Don't Mind The Twerps

My anticipation for Twerps' new album Range Anxiety just went up a couple hundred notches after hearing new cut 'I Don't Mind', a perambulating roller that incrementally builds, a lopsided grin and assured saunter intermittently broken by cascading sunlight. Martin Frawley has mined a rich seam of songwriting in holding onto internal doubts and brandishing them like shields against external threats - a self-galvanising force, inherently radiating with lackadaisical light. It's what makes each Twerps release such an ebullient event.

Gettin' Me Some Free Time

Our current predilection with jangly slacker rock that is slowed to an amble, tin in one hand and Centrelink rejection letter in the other, has been striking a chord globally - the success of the likes of Twerps, Dick Diver and Scott & Charlene's Wedding in particular are testament to this. These bands are going on European and US jaunts, plus getting picked up and taken home by Pitchfork and the likes - dirty stop-outs. But it makes sense that by throwing your love around willy-nilly, you will eventually mete out praise to something that deserves it, so kudos to them.

Before this post disappears into waffle mumblecore, I'm stating all this because the trend doesn't look to be abating, and ex-pats are now taking it to the international man as well. Free Time is a Melbourne four-pieces featuring Dion Nania (of Panel Of Judges fame, who also has played with S&CW and Twerps in the past), and their relocation to the Big Apple hasn't blunted their influences at all. Their debut LP (out through Underwater Peoples) has been doing the rounds for the past couple of months, I feel it warrants another mention. Why? Because it's a cracker - not content to move at its own pace, the album goes slower than even it seems wont to do, then speeding  up and slowing down like awkward lovers. I love it. You can understand why the Kurt Vile comparisons have been made too - although Free Time remains decidedly Antipodean. The song 'Nothin But Nice' rolls along like a merry narcoleptic on a beach-bound road trip, with an able and willing accomplice steering from the passenger seat when things become too much. Deliberately ramshackle yet always in control - it's a difficult thing to harness and maintain, yet Free Time have all the time in the world to get it right and make it their own.

Free Time can be gleaned here - well worth it.

Weird Wives Swear And Drone On A Lot

The incredibly abrasive alter ego of Surfer Blood, Weird Wives put out some insidious little demos earlier this year that got under the skin and into your cerebral vortex, shutting everything down whilst flooding the blood stream with endorphins. Not a bad way to get rigor mortis on I suppose. Well they have just released an album, and the title is killer - Motherfuckers Gonna Be Walking 'Round With a Size 9 Diehard up Their Ass, Cause Apparently They Ain't Never Seen a Short AC Man Get Bad Ass on Methadone. Someone's looking to piss off mummy and daddy...

It still follows in the Jesus Lizard mold, but has a slower, more lethargic grind to it. In some ways this works to their detriment, for all you want is a proper explosion of fury and intent, rather than such constrained, fitful fare. But there are some tasty tracks on offer, no less 'Plastic Masks' which is all yours below. The Pitchfork review is pretty hasty in my opinion, but then I haven't lived with the album for that long. Still - I'd hedge my bets it's a better stayer than those guys are letting on... It's out on West Beach Beotches now.

Weird Wives - Plastic Masks

WTF Music

I have no idea what just happened.

The last 42 minutes I have stopped all I have doing - nearly stopped breathing, in fact - because all faculties were necessary to try to compute just what was going on in Ullakkopalo, the LP by Finnish uber altered chic-a-zoid Kemialliset Ystavad. That actually sounds harsh, but for well over a decade, Ystavad has done all he can to subvert everything music has to offer. And Ill tell you now - no matter what anyone (Pitchfork, Quietus, Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio, Ystavad himself, or me - which makes this post kind redundant) tells you, its not what you are about to embark upon when you slip this on and press PLAY.

This is the second artist from Tampere, Finland that Ive posted about these past few weeks (the other being sludge monsters Consciousness Removal Project, which is also so worth your time), and Im starting to think that I need to go back there - if only to freeze my brain to the extent where I can orchestrate fucked up genius like this. Finnish for 'chemical friends', Kemialliset Ystavad (AKA Jan Anderzen, a creative arts junkie whose avid works include installations, photography and film) has taken the electro-acoustic approach to the conventions of folk, then eschews those conventions to display a suite of sound that has every element - squeak, squelch, gleep, glitch, bleep, bump, wail, wheeze - out of place, yet together, like a million piece jigsaw puzzle, making sense only when everything is in its right place. And the listener feels just like the puzzler when that final piece is hammered home - the sensations of disbelief, relief, and utter satisfaction pervades throughout. Its weird, because within this miasma is a semblance of sense - but, just like a Magic Eye apparition, it takes all your focus to see the light. And yet you will see the light - the orchestration here is at times breathtaking in its scope and breath, at others grin-inducing at its innate simplicity. This is what Tunng might sound like if they were possessed by early 00s Animal Collective, or what Panda Bear might broach if Beck, Nick Drake and John McEntire were his spiritual totems.

Im about to play Ullakkopalo again, for the third time (its been playing its second route whilst I type this). It mightn't surprise you that Anderzen has worked with mum in the past. If only I had a bowl of weed and a mug of peyote... Actually, that would make my mind cave in. Just trust me when I say that this album is the wildest trip Ive experienced this year.

Ullakkopalo is out now through Fonal, which is a label well worth checking out - its the best place to get your mitts on Finnish experimental music that isnt Black metal, therefore its wonderfully weird and weirdly wonderful.

Kemialliset Ystavad - Ystavalliset Miekat
Kemialliset Ystavad - Kivikasan Rauhassa

The Sun Sets…to bring on a (much belated) Magnetic Morning

One of the surprise delights of the music calendar for 2009 was seeing underrated 90s indie shoegaze gods Swervedriver lose none of their power as they blew away all comers at ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas.

One of my all time favourite festival gigs was in 2005. Splendour in the Grass, Australia’s premier multi-day outdoors festival, always has a stellar line-up. And amongst the awesomeness of that year, the clear standout was NYC’s new upstarts, Interpol.

With Interpol quietly lurking in the shadows as their new LP looms to launch, and Swervedriver strengthening their fan base with many big line shows since reforming in 2008, I thought that now was a good time to harken back a year or two to look at a collaborative effort that has been morbidly maligned, and sadly overlooked, in equal measures.

Back in 2006 these two forces combined – well, of sorts. Interpol skinsman Sam Fogarino and Swervedriver’s voice Adam Franklin, linked by a mutual friend, formed the Setting Suns, later changing their creative collective’s name to Magnetic Morning soon after. They released a self titled EP in 2007, followed by their only album A.M. late in 2008. The music has divided - never moreso than in the two heavyweights of internet music, Pitchfork and Drowned in Sound, which raped and raved respectively. Anyway, make up your own mind. It may not eclipse anything the two members' day jobs have put out, but it is worthy of airplay in its own right. It drones along, but with a weightlessness that positively shimmers, with the occasional guttural squall to quell that Swervedriver thirst... Im a bit of a fan, anyways.

Oh, and futher Swervedriver news - Adam Franklin continues to pump out the solo stuff. I Could Sleep For A Thousand Years comes out later this year through Second Motion.

Magnetic Morning - Motorway

Magnetic Morning - Indian Summer

Nothing wrong with being the black sheep

Ive had to frantically surf the blogosphere the past few days, as the glut of new music/news/gigs/albums that sits on my desk threatens to envelop my house, and my life. Not necessarily a bad thing, mind - and the fact that I no longer have a phone has allowed for uninterrupted immersion, and definitely to give all and sundry the undivided attention it deserves.

Suckers isnt necessarily a 'new' band - they have been championed by the likes of Pitchfork, and were Stereogum's 'band to watch' back this time last year - but they are about to make an impact with the release of their debut album, Wild Smile, on June 8 via Frenchkiss, home of the likes of The Hold Steady, Cut Off Your Hands, Freelance Whales and Ex Models. They have borne references to the likes of Yeasayer, but I think that is pretty disparaging - especially as I think Yeasayer are grossly overrated. Be that as it may, I really enjoyed their EP of last year, and if 'Black Sheep' is anything to go by (and apparently it is - many comments on this track is that its far from the best on the album), Suckers is something you should not miss out on. The track reminds me hugely of Wolf Parade at their skewed best, with more danceable accessibility, hence their support slots for MGMT last year.

And lastly - the boys did a mega rad of death cover of Raveonette's anti-rape song 'Boys Who Rape (Deserve To Be Destroyed)', which firmly entrenches Suckers as poll position holders for band to watch this year.

Suckers - Black Sheep

Suckers - Boys Who Rape (Deserve To Be Destroyed)