Nothing Dumb About These Golden Numbers

Good dude Geordie Stafford has been a mainstay in the Brisbane hardcore scene - his efforts in Dick Nasty and Teargas in particular leaving indelible claw marks across the underground. But he found it easiest when he worked on his own - his lone wolf approach to doom metal, Golden Bats, has been incredibly prolific, having put out six self-titled EPs, a few 7"s and some split releases with the likes of Pale Earth and The Steady As She Goes.

He was also involved in the Tym Record Club, where the seminal label put two likeminded artists on flipsides of a 7". Golden Bats' effort sat alongside Adam Harding, a similar Australian rock journeyman who started performing under the moniker Dumb Numbers. Harding has the Midas touch, and on his second album has roped in a who's who of rock and metal royalty to help out (including members of The Melvins, The Jesus Lizard, Einstürzende Neubauten and Dinosaur Jr) - including Monsieur Stafford, who lends his axemanship to 'Unbury The Hatchet'. This song alone also features David Yow on vocals, and Alexander Hacke with keys and throat singing (!). The album itself predictably slays, of course, but I can't be any more stoked for Geordie (and Adam, of course) on this one. Grab Dumb Numbers II here (in purple vinyl no less), listen to the track below, and the entire album below that.

Steady Teething

The Steady As She Goes continued to roil in the deep dark night, a behemoth breaking the surface in slow motion, the spiked moonlight  sparking off its glistening carapace. The one-man Gothic doomsayer scorches the (E)arth on 'Kindred', the sepulchral opener to new release Teeth Dreams, before the Man In Black saunters through the smoke, a haunted gunslinger looking for his 'Throne Of Want'. I know that Tal will hate me for some of this - but I felt like I was trapped in a vacuum with three speakers spewing forth Tangerine Dream, Ennio Morricone and Pink Floyd in an unholy triumvirate of textured sound. I personally absolutely love it - it has become my soundtrack to my current spate of late-night writings. 'You Don't' is more in the scheduled TSASG vein, a slow-grinding leviathan of heaving waves of expectation and expulsion, before the nightmare crawl of 'Toluca' takes into the delicious darkness. The Steady As She Goes is one of the best things about the Brisbane music scene in my opinion - defiantly dark, dense, idiosyncratic and intense, a solo journey to the centre of the earth with no promise of return. More please - always fucking more.

VIDEO VACUUM - Sewers, The Steady As She Goes, Marville, Julia R Anderson, These Guy

Goddamn, if it hasn't been donkeys' since I did a Video Vacuum! So here is a quick one, highlighting some Brisbane acts that have put out some moving pics to go with the sounds of recent times...

Sewers have done their best to destroy 2015, what with the release of their second LP Weight on Homeless Records and US tour. 'Still Stinging' is the best example, aurally and visually, of what these boys represent, facials and all.

One of the surprise hits of last year was Dangerous & Dead, the debut album from one man goth-noir-Western monolith The Steady As She Goes. A surprise in that it's all one man, Tal Wallace, and that the cavernous, brooding intensity can be sustained in a live setting - easily becoming one of my favourite bands to take in. Now he is prepping to release follow-up Monoliths, and a perfect example of what to expect is 'No One Will Care When You Die'. Johnny Cash if he entered into a never-ending twilight palaver with Michael Gira, overseen by the Ulver chorus and reigning Cthulhu. The Man In Blackest Black. Dark as the limitless depths of your depraved soul - and far better for it.

Grunged-out duo Marville aren't messing around with 'Fickle', a track that oozes, crawls, gnaws and spits at you. Ash (Bottlecock) is now joined by Doug on the skins, and the bulk and heft is evident here. Just as the ink sprays on the canvas, 'Fickle' is an onslaught - one that isn't likely to wash out anytime soon. Break out the bleach.

Let's finish off with two of my favourite Brisbane artists, both of which come out of the very-shortlived band  Tabletop Lamps. First up is Julia R Anderson, whose evolution from a contemplative noise pop maven swimming in Yo La Tengo and Galaxie 500 waters to the art-pop contusions of 'In The Beginning' is nothing short of breathtaking. That performance in the clip, reminiscent of so many things (Ash's 'Girl On Mars' colour palette notwithstanding) is evidence of an artist growing in stature and confidence. Everything I have seen and heard her do has been exciting. Get behind this - in the year we see the further reaches of Julia Holter and Jenny Hval, Anderson deserves to be huge.

And let's end with some quirky yacht pop from These Guy AKA Joe Saxby (now joined by two pop weirdniks in crime). 'That Fucking Guy' is brilliant in every way - the hipster-baiting, the dork embracing, the air instruments and mic, the fly on the burger, and the visceral and violent about-turn in the last minute. Stupid genius is the best kind of genius.

Steady As She Covers

Tal Wallace, one man Man In Black as pastoral soothsayer of doom The Steady As She Goes, released a great album last year in the form of Dead & Dangerous, meticulously crafting a plodding, mellotron-heavy march through the seven levels of Lovecraftian hell, as scored by a Machiavellian Ennio Morricone. This year he has produced another album in the form of Folklord, a free download on his Bandcamp. It is a idiosyncratic rendition of a bunch of 16 Horsepower songs, and plays out how you might expect – dark and desolate, with Wallace’s baritone front and centre. The forays into, and unabashed embrace of, doo-wop (haha) and country tropes on the likes of ‘Sinnerman’, ‘Beyond The Pale’ and especially ‘Single Girl’ are a delight – imagine Johnny Cash if he played his classics with Neil Young’s Ol’ Black distorted guitar – but its where the songs naturally roll into TSASG staples that are the most impressive. The one two Western Armageddon of ‘Hutterite Mile’ and ‘Outlaw Song’, and the spectral crawl and Ennio haunt of ‘Horse Head Fiddle’, are excellent. My favourite track though is the closer ‘La Rope A Parasol’ – it’s haunting as you would expect, but there is a euphoria imbued within that hints that Wallace might actually be having…fun? God forbid.

It is a download only release, and even so in this squirrelled away corner of the world - have at it. Their second album is on its way...

Australian Pride, Sonic Masala Style (Pt1)

SO MANY AUSSIE BANDS DOING GOOD THINGS. So let's check some of the most recent ones out!

Let's start with my currently most played song from one of the best bands in Australia. 'Flesh War' is the first taste from the upcoming Total Control record Typical System, coming out on the excellent Iron Lung label. It's shaved away some of the industrial dirge that lurked in the corners and fully embraced the 80s Gothic New Wave. This doesn't even feel Australian - if it weren't for Mikey Young's guitar lines, I would thing we were in Berlin on a snow blasted Sunday, time indeterminate, all pofaced and windswept, black coats and wasted gazes. In short, it's amazing. Cannot wait to hear how this all comes together - colour this my most anticipated release of 2014. Always a dangerous comment to make - but it can't be unmade now...

Three bands are playing tonight in Brisbane that have new music out. Depraved goth rock trio Gazar Strips are launching their second EP Sparkling on yours truly's Sonic Masala Records. I can't go into too much detail as that would be self-aggrandising, but obviously I like it, especially closer 'Bee Mantis'. Pre-order the EP here.

Then there is Naked Maja, who have been steadily building elliptical steam since the release of their Disillusion EP last year. They have a new single at the ready, 'Out Of Mind', and it's a slice of tempered, considered mood, a salubrious offering that nevertheless feels suspended in formaldehyde, the sun piercing the liquid in amber shards, a sleepwalking daydream in between worlds. It's this kind of sun drunk miasmic emotion that this band does so well, a meticulous deconstruction/reconstruction of pop conventions. Great stuff - their The Vagrant EP promises to be another bar raiser.

Finally there is one-man darkness machine The Steady As She Goes, whose Dangerous & Dead LP is a brooding, calculating winner. All brooding theatrics in a minimalist pit, this act is one of the more understated must-see acts in Australia at the moment. It's the fact that the magnetic pull comes from one man, sucking the air out of the room at the first few notes of the guitar, that makes his performances so hypnotic. All three bands, alongside the excellent Barge With An Antenna On It (who are recording new music the following day at Incremental Studios) and Hypnotic Bedrooms, all at the Underdog for a tenner. See you there.

Now for another current favourite album from a band I can't get enough of right now. Melbourne four-piece Nun have released their debut self-titled record through Aarght! (Australia) and AVANT! (Europe), therefore letting it slip that they love exclamation marks. And darkness - plenty of darkness. For Nun is one delectably dark spiral of despair. Opening track 'Immersion II' is by far my favourite due to its chaotic atonal nature, but the way it bleeds straight into 'Evoke The Sleep' is brilliant. Apocryphal synth madness - can't beat that. 

Keeping things dark is label No Patience, who has just brought forth two great releases from doomed soothsayer Lakes and gutter scum Flesh World. Lakes' Carved Remains/Face In The Ash 7" follows hotly on the heels of last year's Blood Of The Grove LP, and these two tracks are another cut above, filled with sworling gothic tension and pent up anguish. There is a vibrating intensity that hums at the heart of these tracks, even as Sean Bailey's delivery seems at once teeth-gnashing and slack-jawed - on the precipice between exultation and damnation. No such tightrope walking for Flesh World though - their Planned Obsolescence EP is a breakneck kick into the abyss. This kind of thrash wasn't made to be heard on anything other than shitty cassettes thrown onto a bonfire, but now that they are on vinyl expect this devilish energy and power to ooze out and consume the world. 

Let's travel to Newcastle now and catch up with Bare Grillz. This band brought out Friends at the beginning of the year, and it's an excellent record that I unfortunately slept on until only a few weeks ago. There is a rawness to the recording where you can hear the mistakes, elements of the studio wouldn't normally take in, and this is the Araldite glue that stick all of this atonal angular aggression in place. It has that hollowed dissonance that some of the NZ bands that dole out this type of warped noise tend to have woven into their DNA, and that is an imminently good thing. A real grower - hopefully the boys return for a show up north sometime soon.

I'm running out of time because I have to go eat a handful of flu tablets so I can make it through the Gazar Strips show tonight alive - although Ill probably try to drown the germs in liquor anyway - so I thought I would end this first instalment of Aussie awesomeness with everybody's favourite, Courtney Barnett. She played The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, she has the video clip out that is at the bottom of this post, and she has this interactive zine about her tour/trip that you can colour. I could write for hours more about this, but Ill leave it for now. Keep between the lines! Come back tomorrow for the next instalment, featuring the likes of Wizard Oz, The Seaport and the Airport, Austin Buckett, Full Ugly, No Action, Freak Wave and lots more!

Stranger Marville Gods

Local grunge-addicted duo Marville may not have hit your radars that often, but that's not because they are a new band. Rather, they have been playing the traps for some time since humble beginnings of a solo outlet for Bottlecock aficionado Ash Kerley under the moniker Strangers. After teaming with Linda Dark, the band have been not-so-quietly chipping away, until Sydney band Strangers threatened to take them to task over "their"name, despite Kerley playing under the moniker for ages before the pipsqueak screamos came onto any semblance of a "scene". Anyway, the duo obeyed the lesser of two evils, and are reborn as Marville.

Which is working out mighty fine, as the duo prepare to launch their debut album (in either incarnation) today, Vayan Con Dios. An album of unabashed tension, atmosphere and slack-jawed nihilism in the Adalita-in-mid-career-Magic Dirt mould, with some smouldering instrumental interludes, the album doesn't push the envelope, instead happily espousing the strengths of their limits, comfortable in their brittle skin. With a Bottlecock LP in the ether, Kerley promises to be a busy presence in Brisbane circles over the next twelve months - and if this album is any indication, the 90s alternative scene is coming along for the ride.


Marville launch the album tonight at the Beetle Bar alongside ol' SM faves El Motel (it's been awhile, padres), You In Reverse and the rising glory of The Steady As She Goes. For a $10, it tees off at 8pm.