Splitting Songs, Bro

Here are two releases from Melbourne's Bro Fidelity Records that are well worth your time. The first is this split 12" between Spider Goat Canyon and Hotel Wrecking City Traders. Created for a joint tour of Japan, it's a nigh on perfect split - SGC create a diabolic menace throughout their three tracks (and on the excellent 'Brotherhood' never truly lets that menace off its leash, thus heightening the tension tenfold), whilst the two track behemoth that is HWCT plays with post-metal formulae, a force to be reckoned with - all recorded in one day too. Buy it here.

Spider Goat Canyon - Brotherhood
Hotel Wrecking City Traders - II



Then there is this three-way split (which comes in tri-colour 180g vinyl in primary colours, get it here) between Southern California's Waterways, UK's Sons of Alpha Centauri and Hotel Wrecking City Traders. Its quite varied - Waterways' four tracks are much more song-oriented, and despite occupying the A side on their lonesome aren't as a strong a pull here, although 'Piece of You' and 'The Blacksmith' pack a punch; Sons of Alpha Centauri are more quintessential post rock, definitely Mogwai acolytes that instead of fucking up the formula more than hold their own on 'Pulmo Victis'. You can grab that here.

Waterways - Piece Of You
Hotel Wrecking City Traders - Pulmo Victis

Wrecking Sounds

I have a few records coming outta Melbourne’s Bro Fidelity label coming up over the next couple weeks – starting with Daggers Mid-Flight/Hotel Wrecking City Traders guitarist Toby Wrecker’s solo record Sounds of Jura. Nine tracks of guitar/drums improvisation that wavers between hard rock, desert wash, drone annihilation, meditative acoustics and (astonishingly) brief moments of beautiful clarity. Basically Wrecker did a whole bunch of home recordings over the past two years, merely mucking about and playing with the format, and the decision to put them into one solid package is a great one (for us, at least). Plus the reason that it became reality? Wrecker asked Mauro Italiano, a buddy from Turin, to do a cover for him, despite the fact they hadn’t spoken in fifteen years. The end result is below.

 
I love Sounds of Jura – grab it here. What gets me is that each song is its own sonic planet, and although most songs show a level of brevity often beyond these stylings, they are inhabitable, awe-striking, and brave. Let’s hope more of these “happy accidents” are in the offing.

Toby Wrecker – Entering The Overlook
Toby Wrecker – Avoiding The Pleasantries