Yawning Without Guilt

Big Yawn are a duo out of Melbourne that delve deep into the darker, inflamed realms of electronic sentience. Their Hash Matters/Lowlite 7" (out now through Fallopian Tunes) is crafted to find the holes in the digital age and plug them with jagged ephemera and pummelling hypnosis. The band call themselves "electronic/doof/industrial/miscellaneous" - that should placate the pigeonholers, at least until they take a tab of Big Yawn. It becomes indecipherable static thereafter, of course - after all, the rest is noise. Or is it? It's the febrile mix of slight, layered abrasion and percussive asphyxiation that makes Big Yawn anything but.

Big Yawn are currently in Brisbane, having played a famed Real Bad show out at Moorooka on Sunday (alongside the likes of X In O, Screaming Match and Slurpee). Tonight they are playing at The Hideaway for Guilt Retreat #4, a 4ZZZ connected show (presented by Makeda from A Guilt/All Day Breakfast Enterprises, which is also featuring Sky Needle/6majik9's Michael Donnelly and the Fun Police DJs (AKA Brainbeau), so you know it will be sensational). You can buy Hash Matters/Lowlite here.

These Strangers Aren't Losers

 

It's my birthday today, so I'm only giving short blasts of posts. The rest of the day is being spent doing nothing – watching Justified and Workaholics, and sleep probably. Not exciting, sure – but its sounds pretty rad to me.

This track ‘Loser’ comes from the debut vinyl 7” from local duo Strangers, not to be confused with that shitty Sydney hardcore band or any of the many other Strangers bands in the universe. They play Aussie grunge a la early Magic Dirt as if it never left us, yet imbue it with a gentler side as seen by the B-side cover of Nick Cave’s ‘The Ship Song’. Ash Kerley (of Bottlecock) has been Strangers for years now, this being her “solo” outlet with Linda Dark smashing the skins, fleshing things out towards their timely, apocalyptic conclusion. It rarely explodes, just holds that upper-level velocity and intensity, and in the right atmosphere Strangers can kill.

Strangers launch Loser at the Hideaway Bar this Thursday. $8 entry, with support coming from fellow female rocker Sabrina Lawrie. A good night out, and get the 7" there. Splash out on some beers too - the girls love it.
\