Video Vacuum - Shonen Knife, Summer Flake, The Spook School, Cool Sounds

Bloody Hell! Another week, same as the bloody last. May as well waste some time looking at music videos I mean spreadsheets...

Let's all take a note out of Shonen Knife's book then. They have been powering on for 35 years now, look great, and show no sign of losing their mojo or slowing down. Their 19th album Adventure came out last week, it's great, as is this video for 'Jump Into The New World'. The matching clothes, the lead solo, the grins, the laughs - if only you were having this much fun. Which you aren't, and probably never will be. Sigh...at least this song is so infectious you can pretend, right? RIGHT?

Summer Flake continues to kick serious goals. New album Hello Friends is glorious, and really deserves to go gangbusters. Henry Rollins digs it, and you don't wanna fuck with that man. Now we have visuals for 'Wine Won't Wash Away', the most "rock" song on the album. The footage is passing of strange and wonderful signs or images of travelling across the wide land of USA - from wedding chapels of Las Vegas, to alien faces, to wandering ponies and a driveway that looks suspiciously like Walter White's, it manages to capture the innate beauty and incredulity one feels as they travel in an exciting, hitherto unknown land. I felt that rush as I watch this again and again - unhealthy, seeing as it's a looooong way until my holidays...

Another record I am a massive fan of is The Spook School's Try To Be Hopeful. Here, on their video for 'Speak When You're Spoken To', we open in a pet store run by comedian Josie Long, who is trying to guess what the customer wants without letting him say a word. And when he finally gets in what he wants - something a little more "alternative" - he walks out with The Spook School! Afterwards we get the requisite pet things - walking, fetching, hiding, taking photos, running away, getting put in the pound - with a twist in the tail (see what I did there? Awww). The band play with the excellent Paws (where have they been lately?) at London's Moth Club July 2 as part of a long UK tour - very excited about this one!

And then we have the sultry grooves of Cool Sounds...and this bloody weird video, where the members make out with strange inanimate objects. They all approach their love in different ways - Zac comes across as a Lothario with his rock, while Nick seems uber earnest in his affections for his toaster. Of course Snowy would get overly sexual with a hammer, though... 'In Blue Skies' marks the incoming 3rd LP Dance Moves. NOTE: is that a stapler in your pants, or are you just pleased to see the paperweight?

Now get back to work!

Hello Again, Summer Flake

Steph Crase continues to bewitch and beguile as Summer Flake on her new album, Hello Friends. Here she is aided and abetted by friends (fellow Batrider Sarah Mary Chadwick features on the album, alongside bandmates Joel Carey (Peak Twins) and Antony Bourmas (Antony Of The Future)), but the end product is solely her, her wistful, languid take on bluesy shadow-tinged pop inflected with her glorious vocals and guitar riffs. From the noir lurk of 'Shoot and Score' that crashes into sonorous languor in 'So Long' to the 90s indie throwback fuzz of 'Wine Won't Wash Away', this album is littered with shimmering gems of soaring inflection and sundrunk daydreams of half-chances, wishes and regrets. Even when taking the acoustic route, like on the sparse haunt of 'Tumbling Down', Crase holds you in thrall. Her vocals offer harmonies that pierce the heart, regardless of their notes of chagrin, weary acceptance or steely resolve. The warmer production here augments her growing confidence in her songcraft and existence at the front of the stage. You probably don't need to hear this from me - bloody Henry Rollins is vocally on board for Chrissakes! - but take it from me, this is a fantastic record. Australia is blessed with some truly stunning and idiosyncratic singer/songwriters - and Hello Friends is proof that Summer Flake is the cream of the crop. Pre-order the album here in lipstick-smeared red vinyl through Rice Is Nice - it is a beauty in every sense.

Hello Summer Flake

2016 sees another great Aussie release to anticipate in Hello Friends, Summer Flake's follow up to the excellent You Can Have It All. 'Shoot And Score' is more brooding than what we saw on her Time Rolls By interim EP last year - it reminds me of the darker yet no less melodious moments of True Widow (without the calamitous down-tuned explosions) or early Lower Dens. Stephanie Crase's hypnotic hushed vocals coax and cajole, contemplative, knowledgeable, possibly menacing, with the guitar and relentless plod of the drums precipitating the electrical storm on the horizon. It's the kind of lurking track that is insidious, climbs inside you and haunts for days. Hello again Summer Flake, it's great to have you back. Hello Friends is out soon through Rice Is Nice.

Sports Is Everything

I wasn’t expecting All of Something, the new album from Ohio’s SPORTS, to floor me the way it has. It’s pretty obvious that I love 90s guitar rock, whether it be college-era esotericism, gangly instrumental playfulness, slacker ne’er-do-wells, or dirge-like spikes of gravel-spewed aggression. But I am finding that the past month I have been falling into a lighter-limbed sonic freefall, with the likes of The Spook School, Diet Cig, Summer Flake and now Sports being my go to bands to listen to as the days get ever shorter here in London. 

Despite the plain name with the connotations of machismo and parochial rabid savagery, Sports is much more earnest and heartfelt, but without the mawkish histrionics. The album is still very much a microcosm of love and other catastrophes on the cusp of leaving adolescence truly behind, but the songs have sonic bark and verbal bite, both playful and damaged, and is a surprise tour-de-force of indie guitar pop abandon. You have the boppy, giddy C86 of 'Saturday' and 'GDP', the maudlin bedroom strum of 'Clean Socks', the urgent earnestness of 'The Washing Machine.' 'Getting On In Spite Of You' is anthemic in the most honest and carefree of ways, and 'Reality TV' Red Bull-and-hormones punk, somehow both bare-bones and beefy in delivery, with hearts brazenly pinned to the sleeve. It's all about cruising in cars, hopping in beds, falling in and out of love wearing the carapace of nonchalance while the fires burn brightly beneath. 

But the true gem is 'Stunted', which kicks off their second (and rumoured final) album All Of Something, and it is absolutely killer. The quiet opening, the warm crackle and heft of the guitars as they open up, the drums becoming a clear driving force as the final rousing crescendo hits, and the vocals all join together with Carmen Perry as they finally echo out "We both got what we wanted." It's Juliana Hatfield meets Belly meets The Muffs, and it's both 90s nostalgia and all round great universal songwriting. Perry's voice has that Hatfield/Kristin Hersh twang that could either be 90s American guitar pop twee or country and western whimsy, but is commanding all the time. I am a massive fan of this song in particular, this album in general, and Sports as a whole. If they are drifting apart, let's hope that Perry and co find other ways to give their all to something that we can all enjoy. All of Something is out now through Father/Daughter Records - get it now!

Sun Shines On Summer Flake

Steph Crase is back, just as the winter months start to thaw off in Melbourne, with a new Summer Flake song. 'The Sun Won't Shine' is a taste of her upcoming EP Time Rolls By, a precursor of her second album, and it is is luscious yet disarmingly plaintive as ever. The guitar is raw and licking feedback around the edges, and there is a moment or two that reminds me of Television for some reason (probably because I've been listening to Marquee Moon on my new turntable all day today). Positive fuzz, contemplative scuzz, with a Pavement-melting outro. It's a melancholy song about indecision about life choices, sure, but when it sounds as glorious as this, keep sitting on the fence, dude. Time Rolls By comes out through Rice Is Nice next month.

Adelaide Blasts From Grid City

Let's finish off as we started today, highlighting the festering brilliance of the Adelaide rock scene, with the compilation from Grid City Itch. Whilst there are only a couple bands I am overtly ofay with (Rule of Thirds/Laiika), I am aware of most of these bands from Adelaidian-at-heart Steph Crase, whose Summer Flake now resides in Melbourne and will be playing our SM Fest in March 14. So the likes of primal spat punk of Men With Chips (a familiar sound in 21st century Australian wastelands), the feverish synth snap of Meat Market (my personal favourite) and synapse meltdown of Kash Konverters ... Elsewhere there are more nuggets to latch on to like the nascent noise of Teen Trash or the lurking synth omens of Deep Red (nice Argento touchstone there too). This is the Adelaide equivalent of the All Day Breakfast compilation that came out in 2012, shining a deserved light on the Real Bad fringe dwellers in the Brisbane music scene (although calling Blank Realm a fringe dweller is a stretch nowadays...).
 

Soft Grimacing Waves

Irish label Soft Power ended 2014 and started 2015 in strong fashion with a pair of releases that really impress. In December London duo/trio and SM faves Witching Waves released their debut LP Fear of Falling Down (which is almost sold out already - get one of the last 35 here), which is an absolute corker of a record that broods within garage rock circles yet are more indebted to the Fortuna Pop crowd, and are more reminiscent of Sons & Daughters than their angular brethren. Going from DIY bludgeoning to a label that has coaxed the likes of September Girls and The Spook School into the limelight hasn't changed Witching Waves' gritty-yet-hook-heavy approach one iota. This is an excellent release, and damned if these guys won't be doing something special by year's end. Get along and see them play Power Lunches this Friday.

Then there is I Am Material, the six-track cassette EP from fellow Londoners H. Grimace, which goes even further into the dark, yet hushed, corners. The lurking ambiance is always imbued with unkempt portent, so that when a song like 'Royal Hush' starts out a languid pop malaise (something akin to Melbourne's Summer Flake), its facade cracks and the true beast is unleashed. 'To The Shaggerston' is a punk gnarl of the Seattle backwater variety (and all the greater because of it). To my ears, there aren't many bands in London doing this kind of ragged, languid rock, which makes them all the more important to get behind. Not that we will see them much in March, as they do a frantic tour across the US aided in part by SF label 20 Sided Records.

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.

Fair Maiden

Ellen Carey has crafted a strongly unique voice under the Fair Maiden pseudonym by taking familiar genre grafts and draping over them a gossamer sense of sparseness, tempered eloquence and eccentricity. The eight tracks are distilled through Carey's voice, ensuring there is a continual sense of the game shifting under your feet without your knowing. 'India' ebbs and flows like Bedroom Suck alum Ela Stiles with a Warpaint bent. This is thrown by the faux Christian folk battlecry of 'Lord' - this irks me a bit if I'm honest. There is an uneasy undertone that adds to the anguish. Then the country bounce of 'Wait For You' flounces in, and the disorientation continues. While the song is warm, amusing, and spot-on genre wise, it stands at odds with what's come before. And so it continues: the melancholic shuffle and groove of 'Poison'; the excellently stark, elegiac mantra of 'Sad Song'; the bluesy attitude (kept to a hush) of 'Blue Moon'; the Bobby Darin rush of 'Darlin'... Fair Maiden often feels like a patchwork, the disparate niches lacking a common through-line. But if you take 'Lord' out of the equation, there is a strange otherworldly dawn AM station vibe here, a curio of night-time driving through more innocent times. The threads - the brooding grooves of 'India', 'Sad Song' and closer 'Lady Of Fortune' juxtaposed by the nostalgic twitches of 'Wait For You', 'Poison' and 'Darlin'. The sound is fleshed out by some creative collaborators (Steph Crase, Liam Kenny, Joel Carey), but it is Ellen’s mesmeric presence that captivates and ensures such eclecticism remains anchored. An intriguing yet rewarding listen.


Grab Fair Maiden here. It's a little belated, but the album launches in Melbourne next Friday November 21 at Dane Certificate's Magic Theatre, supported by Sarah Chadwick, Totally Mild and Moon Dice.