinking of the Spook Houses and Piles of the world - bloody good company to be keeping I reckon. Pre-order Breather (and listen to a few more choice cuts off the album) here.

Swept Away In Swift Armour

With a name like The Sweeps, I was in danger of immediately writing off this Chicago trio. I have made a habit of poring over every possibly decent release that comes my way though, so I dipped my toe into the waters that is their debut LP Swift Armour - and whilst it may be winter still here (albeit an Aussie winter, particularly a Queensland winter, doesn't often call for layers of clothing), rather than being frozen out, the temperature was just fine. This is raucous, edgy, yet edifying guitar rock - think the more rambunctious fringes of Built To Spill, the dingy breakdowns of Desaparecidos, the sonic sleekness of (dare I say it) early era Arcade Fire, with a lashing of the cantankerous scourings that likeminded bands Pile and Spook Houses to fill out the boisterous recipe. But Swift Armour is emblematic of the trio, staunch Chicago kids, who although not always hitting their mark, spray the speakers with gusto that most of their efforts indelibly stick. When everything explodes is when the band finds traction - a growl and expulsion of emotion that feels visceral and real. I still find it difficult to warm to the name - but dive into this album. It's fine, once you get in...

You can pick up Swift Armour from here.

Beware The Idea Of Cats

A fortnight ago I mentioned British gal Ides' amazing track 'Prisms' - if you can't remember, head here - it's one of the best tracks of the year. Ides (AKA Alanna McArdle) is putting out a split 7" next month, I Like What You Say, out through Reeks Of Effort Records with Brighton's King of Cats, another nom de plume for Maxy Levy. Levy's solo (and sometimes band) venture is a bit more cantankerous, a bit more obtuse, a bit more cacophonous - a grumpy moggy sitting in the sun, swatting at dust motes as they float in and out of sight, distracting it from stalking another pesky squirrel in the backyard. Self-described as "screamy folk", Levy's vocals come across as harsh, sawblade grinding, screeches into the open fins of a pedestal fan, before they settle into the swirling clatter and din to feel at home. This has a chug and distorted groove that the Boston bands I've been into of late (Pile, Spook Houses, Grass Is Green) harbour, which is also great. It's all a little unhinged, and there is something joyous in all that. 

Yin and yang? Maybe - but these deceptive troubadours are drenched in the emotive, tearing out your hair, heart and lungs - soulmates in lopsided chagrin. Pre-order I Like What You Say here.

Eating Krill in Spook Houses

I decided to jam these two releases together fairly tenuously (and what's with my needy penchant for East Coast rock bands at the moment?). Lucky Leaves is the new record from trio Krill, and its goddamn rad. It has the Jawa-esque cover art; the band have their own theme tune ("Krill Forever" indeed); Jonah Furman's vocals, whilst quirky and off-kilter, are alluring in their feverish imploring ways; perfect placement of noise and space, time changes and fades, air to breathe and cement to suffocate in; and the basslines are crystal, something you don't always have in these days' records. The drumming serves the songs, not as a driver or a destroyer, but as a guide, showing the guests in the right direction. I'm clearly a sucker for this slightly downer, brooding, off-kilter rock (see - Spook Houses, Pile, Ovlov, Fat History Month...); the Boston region has an abundance of them; and Krill have quite rightly risen to the top echelons of the pack. You can buy Lucky Leaves here (out through Sippy Cup Everything) - I know I am.

One of the surprise albums of last year was the aforementioned New Jersey band Spook Houses' Trying LP. Well the four-piece have some new stuff on the way in the form of a split with the also-aforementioned Fat History Month through Double Double Whammy Records (you can pre-order it here). Here there is a bit of a switcheroo though, with Spook Houses heading down a fuzzier, cozier, quirk-pop spin-out. It's bare, Robert Pollard/Jeff Mangum coaxing stuff - and whilst it doesn't have the hooks in abundance that 'American' used to slay me, it is the perfect curveball that this kind of 7" allows a band to throw. The static intro and the incessant fuzz throughout sits beautifully too when you put the headphones on. Thanks guys.

Rocking Cosmic Exploding Porches

(photo by Jessica Lehremans)

Exploding In Sound are figuratively (and probably literally) blowing up with their recent releases, with both Fat History Month and especially Ovlov offering stellar records of late. That doesn't mean the label has exhausted the coffers however.

New York's Porches. are releasing their debut LP Slow Dance In The Cosmos late August, and it's a corker. Swinging inexplicably between 60s pop rock, maudlin campfire musings, reverb-heavy Casiotunes, wonky slacker euphemisms and a lead in Aaron Maine who sounds like a cross between Mark Koselek and Brandon Flowers (similar to their labelmates Fat History Month - well, except for the Brandon Flowers reference. I feel I should clarify isn't a backhanded compliment - Flowers and his cronies had the inkling of something in those first two albums, which the excellent collab with Lou Reed verified, before they decided they would rather be U2). Intro song and single 'Headsgiving' is fantastic, even though the opening riff sounds not that dissimilar from another (ex)labelmate Speedy Ortiz' 'Silver Spring'. That is part of the charm of Porches. - that despite the genre hopping (the spazz-synth faux RnB of 'After Glow'; the faux MOR ramble of 'Franklin The Flirt' - just a lot of fauxs really, with tongue planted in concrete in the cheek), Maine manages to anchor it into a skewed world where everything is aligned and in its right place, for better or worse depending on the abuse being suffered or inflicted, a tawdry scratched out existence. Slow Dance In The Cosmos is its own beast, inhabiting the same cracked, homespun world that Exploding In Sound seems to be cultivating whilst ensuring their environment is invariably their own.

Pre-order Slow Dance In The Cosmos here - it's a keeper.

Porches. - Headsgiving
Porches. - Franklin The Flirt

I Am Ovlov

I love it when you throw an album on with 0% knowledge of what is about to assault you - and it ends up being mindblowing. Massachusetts label Exploding In Sound have an uncanny knack of slinging unknown entities my way that have pulled the rug out from under me - Pile, Fat History Month and Speedy Ortiz have all graced their stable at some stage. I have been listening to Am, the debut LP from the Newtown Connecticut upstarts Ovlov, for a few weeks, but missed the boat on writing about them before the album was released last week.  The band can't help but wallow in the holy waters of Dinosaur Jr ('Grapes', the crushing 'Blue Baby') and Archers of Loaf ('Really Bees'), melding molten distortion with insidious melody - preternatural pop tunes for those with chronic tinnitus. Come for the noise; stay for the lack of pretension, the weary warmth, the all-you-can-eat harmonic buffet. Abject 90s predilections never felt so right as they do here.

Am is a killer gift that keeps on giving. Have at it here. Ovlov have been playing some great shows Stateside recently, not least with SM faves PAWS and Speedy Ortiz, and seeing as Speedy Ortiz seems about to explode (more on that soon), let's hope these guys follow suit.

Ovlov - Milk
Ovlov - Where's My Dini

Rad History Month

Back in 2011, I was enamoured by Fucking Despair, a small release by Boston's Fat History Month, specifically the title track (it made our best songs for the year). This song still slays me. It is acoustic desperation excellence bar none, the kind that sweeps you away. There is a slight Australian connection with these guys also, seeing as their Safe & Sound 7" came out on Brisbane's Bedroom Suck Records the same year (you can still buy it here). The band have a LP out, Bad History Month (on Exploding In Sound/Sophomore Lounge), and it continues the duo's scattershot imagery interspersed with whimsical angst, shambolic regrets and enough rustic bombast and flippant half-jokes to fill a fleet of freak-folk flotillas, only to sink them all as they come within eyesight of the shore. Psychedelic breakdowns for the straight-edged, or pop for the deranged - either way, Fat History Month are possibly one of the most underrated acts that I have come across since I started Sonic Masala. Their songs are the kinds that you come back to time and again - and in an age of disposable art, this is mighty high praise.

You can buy Bad History Month here - it comes with a 6" x 9" 30 page illustrated lyric comic book and an 11" x 17" poster all drawn by Adric Giles. And like their good labelmates Pile and their album from last year Dripping, they don't make such rambling, discordant indie rock like this anymore - maybe they never did. A very good album that deserves much higher kudos than it's ever going to receive.

Fat History Month - Bad History Month
Fat History Month - Bald History Month
Fat History Month - Everyday Is Christmas

A Dripping Sex Pile

 

Wow. Talk about an Internet-baiting headline...

There are moments when you discover bands that are good from the first note, and after living wit the music for a few days, or even hours, it becomes ingrained in your sonic psyche for forever more. Then there are bands that are insidious, their pull imperceptible, worming its way into your central core until your dreamscapes and nightmares are scored by their apocryphal affectations.

But occasionally there comes a song or album that blows you away so unexpectedly that everything changes. We all have at least one of these transcendental moments in our lives, where a song, a voice, a riff, a roll, a drone, a scream, smashes its imprint on your soul, and you spend the rest of your life reliving that moment. It would certainly be rash to put a small band from Boston into my list, but Pile's 3rd record Dripping blindsided me so completely that I had gravel rash underneath my chin AND my tongue. It’s probably futile to describe this album, but I’ll briefly try.

From the raw energy of opener ‘Baby Boy’, this record never lets up, incorporating the indie rock of the 90s (when it truly was independent) with a crunchier, heavier edge and hair-on-your-chest yowls from frontman Rick Maguire that evokes a simpler, grungier Modest Mouse who are most definitely still on the self-flagellation and sauce downward spiral.

Dripping comes from recording the album in Philadelphia in the middle of summer, and the heat, sweat, anguish and ephemeral base emotions comes bleeding out of these tracks. Even when things slow down (‘Prom Song’, ‘Bubblegum’) there is a feverish itch that pervades, albeit one that has you grinning maniacally. And when they kick it into an addictive rhythmic gear as they do with ‘Bump A Grape’, ‘The Jones’ and the acidic ‘Grunt Like A Pig’, it takes all your might to stop from tearing your own face off with glee. This may sound all perfunctory and stupid, but that is the power of these songs over me. I struggle to comprehend the power that these guitar lines, insistent bass and rumbling drums have over me. And that wail…

When you wake from a dream where your band was playing these songs, and they killed – thus its your subconsciousness telling you that your band will never make songs as good as these in real life – then you know you have something pretty great on your hands.

There have been quite a few bands that have stirred me in this fashion this year – Spook Houses, Tiny Spiders, Dikes of Holland, Grass Cannons, Plateaus, Iowa, Looks Like Miaou, Invisible Things, PAWS, Scott & Charlene’s Wedding, Post Teens, Sleepies, and I'm leaving a few out – and it’s these moments, just as much as when a feverishly anticipated release like GY!BE, Ty Segall or Swans slays mightily, that keeps the faith burning bright.

A glowing review? Sure. Dripping isn’t perfect by any means – but that makes it even better, because the next album could be bullshit good, and that’s worth living for.

 

Pile’s Dripping can be gleaned via Exploding In Sound Records here.