Belated Friday Cover Up(s) - Nadja, Powder Blue, Jack Lee

I'm a bit rusty with the posts - I'm even getting the Friday Cover Up done on a Saturday! Pay no mind, though, as I have three beauties for your perusal... Starting with something a little more psychedelic, with this slow cerebral interpretation of The Rolling Stones' 'Play With Fire' by Canadian quartet Powder Blue. This is the kind of slow-burn, subtle psych that my head needs right now, and the female crown lends this that little bit more melancholy laced with menace. I need to hear more from these girls for sure!

Now let's scruff it up some. Jack Lee is in Sydney's slacker beer swillers Beef Jerk (they wrote that addictive tune 'Schooners' last year) and is venturing out with a solo release on Osborne Again Records. Here is the first taste, a cover of Australian indie stalwarts The Cannanes' 'Stories To Be Kept Under Lock And Key' (we all have an abundance of those...). It's a predictably scrappy affair with a healthy does of sunlit brevity, tilted off-key warbles, and wasted grins. Perfecto.

Finally let's drone ourselves into the ground with the ever excellent Nadja. They have covered The Cure's 'Faith', a 12 minute delving into the underworld that you can find on Berlin label SPÄTI PALACE's second compilation collection, which you can get for free here. It's incredible, and also includes songs from SM fave Crystal Shipsss and also Soda Fabric, who you will hear about also soon enough...but until then, revel in the down.


If you are in Brisbane tonight, get along to either the Mad Nanna show out at Chardons Corner, or Canadian punk reprobates Thee Nodes will be smashing the 199 artspace with help from lurking jerks from Melbourne Gentlemen - you will see me at either/both.

Losing Stress In Waves

It seems like the port of call nowadays that when a hardcore or post-hardcore act implodes or reaches its final stages, various members branch out into realms totally unbecoming of their past output. Acoustic balladry; obnoxious house; ambient soundscapes - there is no limit to the tangents that have been taken. This is somewhat true for Brisbane act Stress Waves too, seeing as its members converge from the embers of To The North, Quiet Steps and Throes. Yet these bands haven't necessarily been obvious poster children for the hardcore throngs, what with To The North's sonic balleticism and Quiet Steps' evolution from a bile-spitting maelstrom to something more poetic, more refined, yet always potent. Stress Waves feeds off these creative juices, and the three tracks that make up Lost Lustre perfectly frame this. There are elements of coldwave isolation here, as well as more than a bearing resemblance to post punk's melancholic Manchester origins (Errol Hoffman is also in Make More, so that kinda makes sense too). These tracks are almost archaic, however - steeped in Casio simplicity yet awash with ideas, either the product of out-of-time pioneers or a concerted effort to leap into icy waters without reservation. The trio also reference The Cure, Final Fantasy XII and Akira as their influences, and with the blue-tinted urban cover art, the sparsity of the production and the otherworldly textures this approach creates, such disparate touchstones are actually warranted (if a little tongue in cheek).

You can grab Lost Lustre in name-your-price digital here. Hopefully we'll see Stress Waves playing live shows in more regular bursts soon.

Night Kraken's Not-So-Happy Birthday

It's been a while since I've partaken in something from Shawn Reed's Night People label, yet in Kraken, the  EP from Germany's unhappybirthday, I have fallen in love. Night People have brought out some excellent things of recent times, most notably Dylan Ettinger's Crucify My Love and Merchandise's "return to form" record Totale Nite, yet on Kraken I can't remember ever having heard something so 80s indebted and yet so simple and warm. It helps that Daniel Ja's vocals are both German and have the husky, distant timbre that evokes Vaseline-lensed cameras and lily-gilded windowsills, black overcoats and gondola rides in narrow canals through an urban jungle on an overcast day. I mean, the title track could be an amalgam of Adelaide's now defunct band Bit By Bats' 'Dance The Dance' and The Cure's 'Lovesong'! Albeit in German. Nevertheless, the plink-plonk simplicity of the keys and guitar lines, the drum machine so clean and yet so basic - it reminds me that music this good doesn't have to be intricate, drawn out or segmented. The band describes itself as "raincoat pop" - it makes a quirky kind of sense. From the first strains of 'Fargo', Kraken has struck a chord and I haven't been able to stray from its New Romantic clutches. Coldwave be damned (coldwave...urgh), long live raincoat pop!

Grab Kraken here - seriously great stuff.

unhappypeople - Fargo
unhappypeople - Kraken

FRIDAY COVER UP - No Cure For Lights Out

This isn't normally my kinda thing, but some upbeat Robert Smith on a dreary Friday seemed like a good idea. The band is Lightouts, a Brooklyn indie duo who formed over a mutual love of The Cure front man and Emily Haines from Metric, not a bad launchpad really. This track has managed to fill me with some fuzzy bubblegum - I will admit that this sounds more like The Killers from their first album era covering 80s Springsteen than The Cure, but that is awesome too. Anyway, check it out - I reckon it does the trick.

Lightouts - Push (The Cures cover)

Have a good weekend!

Drowners Never Go Away

Take a moment to meet Drowner, fittingly from Space City USA - Houston, Texas. Their press ticks off influences that colour each corner of the shimmering guitar rock spectrum - Ringo Deathstarr, My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai, Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, The Cure... And whilst the shoegaze elements are inherent in their self-titled debut LP (out March 13 on Saint Marie Records, a niche label that specialises in this sound and have also added SM faves Bloody Knives to their roster), making such connections is a little too safe. Case in point is second track 'Never Go Away', at just under eight minutes a creeping track that is Siren-esque in its gossamer, eerie calls. The washes of guitar are actually delicate, meticulously balanced, even in the stronger rock numbers such as 'Point Dume' or 'Written'. After bringing Fonda's comeback to our attention last year, Crash Avenue are responsible for pushing this release, and with good reason. This reminds me of when I heard Whirr (the band formerly known as Whirl) for the first time. Seeing as their Distressor EP is one of my favourite releases of its kind in the past few years, that is saying something. Get on board.



Drowner - Never Go Away
Drowner - Point Dume

Eternal Mood Exorcism Rings

Double Phantom Records put out this 7" by Atlanta band Mood Rings. It offers two slices of spangly psych pop that swims in the waters that Robert Smith might have bathed in had he been a little more cheery. 'Promise Me Eternity' is languid to the point of standing still, awash with shimmering instrumentation that evokes Instagram photos that wash a picnic photo in pastel shades of sunlight. On the flip side "Exorcised Painting' is a short punchy number, the guitar and drums punching through into another realm. Its an ace couple of tracks (particularly enamoured with 'Exorcised Painting'), you get your mitts on it here. Have a listen below and see what you think...

Mood Rings - Promise Me Eternity
Mood Rings - Exorcised Painting

2010's Re-Discoveries...by Secret Knives

Ash Smith AKA Secret Knives has had a strong year, with a lot of coverage surrounding his great debut release Affection. I asked if he wanted to contribute a list to our little collective. He has already contributed to great Kiwi blog Einstein Music Journal (a very interesting list too I might add), so he wanted to go in a different direction...

"I generally find doing a top 5 of the year doesn't accurately reflect listening habits because I spend more time listening to things that were not released in 2010."

Top 5 musical "discoveries" of 2010:

1. Discovering Slowdive's Pygmalion
2. Rediscovering Weezer's Pinkerton
3. Discovering Slint's Spiderland
4. Rediscovering Arcade Fire's 'Broken Window' (from Keep The Car Running 7")
5. Discovering Cocteau Twin's Heaven or Las Vegas

5 albums I never stopped listening to:

1. MF DOOM - Is Viktor Vaughn Vaudeville Villain
2. Burial - Untrue
3. The Chameleons - What Does Anything Mean? Basically...
4. The Cure - Wish
5. Grouper - Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill

Thanks Secret Knives! And cos Im loving these albums myself (its your fault I cant get 'Miranda' or 'Heavy Water/ Id Rather Be Sleeping' out of my head!) - here's a Secret Knives Christmas mixtape!!!

Weezer - No Other One

Arcade Fire - Broken Window

Cocteau Twins - Cherry Coloured Funk

Slowdive - Miranda

Slint - Nosferatu Man

Burial - Archangel

The Cure - From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea

MF DOOM - Vaudeville Villain

Grouper - Heavy Water/Id Rather Be Sleeping

The Chameleons - Nostalgia

And, as a final special treat, here is a remix of Secret Knives' 'Black Hole' by equally exciting NZ act Glass Vaults! Merry Christmas from the Land of the Long White Cloud!

Secret Knives - Black Hole (Glass Vaults remix)

Superhuman Slices of Shimmering Pop Pastiches

Indiana duo House of Bread have just released their self-released 3rd LP, Superhuman Tomb, and its a great little number. In this day and age of bedroom pop navel gazing brought to us from the arse end of some rusty cans and a piece of mouldy string - whether it be due to DIY necessity or just because its so in right now - it is not only refreshing to hear something that takes care in the intricacies of sound production, but are stretching out far and wide to discover how big their sound can be, whilst perfecting the art of the silence. It shouldnt be a surprise that House Of Bread can construct well realised songs - members Omar Azfaal and Bob Haddad have been in bands All Nite Skate and Castles together, and have been toying with this band's sound since 2006 - and yet there is a real sense of freshness to this offering.

Opening with soaring instrumental Nebula A908 - a mixture of Sigur Ros' eccentric musical interplay and shimmering guitar - Superhuman Tomb leads into Flying Nomads, Azfaal's vocals only on a slight reverb (read: the effect enhances his vocals, not a device to disguise the fact that the guy cannot sing) as he plays back up to some chugging guitar lines that canter into the sunset... 'Artificial Man' offers up some Krautpop tinkerings with elegaic vocals before stretching out in a Yo La Tengo pop mangling. Further along the track we get 80s Bruce Springsteen with synths-meets-Electric Soft Parade Hazy Boy, the quirky and ultra catchy Bunfs and the slow drum MOR of Snow Globe Smasher II, before closing the mish-mash behemoth that is 'Bloody Scouts', where every influence they can think of (Super Furry Animals, Flaming Lips, Machine Translations, The Cure, Devendra Banhart, Kraftwerk, Yo La Tengo...) is thrown at the canvas. Its this culminating track that probably encapsulates Superhuman Tomb the best - moments of fun and cerebral noodling amidst washes of aped classics of yore.

And to be honest, why not? The production shimmers with a glossiness that is somewhat lacking in most 2010 releases, and the guys really have put some heart into their babies here. A rough yet substantial gem.

Superhuman Tomb is out now.

House of Bread - Flying Nomads

House of Bread - Hazy Boy