Aural Australia #3 - Feral Ferocity

Life is rough and stuff. Time to get feral.

Ausmuteants won't give a shit what I write here anyway. The Melbourne punk wastoids have made that abundantly clear with their track 'Music Writers' off new record Band Of The Future (out now through Aarght!) - an acerbic vomit that pierces the bubble on critics, both of the page and from within the scene. But you can never take these guys seriously - the album title alone throws shade on their Devo shadings, carving themselves of the Marty McFly's of proto-punk's past, flitting back and forward, changing history by deliberately crushing bugs, ripping off butterflies' wings, and beating mouthbreathers at their own game. Plus BOTF builds on last record Order of Operation's clarity, injecting the slicker sonics with familiar spit, pace and leers. The rants and tantrums are as visceral and zanily ridiculous as we have come to expect, yet even more infectious, like a sandblasted canker, with that rank synth whirr throwing us into the surreal and absurd. Nailgun blasts of punk that leaves slackjawed wonder in its wake, with bumps of T-Rex glam and Boggles wrongness to ingest. In short, brilliant. (But what does any of this even mean? What the fuck would I know? Just listen to it already.)

The Peep Tempel released one of Sonic Masala's favourite albums of 2015, Tales, and one of the most underrated rock acts in the country are back with a killer song and video for 'Rayguns'. A bullshit crazy newslogue purge with rolling-news lyrics, .gif ready stock clips fused to the band revelling in their zero-fucks chicanery. It comes from 3rd LP Joy, which promises to get deep into the human psyche and wade maniacally in the roiling chaos. There are still a great degree of Australian grotesquery and humour in their offerings though - opener 'Kalgoorlie' alone lends whiffs of Wake In Fright horror. And while we are at it, below this excellent video is another taste of the album (out later this month through Wing Sing Records), 'Totality'.

Screamfeeder closing out our second Sonic Masala Fest is still (and will always remain) a defining moment in my life. The band have continued to play together and release the periodic new song since re-releasing their albums on vinyl through Poison City Records, and 'Karen Trust Me' is the latest ebullient slice. They have their miasmic noise pop down pat - every chord change, swelling squall, cymbal crash and Steward/Lloyd harmony is present and accounted for, embedded with myriad hooks of all persuasions that it is impossible to remain impervious to its charms. It's enough to keep the withdrawal at bay until their promised 8th album in 2017.

Back to the insanity then. Melbourne punk messes Mesa Cosa have crafted a pagan travesty for their film clip for new track 'Stone Bone'. Still riding the serrated ridge between raucous psychedelic and fucked-up garage rock, the madmen don marsupial, Ex-President and Simpsons masks while running rank in the wilderness, destroying their instruments, TVs and other paraphernalia to climax in a jerrycan-fuelled bonfire for the ages. The boys spend a good portion of the time with their heads impaled on sticks too. They have sold their soul, sacrificed their body bags, and lost their minds - all for our eternal benefit.

Members of Freak Wave, Iowa and Camp Cope join forces to travel back in time to flannel fuzz Valhalla in TV Haze, an act inimitably indebted to Dinosaur Jr in both rambling guitar rock and dry, warbled vocal delivery. The 90s throwbacks continue, but with this self-titled effort it feels warranted, a welcome addition that climbs to the upper echelons of their contemporaries, yet steeped in Australian music nostalgia. They are playing some massive shows in Melbourne next month too supporting the aforementioned Screamfeeder as well as playing alongside SM faves Pale Heads, Ouch My Face and Summer Flake.

We will finish with post-punks Gold Class who are making their way back to Europe after a successful stint over here earlier in the year. New track 'Kids On Fire' feels (to me at least) a mix between obvious signifiers (Joy Division, The Smiths) and more rugged outliers (slowed motorik Hey Colossus, and The Spinning Rooms - really! - with the little guitar lick that strikes me like Joe's saxophone - maybe I just miss those guys so much). The film clip IS Gold Class - black and white, smoked lens, white on black, Venetian shadow, strobe glare. Urgent earnestness. The guys play in London at The Victoria October 26 with The Bodies - it looks to be a tense affair.

Screamfeeder Brings The Crowd

Earlier this year, in the second Sonic Masala Fest, I fulfilled a bucket list moment by getting Brisbane legends Screamfeeder to headline. They even finished with two of my favourite tracks, 'Stopless' and 'Bridge Over Nothing'. They have joined up with Poison City Records to reissue all of their albums on vinyl too. And I thought that was it - that was the best that could happen.

I was wrong.

The trio have 'Alone In A Crowd' to hit us in the face with - their first new song in 10 years. It is Screamfeeder, straight out of cryogenic slumber, as fresh and fierce and infectious as ever. If this is the entree, bring on the Last Supper. Pick up this brilliant song with two other newies ('Rules Of Attraction' and 'I'm Fighting') here. And long may Screamfeeder reign.

Held Over And Over At The Sunset Club

Melbourne's The Sunset Club are prepping for their first physical release real soon, and here is a taste from it. Frontman Dougie Arnott was a great help for this year's Sonic Masala Fest, helping us out over the weekend with gruntwork and positive vibes, and the band opened the Pre-Sonic Masala show at The Bearded Lady alongside Tape/Off, Turnpike and Dead Farmers. The two tracks here are punchy, both evoking the 90s guitar rock that proliferated the land and more brooding, propulsive fare as seen on B-Side 'Over & Over', with Arnott's howl taking you by the throat. Solid stuff.

Someone In The Major Leagues, Sometime

Brisbane mellow guitar pops Major Leagues have punched above their weight again with 'Someone Sometime', a dreamy mid-pacer that slips through the less pastiche elements of HAIM and the melodic euphoria of Screamfeeder under a prism of sepia-toned yearning. It's an incredibly addictive song and a great introduction onto the Popfrenzy roster, with an EP (their follow-up to Weird Season a couple years ago) in the works.

INTERVIEW - Pale Heads' Rui Perreira

One of my favourite albums of the year, even though it's fresh outta the blocks, is Headless, the debut belter from Melbourne drongos Pale Heads. Featuring guys that spread all four corners of the Melbourne music scene (current and ex members of The Nation Blue, Harmony, Batpiss, The Drones and Bang!Bang!Aids!), these dudes have cobbled together an album that is relentless, throwaway, acerbic, abrasive and a hell of a lot of fun, all done off a handful of practices. The cobbled together nature of the record is what gives it its heft, and with this calibre of clientele this nuclear fusion is only going to get deadlier (whether they get tighter or looser though remains to be seen...) 

I spoke to Rui Pereira briefly as he stumbled around Sydney before Pale Heads' Blackwire Records show alongside Burlap, Dispolar and Roland Major.

SONIC MASALA - Headless was recorded in a series of blitzkrieg recordings at The Tote. Before these took place, how did Pale Heads come to pass?

RUI PEREIRA - Xiao Zhong, whose identity shall remain secret, lived in China for a good part of the 2000's. There he found a life for himself learning the ancient ways of making origami drum kits for the locals. A few years ago he came back to the Melbourne world, looking for excitement in the form of some boom boom, while in the midst of furnishing his abode. Tom Lyngcoln asked him to play percussion and Thomy Sloane, who straps the bass, joined soon after. I have been friends with both Thomy and Tom for yonks. They asked. I was thrilled to join.

SM - What has been the purpose of the band? Five or so practices and then recording and releasing an entire album is pretty solid going after all!


RP - I find there is this urgent sound to the album, raw as fuck, thousand miles an hour beats. Perhaps the main purpose was to keep the juices flowing. We were all taking breaks from our primary bands at the time so we thought it was a good idea to form another. 

 
SM - How much of the songwriting was/is shared around?


RP - Tom and Thomy pretty much wrote all the lyrics. They bring structure to the songs. We all put in musically.

SM - How do the different personalities glue together as a band? You have some loose units there... 


RP - Alright, alright... who have you been talking to? I've done my share of stupid shit while touring. Even lost my mental health one time looking at ginger bread houses in Switzerland. But as a band we all thrive on humour so that keeps us unified.  At the end of the day our similar tastes in music is the Araldite.

SM - Where does the name Pale Heads come from? Or the infatuation with heads (and the cutting off of them) for that matter? Especially with Tom's constant negative comments about his own mug, bringing it more attention seems counter-productive...


RP - It's interesting what other people's interpretation of someone else's lyrics are. For instance, I thought most of the content on the album was about peace, love and scoring lots of weed... with the occasional head chop. The beheading element is perhaps a metaphor for most humans. They are either in a day dream daze with their heads in another state or trying to chop one off to get ahead.

SM - How have the live components of the show gone so far? I heard that your first show was a bit of a balls-up...


RP - Yep. First show was at the Old Bar in Melbourne. Was a fairly noisy affair. By the end Thomy's pedals didn't work as they got drenched in beer, accidentally poured by someone who shall remain nameless. Since then we've naturally progressed live. The ins and outs of what works on stage can only be refined on the road.  Like Paul Kelly once said, 'venues are my universities'.

SM - You have lined yourselves up with Poison City to release Headless - what was the attraction to joining up with Andrew and co?


RP - Andrew was attracted to us. He and Tom had dealings in the past with Harmony and pretty soon the second Batpiss record will also be under their wing. Keeping it in the family I guess.

SM - Any particular gigs lined up that you are pumped for?


RP - Yes. 16th July 2015 @ The Convent in Abbotsford Melbourne. Playing with Flour, The Meanies and Screamfeeder. See you there.




SM - What does the future hold for Pale Heads? Will there be other releases? Will it follow the same rushed MO?


RP - We already started writing/recording the second LP. It will take a little longer to put together mainly due to Thomy touring with his other group and Tom about to be a Dad! So from this August on, till next year there will be no Pale Heads shows. Just lots of nappies.

SM - What have you been up to in particular Rui? Is Pale Heads a major ongoing concern, or are there other irons in the fire/fingers in pies?


RP - I'll be concentrating with Pale Heads in the next few months. I also work at Bakehouse studios in Richmond, 12 rehearsal spaces with one zen courtyard. That's kept me fairly fit the last five years. I dig working there. A real productive environment. My band other band 'RIGHT!' is in the process of mixing and mastering our first record. I also draw and paint in my spare time, often with my head buried in paper and ink. That will keep me busy for life.



Headless is out now - buy it here - it's an imperative.

Losing My Pale Head

As if I wasn't going to love the fuck out of Headless, the new (and wholly unexpected) album from Pale Heads, the hastily assembled Melbourne super/uber/shitgroup. Featuring Batpissers, Nation Bluers, Harmonisers, Droners, and a Pair, Pale Heads come together as a rusted barrel mess, sloshing their wrecked memories, battered bodies, and twisted limbs into one destructive black mass that rides the pendulum between these guys' past influences (blue collar nihilism, violent drunk diatribes, bucolic flannel punk, frenetic numbskull noise), the filaments drawn into a swirling abyss of madness and mayhem.

From the brilliantly explosive (and slightly unhinged) 'Thomy Cut Off A Head' Headless careens off all of the walls - the dour-with-weird-effects 'Pale Head', the charged throbbing rock of 'I Can't Lose You', the caterwauling black hole and SY instrument annihilating of 'Milk Eyes', the nobrain attack of 'Transitioning Out' with the stumbling moments of tooth-nerve-ending bloodcurdling screams of madness masquerading as lucidity; the singalong skree of 'Devotion', the melancholy outro to 'Homeless'; the roughhousing spit-drenched outlier 'Small Town Casualty'; the twisted out of shape bent sonics and wrenched emotions of 'Power & Privilege'; the inherent vitriol spewed forth out of 'The Pits'; the charged groove and growl of 'Chrome'; the gleeful destruction and Morricone twang undercurrents of 'Accountancy Is Hard' (a great track this one); and the closing title track, which feels the closest to a true amalgam of the band members' former selves (and the last few seconds of banter IS the band).

There isn't much cohesion amongst the songs per se, but seeing as the band played together five times before slamming these down on tape at The Tote is a huge reason why Headless remains so loose. But it is a badge of honour too - these guys have bashed out songs that are jammed, crushed, gutted and burnt into their contorted, blackened angularities, and are all the more cathartic for it. For something so instinctual and instantaneous to be so brutally accomplished (albeit streamlined and battered) is bloody good. Imagine what the boys will be like when in each other's faces for a little while longer. There might be more scabs and scratches on those pale heads, but the ferocity and noisy abandon could be monumental. Headless is out now through Poison City Records on blue, red or black vinyl - get in.

Pale Heads launch the album this Saturday in Melbourne at the Gasometer with excellent support from the likes of Spinning Rooms, Steve Miller Band and Slab Knackers (an Eddy Current Suppression Ring "side" project), and play two shows in Sydney the following weekend. I'm sure there are more shows to follow (Brisbane, watch out). 

IT'S TIME - SONIC MASALA FEST PART DEUX

That's right people, after the success of last year's inaugural Sonic Masala Fest, we are ready to throw down again. Descending once again on Brisbane's Greenslopes Bowls Club on Saturday March 14, we bring you 22 bands from across the land for a day of music, food, booze and barefoot bowls. We are opening up channels to buy an early bird ticket of $15 (and some bundles with records and T-shirts of the design above, made once again by the brilliant Phoebe Paradise), which will go up to $20 after February 1 - which still works out as less than a dollar a band, so win win. So far the lineup is pretty stellar if I say so myself!

SCREAMFEEDER

WHITE WALLS

SUMMER FLAKE

GHOST NOTES

DOLLAR BAR

DANYL JESU

UNPEOPLE

THIGH MASTER

BARGE WITH AN ANTENNA ON IT

PLEASURE SYMBOLS

MCKISKO

PRIMITIVE MOTION

THESEASHALLNOTHAVETHEM

GOLDEN BATS

ULTRA MATERIAL

GO GO FISH

VULTURE CIRCUS

JULIA R ANDERSON & THE JOHNNYS

With more bands and added extras to announce, including criminally cheap Cooper's Pale Ale schooners once again, and as another excuse to fly back into perennial sunny good times, I for one am pretty excited.

FEED THE CITY POISON WITH MEANIES SCREAMS

(Article by Fred Savage Beasts)

One of the first times I ever remember being excited about music – really, dead-set stoked, actually - was when I went to Melbourne to visit family from down that way. Growing up in Brisbane in a home where you were more likely to hear Simply Red or Wendy Matthews when the stereo was even on, I had no idea what I was in for. My cousin had just reached driving age, and statistics about teen drivers obviously hadn’t scared my parents off letting him ‘take me for a spin’ in his gold VK Commodore.

  

We drove through Melbourne city. Fast. It was huge. There were lights and buildings everywhere. And he was playing the Meanies and Screamfeeder at way too loud a volume. It was like some kind of baptism. Like one of those times you look back on afterwards and think about how if it never happened your life would have panned out completely differently. That night was like a gateway drug to a ‘90s Australian goldmine. It was a whole new sound. It was rough and raw and had heart and it was made by people who had something to say about their own lives. And, as I found out, mine. 

And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks to Poison City, I can stack my record collection with some of this gold. After re-issuing the first four Screamfeeder records earlier this year, they’re doing it again for the Meanies. If you have young children, not playing them this should probably be illegal.

VIDEO VACUUM - Violent Soho, Pairs, Arundel, Beat Radio

Man, I'm done for the day (can't wait for the weekend to kick off), but I know some of you are just about to wrap up for the week (and a few are just starting...) Either way, let's waste those last/first moments on some visual toons...



We've already posted about 'In The Aisle', the new track from local miscreants Violent Soho and a taste of new album Hungry Ghost (read what Nathan thought here). This video is brilliant for two reasons - it shows why it's great to live in Brisbane...and it's solely about a dude riding his bike in the nude, putting up flyers about nude bike riding. That's it. These two things aren't mutually exclusive (although in my eyes they are - sorry Dario), but it makes a killer video (congrats Dario!)



Next we have Shanghai maelstrom Pairs, another SM fave of late. They have just out out this video for 'Mean Buzz', a great little number off their double LP If This Cockroach Doesn't Die, I Will (out on Metal Postcard Records). The album is ace; the track typically droll, ramshackle and loud; and the vid is under two minutes of the duo in a warehouse getting shit thrown on them. Nice.

Another band that Nathan paid lip service to recently was NY's Beat Radio. They have released this video for 'Hurricanes, XO' (their best track IMO), and the stock  B&W footage of watersports of the 50s (some rather bizarre) somehow perfectly complements this fuzzy beauty (it also makes me miss Screamfeeder).



Let's finish off with an understated gem by another Brisbane native, Arundel. 'Flourish' found its way on the latest New Weird Australia compilation Sixes & Twelves (and is my fave compilation of theirs thus far - albeit with many friends' acts finding their way in there...) and he has synced it up here with re-cut scenes from the excellent 2011 movie Monsters. Truly beautiful and the best way to bliss out, fading to black.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

The Only Way To Heal Is To Rip The Tape/Off

Back In February, I had been in Brisbane for about a month when I went to local band (and good mates) Nova Scotia's album launch at the Lofly Hangar. It was a great night, filled with fun, frivolity and highlights (including a stellar show by are they/aren't they defunct Arbuckle) - but one act I found underwhelming. They may have been energetic, but Tape/Off just didn't do it for me. I haven't endeavoured to see them since...

But I think that may be a massive mistake, if their new EP is anything to go by. Recorded by the band's drummer Branko Cosic, ...And Sometimes Gladness opens with a killer track - 'Backseat' is late 90s loud languid indie by proxy, all 5 and a bit minutes of it surround-sound glory. It goes on from there - 'Something That We Know' muddied up the Pavement short thrashy number routine, the brilliantly named 'Hell Comes To Frogtown' (so named after a filmic Z-grade schlocker) is anarchic with some lovely Sand On Seven era Not From There affinities (and great bass throughout), 'Botanical Gardens' muddy shoegaze in a corrugated iron shed, and closes with 'Happen Now', a beauty that also includes Kellie Lloyd (Screamfeeder) in cameo mode. Seriously guys, way to kick a preconception in the guts. This EP fucking slays.

Branko and co - will you ever forgive me???