Microsoft Police Force Meltdown

While I still liked the idea when they were originally going to be called Police Force 5 and would give each other five high-fives after each song (stupid, I know, but still pretty great), the mischievous madman otherwise known as Police Force continue to confound, perplex and amuse. Their set from a while ago (can't remember when or where) when they sampled banter for in between songs so they didn't have to actually talk on stage was another example of their loose genius. New slab of warbled weird is POWER POINT (out through those heathens at Tenth Court), eight tracks of burnt-barrel slink, drunk hip-shakes, woozy winks and bitten lower lips.

'Fantasy' is ridiculous in its buried sax, swirling vocal discombobulation and cavernous noise - and it's killer, storming onto a Ministry Of Sound CD outside your local laundromat soon. 'Space Drop' takes us into more familiar territory, a synapse-drained drawl on the asteroid belt of a fried freakout. 'Lowdown' is louche lounge, played from dust-coated blown speakers in the toilets of a ultraviolet-violating public toilet in the Surfers Paradise bus station of your mind. 'Love' is a torn romance, straight out of the pages of a waterlogged William Gibson novel, loose-limbed and crooked grin, drool spilling from lazily upturned lips. If you can imagine MC Ride taking horse tranks and letting his heartrate to drop below forty beats a minute, while Zach Hill abandons the kit and kicks over a Roland TR-505 drum machine and throws guitars into a cryogenic wasteland towards the end stages of Hotline Miami, you get 'Drug Zone Pt II'. 'Brakes' is Primal Scream eighty years in the future, still playing the "hits" in an abandoned nuclear reactor to piled up cadavers from past aural atrocities, and the aftershow reviews are promising. All bookended by elevator music leading us to our desired doom, dressed to the nines in our doomed desirables.

None of this makes sense.

Get POWER POINT at your peril.

Mega Aussie Video Vacuum Of Death

It's been far too long since I've done one of these. So take an hour off from work, and revel in the beauty of the moving image - coupled with killer songs. Ill try to keep a Sonic Masala thread through this too...

Dollar Bar kick us off with 'Half The Battle'. Love how Pat rides around Tokyo, giving the 'cool' one-finger wave. This is definitely a highlight right now. The band play the Ela Stiles (Songs/Bushwalking) show that Sonic Masala is putting on alongside Bedroom Suck Records in what is an amazing joint venture. Also supported by Primitive Motion and J. Francis, this gig is on at Electric Playground this Friday!!! COME!

I'd be remiss if I didn't have two of my label roster's videos here. First up is Roku Music, who are finishing the first half of their massive national tour tonight in Melbourne (playing Monday Night Mass alongside Bored Nothing, Barbiturates (the great little Brissy band/dude now stationed in Melbourne),Vowel Movement and the J. Arthur Keenes Band from Canada - if you are are around I suggest you head there right now.  Anyway, this is 'Ended', a great shoegaze track with mirrored languorous footage from Helena Papageorg.

Tape/Off will be releasing their first album Chipper on Sonic Masala Records in June. Here is the first single, 'Pedestal Fan'. Sub two minutes of the band smashing the track out in the back of their now sadly departed tour van, it's fun, frenetic and a great taste of what is to come. These guys have a good bunch of shows lined up for that tour too, so stay tuned.

One of the tracks on Tape/Off's upcoming album features vocals from none other than Tom Lyngcoln, the rugged genius behind The Nation Blue and Harmony. It's the latter band that he is pouring everything into 2014 with the brilliant Carpetbombing album, and the clip for 'Water Runs Cold' could also be the best of 2014. Haunting, haunted, heartrending, and rustically beautiful. Harmony play Black Bear Lounge this Thursday with excellent support with Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side and Per Purpose.

Back to Roku Music. When I joined them with their Sydney/Newcastle leg of the tour the other weekend, we agreed that the only record better than their own was Jersey Flegg, the debut album from Sydney band You Beauty. The album is a concept album based on a fictitious rugby league player whose rising star fades as he hovers in NSW metropolitan obscurity. Seriously. But the brilliance of this record isn't just the silliness and brilliant Ocker one-liners ('you could have had Whispering Jack play at your wedding' being a definite watershed lyric), but that the songs themselves are inimitably listenable. The four band members of Roku knew much of these tracks off by heart, and with good reason. Here is 'Healin' Spirit' - if you don't like it, you don't know music.

One of the dirtiest excuses for a garage band, Thee Hugs brought out this little chestnut last month. The demented genius of 'Bashar Al-Assad' is in the blatant ridiculousness of the headdresses and the terrorist overtones, yet it still lending the track the requisite amount of sweat-stained tension. Donnie from Roku recorded this malignant mess - and we should all be proud of this unholy birth.

Yuri Johnson filmed the above film clip, and here he is playing guitar in his band Keep On Dancin's. The four-piece's loooooong-awaited sophomore album Hunter is on its way, and 'Grey Ghost' is the band at their most powerful (albeit measured - nothing is ever thrown to chance here). Yes, this has been out since last year, but I forgot to show it. And I need to extend this tenuous link (other than the Australian connection, which will break too I'm sure). Can't wait for this album guys!!

Local ratbags done good DZ Deathrays get slicker and  louder, and 'Gina Works At Hearts' is the perfect embodiment of that. It isn't their strongest song, but you have to support these rad dudes who continue to do their thing, strongly influenced by DFA79, and continue to slay it. They are also in Velociraptor that includes the Thee Hugs and KOD heathens, so keeping the love alive.

One of the most excellent and eccentric acts that graced the Sonic Masala showcases last year was the last show of the year, when Melbourne "guy" Orlando Furious brought his woozy, crushed percolator pop to Brisbane. It was a captivating performance (and chunky chunky chains) that has stuck with me, even now. His cassette Popular is great. 'Nu Body' is the perfect example of what to expect from this charismatic enigma. i wish he lived up here so I could put him on a whole bunch more shows. Guess Ill have to live with Orlando Furious through his hop-hip cracked muzak.

Possibly my favourite show that I've put on was the second anniversary of Sonic Masala shows last October. We had the debut performance of Landing In The Presence of Enemy Jaguars, Advanced (or just Landpres), the gritty punk stylings of Big Richard Insect (and their Neil Young cover!), and FINALLY getting my favourite Brisbane band EVER Turnpike to play a set. But it was getting Melbourne rustic monsters The Spinning Rooms to play not one but two shows. I cannot stress enough how good this band is, and their two albums are underrated gems of the modern Australian music era. Here is a clip for 'It Can't Not' - seriously brilliant band.

Up here that particular day to play alongside The Nation Blue (there's that Lyngcoln again...) were another excellent, raucous pack of bastards, Batpiss. And whilst this isn't their video, the trio do make a cameo as the druggos in the shitters for King Parrot's "seminal" video clip for 'Dead End' - throwing off at The Shining with enough Melbourne degenerates that prop up the scene there to make this a veritable who's who. But who cares when the track is this bloody great.

A couple weeks ago I put on a little show for Matt Banham (No Through Road). Good friend Stephanie Crase was up here too, playing her Summer Flake material solo at one of the final shows to be played at the Hideaway. Here she is again, playing guitar in her good friend Ellen Carey's outfit Fair Maiden - they shot the video too. It's a great song from what is likely to be a great record (out on Bedroom Suck - see the connections continue to flow!)

Fair Maiden - Lady of Fortune from BSR on Vimeo.

The next few tracks are here because they have or will be supporting Sonic Masala Records bands in the next few months. Doctopus will be playing in Western Australia alongside Roku Music; Milkk will join Gazar Strips in their Sydney shows in May; and Bad Vision and Cull will (hopefully) help Tape/Off launch their record in June. They are great bands in their own right, of course - Doctopus surprise, not being a third-tier NZ dub band instead being a psychy garage mish-mash of gargantuan proportions; Milkk's woozy weirdness is mirrored by this lo-fi tackfest; Bad Vision play their straight-up rock, well, straight up; and Cull conitnue to explore the outer realms of delay-altered realities. Keep marching forward, fellow harbingers of noise!

One of my favourite 00s bands was Melbourne two-piece Sodastream. Here is songsmith Karl Smith and his very cute video for 'Slow Short Story'. You all need to listen to his solo record, Kites, right now.

Slow Short Story - Karl Smith from Karl Smith on Vimeo.

Let's finish up with THE band I'd like to play a Sonic Masala show. Melbourne crackpots Ooga Boogas. Im gonna try, I promise...

NOW GET BACK TO WORK?

Interview - Keep On Dancins

2013 has been an interesting year for Keep On Dancin’s. The four-piece came into the year having released a warmly received debut album The End Of Everything and with an extensive playing schedule under their belt. Supports for the likes of Velociraptor and Dan Kelly were becoming commonplace. But the band deliberately fell off the radar, a belated cassette release Black Lassie the only hint that the band were still in action.

“For a good year now we’ve really reined things in,” drummer Alex Dunlop explains. “Jacinta (Walker) and Tegan (Rickard) wanted to focus on Tiny Migrants, and Yuri (Johnson) had Teen Sensations, and we all just needed a rest from it all. We were playing so often – it never approached the level of burnout, but we overexposed ourselves a bit. Then after that time we got back in the saddle and started playing a couple shows, and it felt right to be moving forward again.”

The main focus for the band is the upcoming release of sophomore record Hunter, and the process has seen them approach the art of music in a more calculated manner.  

“We didn’t realise how many people liked (The End Of Everything) until after we had a break, and it changed the way we looked at things,” Dunlop stresses. “We didn’t really roll it out properly; we just played and played and sold bits at shows. We have tried to be cleverer with it, the whole experience. Before we played more like a lot of bands do, that is to play until we drop without thinking about what we were doing. This time we are weighing up what to do with film clips, we’ve planned the single (Grey Ghost), we’re doing interviews; we are picking and choosing what and when we play… Before we were playing every little dive because we said yes to everything, and it didn’t do anything for us.”

This new approach obviously bled into the writing and recording of Hunter also. “We recorded with Sean Cook, and we took things really slow; we spent a whole week on one song,” Dunlop emphasises. “We may have spent more money, but it also allowed us to take our time with it, adding bits here and there as they presented themselves to us. Because of that it feels really layered; there are drum loops involved, it’s quite metronomic, so it’s obviously very different to what has come before.”

Hunter won’t hit our ears until 2014, but the band are prepping us with the launch of two tracks from it, Grey Ghost and Baby, the second track of which has its own film clip which follows the four-piece as they wander around a day at the Ekka. The video was put together by Dunlop himself, something he admits was a great experience.

“We got a friend to bring his Handicam and follow us around the Ekka, just having some fun, feeding animals, playing games, going on rides and stuff. I got it together and chopped it all up into something. There was no song designed for it though, because there was no lip syncing or anything, so I just picked Baby because it had a dreamy quality to the whole experience. But we had decided that Grey Ghost should be the single a while ago, but wanted to show both off.”

Keep On Dancins launch the single/s tomorrow night at Black Bear Lodge, with Roku Music and Martyr Privates in able support.

Video Vacuum - Beach Fossils, The Ocean Party, Keep On Dancins, Pop 1280

I like a story with a good twist in the tale, don't you? Well today's Video Vacuum is a bit like that - three music videos with energy and light, before finishing up with a bucketful of viscous tar. And trust me, you will love it all...



Beach Fossils' latest record Clash The Truth is the strongest statement Dustin Payseur and co. have made yet, and 'Generational Synthetic' is one of the strongest statements off it. The video is VHS sworling fuzziness, the band mucking about in the middle of the night. So 80s MTV. I wish I was there right now, shopping trolley, love doll, strobe lights and all...



More fun times with Melbourne's funtime dudes, The Ocean Party. This video for second single 'Quarter Life Crisis' shows the band and their friends from the Osborne Street stable, getting progressively loose as the night spirals out of control. Cue the hats, wigs, and makeup...



Keep On Dancins take the B-side from their upcoming Grey Ghost single and put it to a day-trip to the Brisbane Ekka. It looks a lot more fun than I envision the Ekka to be, but it's always about who you're with I guess. Filming done by Tiny Migrant Julien James, and effectively put together by KOD drummer Alex Dunlop, it's actually a sleepy yet endearing clip to another smoky noir ballad.



Ah, leave it to degenerates Pop 1280 to darken the mood. Admittedly 'Do The Anglerfish' isn't their most demonic and debased track, but the bilious wrath makes for strangely compelling listening/viewing. Blue Monday for the deliciously diseased.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

A Decade of Mere Migration Noise Celebration

Your tiny words don't mean a thing. But if you don't mind, then keep making whatever noise you want to make. Keep it up for ten years. Tiny Migrants launch their little slab of noise (some Mexican hat cum XXXX brewery, back and forth, jumpin', thrivin' and strivin' to survivin' tunes) at a very special show this weekend. Brisbane's own independant stalwarts Mere Noise records are celebrating 10 years on the trot with parties THIS WEEKEND at Black Bear in Bris and Off the Hip in Melbourne.



To do anything is hard. To run an independent record label for ten years in a town renown for siphoning culture southward through its ample storm drains and cultural backwaters... verges on biblical. You thought Job had it tough? He never had to work through an industry re-inventing itself whilst living off beans so he could put out shit-hot local bands on 7" records throughout the world.  The fact that Mere Noise exist is a fucking testament worth your admiration. Get down to one of the shows and party like it's 2003. It may be mere, but it's a lot louder than the silence that would be without them.

  

Thursday Cover Up - Black Lassie Keeps On Dancin

Not as much a review (and moving the cover post from its coveted Friday slot) as a promotion. Tonight there is a goddamn rad gig at the Black Bear Lodge, with the top three bands releasing new material. Gothic sorcerers Occults and Adelaide's punk brood Rule Of Thirds both release 7"s, whilst local maudlin minstrels Keep On Dancins finally give hard copy to follow up their excellent The End Of Everything LP with a pink cassette in the form of Black Lassie (out through Long Gone Records). Seven tracks of Spaghetti Whimsy, opening with an echo-drenched slowburn cover of seminal Brisbane guitar pop band Custard's 'Nervous Breakdance', the "EP" offers every facet of the KODs that makes them such an attractive prospect - the reined in wistful saunter, the occasional brash outburst, soaring vocals, the coyness, the shyness, and the ness-es in between. It's no stretch from familiar ground for the band, but that's not what anyone wants, now, is it?

Rounding out this delectable bill is new-ish phenomenon Screaming Match, who kick everything off at 8.  Ensure you get down there (and that awesome artwork again provided by Sam McKenzie.

Keep On Dancins - Nervous Breakdance (Custard cover)

Ex Slugs And Butcher Birds Let Fly

 

Ex-Con came to be after Joanna Nilson (Butcher Birds) and James Dalgliesh (Slug Guts) got together in the feverish, nightmare-inducing humidity of a a Brisbane summer awash with monsoonal floods, kneejerk alcoholism and an inexplicable anxiety borne of idleness. The first combination of the band also included Cat Maddin (Dreamtime) and Alex Dunlop (Keep On Dancins), captured on their debut self-titled 7” (out through Bon Voyage).

Recorded live by Blank Realm’s Luke Walsh at the now defunct Woodland Bar this time last year (apparently accompanied by a bottle of Captain Morgan, a Holy Grail reverb pedal and some extra long Rizlas, these 3 tracks are icy fingers dug deep into the skull, tetanus behind the eyes, eczema for the ears. Nilson is at her best when she sounds tortured, and here she moans, screeches and howls like a death wraith with withdrawal symptoms, backed by barbed-wire noise and production-line industrial drum disorder. It’s a nasty mix, yet the heritage here (plus the feverish connection to the “Sunshine” State) gives it the rusted barbs to stay stuck in the flesh for a long time after the last note has been flayed.

Ex-Con comes out on Monday, and can be pre-ordered here. Nilson and Dalgliesh have absconded to Melbourne, and now have a new rhythm section comprising of Steph Cola (Spite House) and Andrea Blake (Chrome Dome).

Ex Con - Cuda '82

Do Away With The Rain With Sonic Masala Tonight!

I may have laid dormant in terms of posts, but Sonic Masala has been movin and shakin in other realms, predominantly in the live arena. December's showcase featured a blistering set by high-concept grungers Sleepwalks, an intimate sojourn with Do The Robot, some cathartic meanderings courtesy of Nite Fields and some balls to the wall blues bust-ups from El Motel.

Matt & Sarah loved that show so much that Do The Robot will kick off proceedings once more at West End's The Waiting Room tonight in a pre-Australia Day knees-up. It's a holiday tomorrow, so why not start the celebrations early? Joining DoT are the glass-eating Bottlecock, the ambient tantrics of Anonymeye and the noir gleam of Keep On Dancin's. Once again it's all for a tenner, all for giving bands a chance to get paid for their efforts for once, and all really just an excuse to see bands I like whilst getting drunk for really cheap (it's BYO, doncha know?)

Fuck the rain. This party is where the shit goes DOWN.

Fear Of Alice Munro

First turned onto this London via Brighton band through Art Is Hard Records, Fear Of Men recently recorded a set of songs in anticipation of their forthcoming tour with another SM "One To Watch" (I have never said that about another band, at least not given a definitive label - but it's kinda true, we are fans here) Bos Angeles. The avid experimenting with mic placement and an eight-track tape recorder produced some gems, called the Alice Munro demos (to be released December 12), and the best of which is 'Doldrums'. Suitably gloomy and jangly, akin to Brisbane's own Keep On Dancin's that we showcased yesterday, or even another Brissy band Feathers, the track shows a gloss that we haven't associated with the group in the past, and may be a slight glimpse into their beautifully morbid future...

Fear Of Men - Doldrums

Keep On Dancin' For A Standing 8 Count

That Meltdown that Mere Noise is promising gets ever closer, so it's high time we threw the limelight on two more local acts that will be brandishing the blowtorch.


First up we have a band we have briefly mentioned here in the past, The Keep On Dancins. Their debut album The End Of Everything came out earlier this year, and it is just another of Brisbane's 2011 Easter eggs of rocking delectability. What's even better though is that in December it's being released on vinyl, so it will be the greatest Christmas gift too! This album is the brooding, maudlin, eyelids-at-half-mast kind of garage rock, less giddy I love the sunshine and more I love twilight (the time of day, not that raping of the vampire genre shtick). you can pre-order it on Bandcamp now if you want to take advantage of a sweet limited edition pack that includes the vinyl (w/ download), a black (of course) tee and a poster, all for $35 + ph. It can be a gift to yourself if you want...


Secondly, it's all about the institutions at the Meltdown, and these guys are elder statesmen of kicking arse. The Standing 8 Counts are the band that pretty much started it all for this label has reformed, with the original lineup getting together just under a month ago at the Crown Hotel in Lutwyche for the first time in over ten years - it was like 2001 all over again! Very exciting.

The Keep On Dancins - Summertime

The Standing 8 Counts - (You Make Me) Stiff

Ill Never Learn From Lovely Legs

I don't know much about Brisbane's Lovely Legs, but have been listening to the 4 track EP Never Learn on and off for the past four months and need to purge. These shambolic country-punk hoedowns (or as they state, "cunt-punk")are as dirty as they are frivolous, and you cant help but feel drunk and crazy just from listening to them. Plus Lovely Legs - formed from members of the Sulphur Lights, Keep On Dancin’s, Velociraptor, the Chokes and Foreign Junk - claim Cheater Slicks as an influence - Im sold.

Grab Never Learn from the Bandcamp here.

Lovely Legs - Holy Bore

VIDEO VACUUM - Cults, Keep On Dancins, Future Islands, Vandaveer

Hey kids! Who wants to watch some stuff and listen to some stuff so that you can avoid doing stuff? Me too! So...

Not much can be said about this stupidly huge track - the fact that the band keeps flogging it, and it's still as infectious as it was last year, is nigh on miraculous - but Cults have finally endeavoured to put out a video for 'Go Outside'. Excellently based on the Jim Jones religious cult massacre, get prepared to collectively lose your shit...

Go Outside, by Cults from Boing Boing on Vimeo.

Shit, I peaked too soon! How do you top that? But slowing down with a distinctly country tinged number by Brisbane's own The Keep On Dancins, that's how! This is off their debut album The End Of Everything, which is really something special - I will be bringing you more from that soon...



that is sweet, no? It's now time to ratchet the fun times back up again. Who better than Baltimore's own Future Islands? No one, that's who. This is the leading single gfrom their Thrill Jockey 7" release, which has already sold out! Excited? Yep.

Future Islands - Before the Bridge from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

And to finish it off, this slick video for Washington's own Vandaveer's newie, 'The Great Gray'. Very The Road, Book Of Eli, end of times stuff - yet understated, bluesy folk? The juxtaposition suits it so (thanks Crash Avenue for this one...)



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Hits From The Box #21 - Standing On Queen's Land

For those of you not in the know - and that would be over 5 billion of you - it's Queensland day today. Where the Australian state of Queensland celebrates all things Queensland. Im not sure what that is - drinking profusely, searing some red meat and offering out some latent racism? I jest, of course, as I am a proud parochial Queenslander, yet I feel rather idle on a day that feels like it should be celebratory. Maybe Ill go eat a lamington...


I know what Ill do! Ill start this week's Hits From The Box with a Queensland band! The Keep On Dancins are a four piece from Brisbane that delve into the doo-wop surf garage thang with a heady dose of Twin Peaks fanaticism to boot. They have just released their debut album The End Of Everything which is a solid release, the weird contrast between the jangly instrumentation and the maudlin, morose themes at play a nice alteration to the sound. They play around a lot, are a likable bunch, and love Twin Peaks. Nuff said.

The Keep On Dancins - There Goes Your Guy

You know what? Listen to the album too!




Electroluminescent is the aural pseudonym for Ryan Ferguson, who has been a staple on the Hamilton, Canada scene for the past 15 years. His sound is best described as calming guitar workouts drenched in droning ephemera, synth explorations and Cluster-like ambiance. Very delectable then... He has just released Bleeds Light, which is a compilation spanning his recordings from 1998 to 2011 - and its fucking amazing. Seriously, I am in love with this album! You can get a free download of the album on his Bandcamp here - WELL worth your time...

electroluminescent - Atala & Rene
electroluminescent - Hidden In Books


Hailing from the stereotypically lambasted shores of Southend-on-Sea in England (ever heard of Essex Boys/Girls? This is apparently the capital...), CLOUT! are an intriguing experimental five piece who are mashing a variety of styles together to create something otherworldly. They have a debut EP out through new label Dirty Bingo Records, and I was especially taken by opening track 'Maxwell's O' - a distinctive PVT-like sound with the right level of dubstep invoked therein. They flirt with reggae and hip hop as well, and it is all very beat driven - We'll keep an eye on em to see what they flower into. Until then...

CLOUT! - Maxwell's O


Sheep Dog & Wolf is 17 year old Aucklander Daniel McBride - no shit. When I first listened to his first EP Ablutophobia I was reminded of Jose Gonzalez if he was more familiar with Sufjan Stevens, Les Claypool and Boyz II Men. This is some weird, yet very well rendered freak pop - and I think its amazing. The entire thing has been recorded by McBride himself - all instruments, all vocals - in his bedroom. Holy fuck, right? Its taken 9 months to complete due to schoolwork... He is first and foremost a saxophonist, but has taught himself a whole lot of other instruments, like guitar, drums, piano, and euphonium, most of which feature on this EP. Be afraid, be very afraid... Grab the EP here.

Sheep, Dog & Wolf - Ablutophobia
Sheep, Dog & Wolf - Tamefires



Describing themselves as a slow, quiet band, Brooklyn's Villa Venus traverse the same sonic terrain as Low, Bedhead, even a little bit of Galaxie 500. They are just starting to step out into the roiling waters that is NYC, and I think they will do all right. They remind me of a great band we have here in Australia called Art Of Fighting - sweeping, ethereal melancholia that is esoteric in its vocal stylings. This is burning the midnight ruminative oil soundtrack material if Ive ever heard it... Villa Venus have a self-titled EP out now - you can get it here.

Villa Venus - Slow Collapse


We finish in Buenos Aires, Argentina today as Dead Berlin, an independent duo drown us in their minimal psychedelic rock. The Dead Will Come is their first proper EP release, which you can get from their Bandcamp here. They are still very much developing their sound, yet there are elements amongst The Dead Will Come that offers very high hopes for the future. Keep at it guys...

Dead Berlin - The Sun
Dead Berlin - Upstairs

Happy Sunday!