Straight Arrows Turn Me On

Sydney garage rock reprobates Straight Arrows are at it again. They are winging their way to the US of A, hopefully in Trump-dumping celebration mode, to play some shows with legends Thee Oh Sees - and have a glistening 7" to proffer as well. Typically fast paced and party baiting first taste 'Turn Me Off' is a such a King Khan and the BBQ Show jam, via the roots of punk pop genius, The Ramones, that you can't help but lose your shit (and let a little bit of wee out). It really bothers me that these guys aren't at the top echelon of rock acts in Australia when generic wastoids like Dune Rats keep getting kudos. Who cares how wasted you are, as long as you do it with pinpoint precision and authenticity without forgetting that it's all about everyone having a good time.

Mugging An Emotional Segall

This has been floating around for a while - and it's true, after my incessant writing about Ty Segall for a couple years, I have been detoxing over the past twelve months - but I bit the bullet and bought Emotional Mugger today. He cuts a more garage rawk trail than his even more prolific buddy John Dwyer (Thee Oh Sees), much more likely to blow the speakers than take you into the hyper ether, but he is no less adventurous here. Each song seems to be its own entity, intent to max out the red on every speaker known to humanity, flirting with all of his predilections (glam rock, garage rock, stoner rock, 70s metal, 60s psych) while skewing it all so much to ensure each morsel leaves a tingling sensation to the mouth and an acidic itch in the back of the nose. You gotta hand it to the man, that even when songs seem less focused on pristine songs to stand the test of time, and to develop earworms likely to burrow into your head and eat you from the inside out. That white-noise synth a la Digital Leather; the guttural heaviness, laser effects and 60s pop vocal stylings of  'Diversion'; the cramped horror glam of 'Big Baby Man (I Want A Mommy) - it is all deliberately off the wall and diseased. It isn't really subversive though - Segall knows it's a joke and his self-awareness is passed on to us, we are to be in on the joke - but instead is a macabre noise trip with indelible hooks and a brooding closer in 'The Magazine' that I have incessantly played since stumbling across it - like if TV On The Radio listened to Disappears, then had a hallucinogenic breakdown. Emotional Mugger is a schizophrenic record, but with so many crazy ideas hitting the mark - how the fuck does he do it? Grab it through Drag City here. Ty Segall is bringing his Muggers to London in June, with Aussie synth punk miscreants Ausmuteants in tow - get tickets here, it will be all kinds of awesome.

Scraped Misery

Jesus, I am falling further and further into the scuzz punk sewers aren’t I? Today it’s the industrial rabies bite of Misery, the new record from San Franciscans Scraper. It's produced by Chris Woodhouse, more known for Bay Area garage rock like Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall, but it’s his Blind Shake repertoire that inflects throughout this cesspit of an album. You see, Scraper hates everyone around them, even themselves, as the brilliant title track espouses. Meanwhile there are tracks like ‘Blue Velvet’ – Pissed Jeans in embryonic devolution. When there is such vitriolic self-loathing, how else would you expect them to look out from under their own abuse at all the other fuckers breathing all the precious air. Guttural punk bilge pumps, Scraper are saving all the black detritus of the human condition for your last supper – bon appetit. Misery is another Slovenly pus capsule - ingest here at your peril.

See The Fortress?

Not that you need to hear it from me - but Thee Oh Sees is still one of the most consistently breathtaking live acts on the planet. Not only carving a sweaty swathe across the globe at regular intervals, but John Dwyer and co are continually bringing out new material. Now 'Fortress' has been out since before Xmas, but I need to melt my face off to keep warm this Friday night, and knowing that pals Blank Realm and Kitchens Floor played with them in Brisbane last night (this afternoon for us UKens), the start of their Australian tour as over the course the month they traipse across the Great Southern Land doing show with mates White Lodge and Straight Arrows as well as UV Race, Terrible Truths, Power and Tyrannamen - so bummed! So I'm building a fortress with endless TOS records and beers - it should see me through, right? 'Fortress' will feature on a 7" out on Dwyer's Castle Face Records next month.

Waking Up Running

Chicago's Running are one of my favourite bands, that I have never seen, because as far as I know they barely tour out of their hometown, let alone come near where I'm hanging out. Their scorched-earth noise brand of garage punk is abrasive, dark yet hilarious. Their album Vaguely Ethnic was one of my fave albums of 2013, and I've been eagerly awaiting their follow-up, Wake Up Applauding, for at least a year. It was meant to be out this week through Castle Face Records - but no word! Anyone help me here? Anyway, here are two tastes from it. It takes the modern garage rock mould and hurls it into the fire, stomping on its smoldering remains before popping the coals on their slathering tongues with maniacal glee. It's hard to explain exactly how Running are better than most other bands out there - in essence they have much of what makes Thee Oh Sees and their ilk a constant source of energetic enjoyment, and garage bands are legion - they just simply are.

Happy Damage In The Jacuzzi

Back in 2009, before I started Sonic Masala with Paul, he made me a mixtape (awww!) of all the bands that he thought I would be into. On that list was stuff from Thee Oh Sees, Meth Teeth, Vivian Girls and Monotonix - most of the others I can't remember (I lost the CD when I had to move back over to London from Australia last year...) One band I do remember was the deliriously scuzzy insanity of Miami garage rockers Jacuzzi Boys (the track - 'Island Avenue' - the type of track that Brisbane mates Tiny Migrants used to spit out). I have always been into their brand of scrappy, explosive sounds, and new EP Happy Damage is more of the same. The darker 'Sun' is more my cup of rock, but the explosive title track is heaps of fun too. Blast it out of the speakers to see out your Sunday.

Mooning Weird Jack

Jack Name (touring guitarist for White Fence) has brought out a new album, Weird Moons, and it is pretty weird. It has a plethora of touchstones, both past and present. I can see why Castle Face Records were drawn to the record, especially seeing as they also recently put out King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's latest LP. The woozy opener 'Werewolf Factory' could have come out of that band's think tank, with references to Ariel Pink, Thee Oh Sees and Warren Zevon mashed into the cracked centre. Its a seriously warped melange of sounds - the warble of 'Lowly Ants' reminds me of Air if they had lowered themselves into a Pink mire; the opening of 'Running After Ganymede' sounds like a stomach wind; the spectral swagger and stagger throughout 'Waiting For Another Moon' holds in thrall. In fact this entirely bizarre album holds one in thrall throughout, whether there is a glam rock blast-out, like King Tuff strung out on Numan's supply on 'Watcher Talk', the sun-warped sci-fi yacht rock of 'Io' or the maudlin introspection of maximal minimalist 'Lowly Ants'. This is an album that is made out of time and out of mind, and deserves to be huge. It won't be - but it deserves to be.

Grab Weird Moons here.

Wett Nurses Having A Hissy Fit

Ongakubaka has been a blog about psych noise rock that I have followed and enjoyed for some time now, and like Sonic Masala (and other blogs before us), they have gone out and started their own label. The first release to come from their stable is Hissy Fit, the new EP for Portland loose psych dwellers Wett Nurse. The organ imbues the Thee Oh Sees heavy work with an authenticity and baroqueness that is endearing and eclectic - it lends songs like 'Spook It' a otherworldly kitsch that aligns it with 50s B-movie madness. And I love 50s B-movie madness.

Bizarrely I haven't warmed as much to Ongakubaka's second release, the self-titled cassette from paisley-psyched German duo Lovebyrd - but it has been getting some great reviews, so definitely check it out here.

Weird Ovaries In The Rain

Man, I love me a straight up moniker. And whilst Lux Ovarye's Weird Time isn't exactly an easy mouthful, it sure is a weird time. Playing out like a paisley Thee Oh Sees offcut with Ariel Pink taking the reins whilst asking all and sundry where he can score some MDMA, 'In The Rain' is a beautiful jangle with a soaring melody that nevertheless feels sketchy, flaky, borderline psychotic. But the band keep it together, enough where you drop your guard and start to really enjoy yourself. Then you open yourself to it properly, and the rain spears into your being - it's like being out of yourself on the side of a highway that you have no reason to be on, with someone who you DEFINITELY shouldn't be with, yet knowing that the walls are coming down... Spinning around, arms outstretched as the sun rises over the industrial complexes... Not really knowing where you are, and not caring. That's what 'In The Rain' does to you, be it real or imagined. And that makes it a dangerously good song.

Looking Forward To Stomping Cretins

I’ve been meaning to give air to Looking Forward To Being Attacked, the new LP from Memphis wildlings Cretin Stompers, for a month now – this post got lost in the move. I was listening to this a fair bit too when I was packing up – it's a Hozac and Burger Records dual release, so that gives you some idea what to expect but still there is a gritty thrashiness and yet coquettishness to these guys that is beguiling, weird and pretty great too. The one-two punch of ‘Project:Object’ and ‘Adult Child’ exemplify this perfectly – a high-pitched vocal gives us a languid rock jam that plays with our sonorous heartstrings, before the second track goes full tilt into the rubbish tip, all metal scrapes and distorted riffs and growled grunts, eyes rolling around, a spit-stained thrash-out. The drums sound cavernous and blown-out; the guitars alternate between stoned sunshine psychedelics and speed-freak garage trash. There is the straight forward grooves of ‘Randy Kraft’ followed by the helium-blast of ‘Watch Sally Run’; the distorted yacht rock melt of ‘Dream Blood’ and 70s stadium rock of ‘Cowboy From Mars’…It’s such an absurd pill to swallow and let meld with your molecules – it’s as if the Weens went and tried to cover Thee Oh Sees and spectacularly failed, but in their own way spectacularly succeeded – so in many ways it does what it says on the tin. Despite the offputting nature one who stomps cretins might have, we are always thankful for them – especially when ‘Cretin Ate My Neighbour!’ hits – and as soon as I throw this on, I'm raring for the frontal attack. Witness the weirdness.

You can grab Looking Forward To Being Attacked here.

Stopping The Mysterious Giggly Boys

Music is a funny ol thing. I wasn't going to write about New York punks Giggly Boys. My bro-from-another-mo sent their EP to me, the bafflingly titled .. That is a full stop. As the title. That is not the reason I wasn't going to talk about it. No. He sent it to me because he heard that I liked Protomartyr (and if he bothered to read Sonic Masala he would have known that before now. I kid, you're alright mate!) and these dark and mysterious yowlers have been playing shows with them of late. But we couldn't really decide whether we liked the songs or not. He decided he didn't; so did I in fact. I even labelled them thus:

It's bog standard. I enjoy it, then forget about it 

Then I woke up this morning, hopped in the shower - and really felt a need to listen to second track 'Sick Joke'. I wanted a Murder City Devils track to soundtrack the opening of my day, but had this at hand instead. I plugged it into the speakers (yes my new shower has speakers) and let fly. Then I let the EP play out. And now it is Tuesday afternoon and I'm still listening to it. Everything is played to a concise manner, with nothing forced (which I originally thought) nor overly original being put in play - there are howls a la John Dwyer to punctuate certain elements from the warbled, just hinged enough vocalist; there is a bridled anger simmering away, drenched in monochrome and baked vitriol. 'Model Behaviour' feels retro, with kraut rhythms permeating throughout; 'Joel's River' has the barked lo-fi mayhem that ...Trail Of Dead embraced early on; closer 'Acid Fight' turns full circle to that Murder City Devils feel (and could be the best some on the EP). It's burning into my synapses. In short - I like it. It needs to be blasted on speakers though, pushed to its limits. I know nothing more about them. If you do, point me in their direction. I'm hooked.

Tripping Out In The Technicolour Lodge

I heard White Lodge before I saw them. It isn't that strange to admit in any form - but the strange thing was that they were from around Brisbane way and I had never heard of them before. What's worse/better, their EP Holy Void was a cracker, with a Murder City Devils vibe trickling out from the viscous cracks held within. They then put out a split record with Taiwan band Forests (who are fucking amazing by the way), supported The Growlers, and then I got them to play a show alongside Melbourne's Heads of Charm, the inimitable Turnpike and the brooding champions Howling Seas - and now here we are, at EP #2. Technicolour Visions continues where Holy Void left off - another six tracks of surf garage gurns and grit, dirty and blasted, but still clean enough to take home to your mum. Where will these guys end up next? I don't know - but they need to play more shows, get their records out there, and slay. Which they will. Drop in and schiz out.

Hittin' The Gubba

If you have been following Jonathan Boulet before now, rest assured that you have NOT been following Jonathan Boulet. More known for his sojourns into atmospheric rock with Sydney band Parades, or his "shouty-indie" solo fare (especially on the success of 2012's sophomore effort We Keep The Beat, Found The Sound, See The Need, Start The Heart). But Boulet and his band have bigger, doomier riffs to fry, and third album Gubba is about to shatter whatever preconceptions you may have had of the band before now. You see, Boulet is all about stretching parameters as far as they can go whilst getting the crowd/listener to collectively use it AND lose it. Gubba is a hodgepodge of rock explosions a la the best of John Dwyer's Thee Oh Sees efforts, just with added dirge and a tongue parked permanently in cheek. It's funny, heady, silly, heavy, and cool. In short - this is the Jonathan Boulet we've been waiting for all this time...


Gubba is out now through Popfrenzy in Australia, with Europe to follow suit later this month. Boulet is based in London nowadays (lucky me!), but is launching the album throughout August, with a show in Brisbane at Black Bear Lodge.

Praising A Peopled Musical Garden...And Technical Errors

Goddamn Monday. It can be a right bitch. Today is something else though; it’s one of those Mondays when even your computer, a nonplussed automaton, wants none of it. Everything is “not responding”. So sorry People’s Temple. I really wanted to write up something special about your excellent record that you just put out on Hozac Records, Musical Garden, that I managed to snap up this weekend. The way the band sways from modern day garage rock nonchalance to 60s woozy pop, like high fives between John Dwyer (‘Fast Thrills’), Ray Davies (‘Male Secretary’) and Bobby Darin (‘I Heard You Singing’) over a beachside prawn cocktail, really impresses. No song reach three minutes yet all feel fully realised. This is how you do it, King Gizzard – focus and integrity can still be imbued into tracks that experiment and are brimming with fun. But that’s all I can do, because this "not responding" shit is for the birds. Time to step away and enter the Musical Garden… Grab this great lil record here.

The Dirt On East Brunswick All Girls Choir

Out of the myriad bands that grace the underbelly of the Australia music scene, one of the hardest to classify (in my opinion at least) is the equally inexplicably named East Brunswick All Girls Choir. The band isn't choral in any way; often they are atonal in the truest sense (AKA out of whack tones altogether); their love of the blues is countered abruptly by their aggressive throttling of it, a type of aural auto-erotic asphyxiation; and when the cacophony dies away, what can be left is something fragile, quivering, and altogether beautiful.

Such a description doesn't give East Brunswick... justice - I'm not sure if any such description exists. They have played alongside Thee Oh Sees, The Chills and The Bats though, so their raucous poeticism has found kindred spirits. Now they are prepping a new album called Seven Drummers (so-called due to the number of drummers that have gone through the mill since the band's inception in 2008), and 'Dirty Bird' is the prefect representation of what the band is capable of. It's like a broken-down sea shanty, on the deck of a ship in the middle of a monumental storm, led by a madman evangelist who is tearing his voice box out of his own throat through internal turmoil, whilst instruments are strangled out of both frustration and love. It proves beyond doubt that East Brunswick is an elemental force, and deserves much more kudos than they're ever likely to get.

Seven Drummers comes out in a few months. If you are in Auckland though, you can see them play at Whammy Bar on Wednesday February 5. I daresay Australia shows are imminent - but these guys are fickle beasts, ruled only by primal instinct, so we shall see. 

Al(l) Loving That White Punk Slime

It isn't often that Sonic Masala has a self-professed "producer" in its midst, but San Francisco-based record scrubber Al Lover is an intriguing exception. As entrenched in psych and garage rock as he is in samples and beats, Lover takes on a wide variety of artists (mostly rock-oriented, from Grinderman and Davila 666 to SF alums Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees) and smudges them right up by smearing white noise and attitude into the mix, often infusing the tracks with even more bluster and awe than was thought possible (and these artists aren't known for their restraint as it is). He believes that psych music is the future of sampling, so he aims to be ahead of the curve. That said, he has original material on its way, most evident in his latest endeavour  Vondun Moon/Snake Hands, a 7" put out by PNKSLM (pronounced "Punk Slime" - a label run by London musicians that went from a blog to a clubnight to a label over three years). 'Snake Hands' is an incestuous love in with White Fence's Tim Presley, who wigs out on guitar and vocals, and it is a heady, hypnotropic mind melt of a track, the beats relentless and feverish, the needle in the red, in the vein, in the third eye. What always excites about Lover's productions is the energy and excitement that emanates from his work - not only is there creativity and flair evident in his musicianship, there is a holy reverence for his base material too.

You can pre-order Vondun Moon/Snake Hands here. Only 250 copies were canned, so expect these to fly out the door - GET ON IT.

Rock Four Thee

Ye olde English, what a blast, eh? Thou, thine, thy, thee. That extra E though tends to imbue an added layer of gritty garage looseness that straight-laced bands starting with "The" simply can't hold a candle to. Here are four examples...

The plastic, debauched, twisted fantasy land that is LA is a petri dish of creativity - spewing forth brilliance whilst also harbouring countless parasitic wasters. Thee Commons is an anomaly in that they don't sound anything like an LA band in almost any respect. Warped, strange, yet almost yesteryear-innocent, the four tunes on this EP plunder from 50s & 60s rock'n'roll - there is some of that hybridised brilliance that Buddy Holly had in spades in 'Dr's Visit' for example; wobbly sunburnt spaghetti surf yet with 21st century seediness bleaching in at the sides.  Sunburn At Midnight comes in turquoise vinyl 7" - definitely worth the pennies.

Thee Mighty Fevers come from the land of the rising sun, and we all know that Japan have unearthed some of the most depraved garage rock ever witnessed by the ears of man. These Kobe punks are snotty, bile swilling raconteurs, with endless chasms of nauseating energy, visceral nihilism and saliva. Every track starts with the same screamed 1234 count in. EVERY. SINGLE. SONG. Did I mention this is the perfect cocktail for the loosest night out? Ill probably see you there - won't remember it in the morning though. If you love this straight-up reckless garage punk (and my guess is you do), you need to get ahold of Fuck-in Great RnR this minute - I recommend the red wax.

Thee Mighty Fevers - Bad Party
Thee Mighty Fevers - RnR

Indiana's Thee Open Sex is the tangential odd band out, weaving deranged versions of psychedelia and punk in and out of each other in lurid form. Their self-titled record is one of the best and depraved things I have heard this year. It has heady sex with your ears, violates your cerebral vortex and impregnates your soul. Live Dead' is surely the soundtrack to the most hedonistic hallucinogenic orgy imaginable, on repeat, all the time. You won't have time to be spent - this is one aural orgasm that just won't quit. Seriously, get this now.

Thee Open Sex - Walkin' The Dog
Thee Open Sex - Live Dead

Finishing off with the E that rules them all (and the instigator of this post, seeing as I received this bone-coloured hottie in the mail yesterday), San Fran's hyperactive Rumpelstiltskins Thee Oh Sees. They released possibly their best album to date in Floating Coffin only last month, yet here is an excellent 12" EP made for Record Store Day that furthers their mythic consistency. Moon Sick harbours four blistering yet rather obtuse tracks that didn't make the Floating Coffin sessions - which is understandable, seeing as these songs would probably suit 2011's quirky Castlemania more. I loved that record though, so Moon Sick is still a killer purchase.  'Sewer Fire' is even sung by A-Frames/Intelligence impresario Lars Finberg - how much more power does a band wanna wield? Well worth innumerable spins, you can buy Moon Sick through the band's Castle Face Records here.

Another Day, Another Segall

Good morning! It has been quite a while since we had Ty Segall news (less than a month - he released his second EP of T-Rex covers for Record Store Day), so couldn't pass wait to pass on this new track. 'Music For A Film 1' is on a split release (the other act is Chad & the Meatbodies, chosen specifically by Segall himself) put out by Famous Class Records as part of the Less Artists More Condos split releases (having already featured the likes of A Place To Bury Strangers, Ceremony, Future Islands, Thee Oh Sees, Deerhoof, with forthcoming splits from Xiu Xiu and Brisbane's own Lawrence English, plus a Lower Dens one not far off). As is his wont, this is no throwaway tune from Segall, either - an instrumental of three and a half minutes of Seventies styled tribal drumming and blazed guitar, feeling like a surf-Bond-blaxploitation mishmash. Now that is the kind of movie I'd like to see, wouldn't you?

You can get the split for free download here, otherwise buy the vinyl here. You know you want to...

See Thee Oh Floating Coffin

It feel perfunctory telling you how good SF garage leviathans Thee Oh Sees' latest record Floating Coffin is. But then again, I probably should tell you that out of all of Dwyer and co's albums, this has been by far and large the most addictive album from start to finish for me - it's been locked in my car stereo since before Easter, and isn't likely to budge anytime soon. Below is a paraphrased version of the review I wrote for theMusic.com.au - check that one out here.

Five seconds into opening track 'I Come From The Mountain'  and it’s clear that the band, rather than diluting their style from overexposure the quartet are at supernova levels of intensity, ferocity and excellence. Like kindred spirit Ty Segall, Dwyer is a magnetic force, a feverish maelstrom of energy with an endless supply of riffs, melodies and yelps at his disposal. And like Segall, who took his garage rock DNA and fused it with Seventies era hard rock on 2012’s Slaughterhouse, Floating Coffin (out through Freeform Patterns and Fuse in Australia, Castle Face elsewhere) is a ramped up affair, perfectly augmenting last year’s great Putrifiers II in almost every conceivable facet.

'No Spell' wafts along like a sonorous Californian pop number, Brigid Dawson’s vocals deliberately flirting with the saccharine before being cut in half by a killer riff and Dwyer’s ecstatic bark; the feverish growl of ingenuously-named 'Strawberries 1 + 2' is a face-melter in the purest sense, before entering a intense motorik swirl into psych country; 'Night Crawler' takes a left-turn into spaced-out phasers and languid turns, before 'Sweet Helicopter' lifts off, and back into the stratosphere we go. 'Toe Cutter/Thumb Buster' best exemplifies the two extremes in the band’s blueprint, and is one of their best tracks because of it.

Not that other sonic artillery was necessary, but Dwyer ropes in the likes of luminaries Kelley Stoltz and Lars Finberg (A-Frames, The Intelligence, whose presence is truly felt on penultimate killer 'Tunnel Time' - which I might also add, is the closest I've ever heard a TOS song actually sound like local acolytes Tiny Migrants - kudos guys!), and the overall final product is addictive, breath-taking brilliance. 

Grab Floating Coffin here - garage excellence par none.

Thee Oh Sees - I Come From The Mountain

Thee Oh Sees - Toe Cutter/Thumb Buster

Ty Will Be Your Love

Last week we swanned about in the sunny glare of Mikal Cronin – last Saturday – I revelled in the twisted genius of John Dwyer’s Thee Oh Sees – today, its their buddy and garage Svengali Ty Segall to kick us in the teeth with a new tune (well, he kinda does this most weeks, there’s always something on the boil). ‘Would You Be My Love’ is fop-haired Beatles growing up in Detroit; the Davies brothers covered in NY leathers; Davy Jones with a Mohawk, a flannelette shirt and a hacksaw. B-side ‘For Those Who Weep’ takes paisley acid-trips by the river, reads the Book of Revelations, and drinks the Kool-Aid. Segall swings whichever way he wants, and it works – he has that perfect vocal timbre, manic presence and maniac guitar twirl – Planet Masala is his for the taking.



Grab the 7” through Drag City here.

Ty Segall – Would You Be My Love