PREMIERE - Soda Eaves Announces 2nd Album Murray, Darling

Like Drapes Either Side, Melbourne songwriter Soda Eaves' debut album, was one of my favourite records of 2013. It's the kind of experimental lo-fi  introspection that echoes well after its finished, plucking at the mind, an eloquent thinkpiece on 21st century urban existentialism, rooted in Australian Gothic ruminations. Soda Eaves (AKA Jake Core) is a restless rambler - when I first met him, he was travelling up and down the East Coast of Australia playing songs, working and playing shows where he needed cash. His lyrical complexities extend to poetry - he has a few books kicking around the place, all of which take skewed looks at the mundane and the sublime happenstances of life.

Murray, Darling is the follow up LP. It was recorded in the beautifully stark environment of the Atherton Tablelands; again feeding into the melancholy state that SE finds so evocative. His hushed vocals on tracks like 'Benny & the Jets', the stuttering, muffled percussion, the crackling-AM-radio guitar, all combine to create a flickering pastiche of pockets of life - writing songs about writing songs, about the sunset's hue as it hovers above the searing bitumen, about how a song hits the ear and transports to another place, someplace clearer, greener, before dropping you back into the banality of it all. There is a hushed fragility throughout Murray, Darling that is nonetheless imbued with a steely resolve, an intelligence that locks onto these nuggets of ingenuity and beauty amid the daily malaise and minutiae of life and makes it his own. Everyone needs to wade into these waters and be made clean.

You can pick up Murray, Darling on limited edition vinyl through Brierfield Flood Press in Australia, and Fluff here in the UK. Soda Eaves embarks on a national tour of the album later this month - the dates are below.

17th Brisbane - The Junk Bar w/ Feeding Fauna & Mark Zian

21st Melbourne - Polyester Records w/ Tayutau

22nd Melbourne - 471 Brunswick St w/ PiO, Yffer & Truly Holy

23rd Hobart - The Grand Poobah w/ Walt & Mess o’ Reds

24th Hobart - MONA

28th Canberra - The Front w/ Dog Name & Alphamale

29th Sydney - The Record Crate w/ Joseph Liddy & T.S.H, Betony Dircks & Adam Gibson

30th Thirroul - Franks Wild Years w/ Alan Wearne & Solid Effort

To Infinity And Beyond...Hobart

I have written about some of the weird and wonderful noises echoing out of the Apple Isle that is Tasmania, dangling down across the Tasman from the Australian mainland, festering in their own fermenting juices, insular and exciting. One of the main bullhorns spouting the wonders of this places is Wrong Place Right Time Records, and a little while back they released a wrap-up of 2015 in Hobart called Neighbourhood of Infinity. It’s suitably named after a Fall track, and chronicles every facet of warped wonder to emanate from the place. A few you might recognise from these hallowed halls, such as the food-obsessed All The Weathers (the deliciously bent ‘Beans’), Heart Beach (the warmly forlorn buzz of ‘Tegan’), Native Cats (the lyrical staccato/soapbox scree ‘Scratch Act’), Bi-Hour (the downward broken-industrial spiral schooled by an insane headmaster that is ‘Truism’) and Treehouse (jangling and stumbling through the early dawn, a jocular jig and inebriated slip to ‘Hammer At The Door’). But the delights are just as gripping from other quarters – the slow insidious crawl and shadowed incremental cacophony of Wasted Idol’s ‘Seventeen’; the bubbling stargazing spectrum hum of Filthy Little Star’s ‘Keep On Whistling’ (reminding me somewhat of the pastoral experimentation of Soda Eaves and the aforementioned Native Cats in part); the ground-out post-punk bawl and plaintive moths-in-the-wallet despair of Naked’s ‘Beer’; the sneered punk squall of Powernap’s ‘Burn This City’. It’s all wild and weird and necessary. Grab it here.

Ruined Sooks on The Edge of Virginia & Lake Michigan

(Virginia Sook)

(Lake Michigan)

Ruined Smile Records just keep the hits a-comin'. New release off the shelves this week is this international split between Brisbane's Virgina Sook and London lo-fi outlier Lake Michigan (the UK distributor will be Wolf Town). Lake Michigan is Chris Marks, and he has already featured here on Sonic Masala with another split, that one with Hopelesstown; while Virginia Sook features one Lindsey Roser, who also is known here as part of hip-hop anomalies Nana Vigilante and holds pride of place of being the opening act of the first Sonic Masala Fest last year. Both acts are breathtaking in their patience, their slow build of a warm atmosphere that revels in the space between the notes. Lake Michigan reminds me of many artists in Australia that I really enjoy, in particular Mark Zian (Curlew) and Jake Core (Soda Eaves); the lyrics are almost mired in the atonal delivery, but the hushed background noise and plucked guitar brings everything into focus. Virginia Sook may have a harp, but there is something inimitably warmer and relatable that you don't get from Joanna Newsom - there is a twang in the tales here, a rustic charm that endears. You can get the split here - it's a good'un.

Get The Shovels Out And DIG

I have been a big fan of San Francisco native Michael Beach for some time. He came floating into my sonic peripherals with his solo fare; firstly his A Horse 7" through Twin Lakes Records back in 2011, but most prominently when he released Golden Theft, one of my favourite albums of 2013. I even had the privilege of putting him on a show at the Beetle Bar in Brisbane back in November (with a stellar line-up of Soda Eaves, Tiny Migrants and Tape/Off – but due to torrential rain it was a poorly attended show, despite it being one of my favourite of the year also). He was joined with a backing band, bassist Adam Camilleri and drummer Peter Warden. But they aren’t really just a backing band – the trio form Shovels, and their debut LP (out through Homeless Records) is one of apocryphal dirges and imploding delights.


There are moments throughout Shovels where I felt I was listening to one of Australia’s truly underrated rock bands, Turnpike. Whilst nowhere near as intricately frenetic, there is an incessant gnarled tension throughout these tracks, such as opener 'MB Jacket' or 'Multiple Farrow', from the deathmarch basslines and cathartic drums to Beach’s impassioned howls and sharp guitar stabs and swathes. The monolithic ‘Clyde’ stands stark here, just over five minutes of drowning militaristic rancour; as Beach shouts ‘the leader of the FBI’ there is a nascent aura pervading, as if the anger is on the cusp of being superseded by impotent exasperation. But the muscularity remains, and therein lies one of the secret ingredients that so many bands forget – you can strut and bluster all you want, you can turn things up as loud as they will go, but if you don’t wield your strengths at the right time, with tempered aggression, with knowledge of when to strike and when to recede into the shadows, you are nothing but a cardboard cutout. Even the sparse, foreboding languidity of ‘Expire’ holds more strength in its aural tendrils than most bombastic offerings. There is nothing impotent about Shovels – contrary, this album digs mass graves for us all to gratefully slumber in, led by Pied Pipers of angularity.

Grab Shovels here – it’s a necessity.

See You On The Beach Tonight

(poster by Matt Deasy)

Really looking forward to this one. Brave the wet to see something truly special at the Beetle Bar tonight as Melbourne-via-San Franciscan Michael Beach officially launches second LP Golden Theft in Brisbane. It's one of my favourite albums of the year hands down; he is a super rad guy; the supports (Tape/Off, Tiny Migrants, Soda Eaves) are all incrediballs; cheap sangria; $5 schooners (it's Carlton Draught, but there are better beers on offer like Coopers Pale Ale too). All for a tenner, and Soda Eaves kicks off at 8pm. Come!!!!!

Digging Shovels

I lied - here's ANOTHER post for the day. Melbourne ex-pat in San Fran Michael Beach has landed in the land of Oz for Sound Summit, and is playing a bunch of solo shows as well as a great number with his newish band Shovels. I feel it would be remiss of me, seeing as I'm hosting his solo show in Brisbane on Thursday November 14 (supported by Tape/Off, Tiny Migrants and Soda Eaves), to not list his other shows. And Shovels themselves? Have a listen below. Ill leave it at this - they played at Maggot Mess at Northcote Social Club today alongside Sewers, Gentlemen, Terrible Truths - and Cuntz. And you know by now how much we love Cuntz. If you're from Brisbane - this is like old Turnpike, if they were a little more in check with their flailing feelings, and a little more about deliberately bludgeoning you to death. So yeah - fucking awesome then.

NEWCASTLE – NOVEMBER 7 – WHITE’S RECORDS

SYDNEY – NOVEMBER 10 – SOUND SUMMIT 

BRISBANE – NOVEMBER 15 – GREENSLOPES BOWLS CLUB w/ TYVEK (USA) + BLANK REALM + THE REAL NUMBERS + HYDROMEDUSA + GERALD KEANEY & THE GERALD KEANEYS + EGGVEIN + DAG + THE ADULTS (put on by 4ZZZ A Guilt Retreat - this is going to be fucking amazing...)

HOBART – NOVEMBER 23 – GRAND POOBAH w/ NATIVE CATS + MESS O REDS

Feline Fine Under The Soda Eaves

Here are a couple of small Aussie releases that are deserved of everyone's attention, from members of a number of other bands - isn't that the way these days?

First up we have Soda Eaves, the project from Hot Palms guitarist Jake Core (he also has some tomes of poetry out there). Like Drapes Either Side will be his debut release in his solo venture, and 'Doll' is the first taste. It's a more raucous affair than the studied emotions that Hot Palms plumb, but that isn't to say that this rocks. It hulks, sulks and saunters into the fast approaching twilight, sucking furiously on a tailor-made cigarette, collar up against the wind, eyes stormy. Core clearly has a way with words, and with his distinctive Aussie drawl, blown-out fuzz and cheap production, he sidesteps the suburban slacker rock revolution by being resolutely maudlin and obtuse - and therefore, ironically, a genuine article. I cannot wait to hear more - and will get a chance to, when Soda Eaves plays the Waiting Room Saturday September 7 with McKisko.


Another band from the Osborne Again label (of Velcro and other Ocean Party offshoot Shark Alarm, mainly because these bands all come from the same house in Osborne Street in Melbourne's Brunswick) is Feline Fine, made up of members of The Ocean Party and Beef Jerk. Sunny twang, cat puns, boozy ramblings, vocals everything and nothing, existence meaningful and meaningless. When ARE you coming back?