A 7" Monument To Hysterical Cathys

Just a short post to give a shout out to Sydney's The Cathys. Featuring members of JuliaWhy?, King Tears Mortuary, Plum and Hell Selzer, the lo-fi pop kids have just released Hysterical Monument, a four-track 7" that sums up the slightly disparate corners these guys have crawled from. 'Loan' is a jumped up pop gleam in the eye, with Sam Giddey's goofy baritone galloping over the top; 'Rebble' is more tempered but no less coiled, taking the tense tempos of Dunedin's finest; 'Subtle Barbs' is a little more laconic, but spirals out into a guitar washout; and 'Heart Disease' finally brings the rock riff out to play, albeit with a giddily sunny disposition. The band launches the 7" in Sydney tomorrow night followed by dates in Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane - see below for details, and order the 7" here.

Sydney: 

Thursday 18 June @ The Union with Disgusting People and Drowning Fleets. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1613992808814040/

Canberra:

Saturday 20 June @ The Phoenix with Mope City, Thunderbolt City + Eadie & The Doodles. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/849857128434071/

Melbourne:

Friday July 3 @ The Tote with Shiny Coin, Chook Race and Summer Blokes. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1399589547035794/

Sunday July 5 @ Grace Darling with Pure Moods and Cool Sounds. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/825112544237141/ 

Brisbane: 

Saturday July 25 @ Trainspotters with Kitchen’s Floor, Cannon and Point Being. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1594349354151380/

Nothing Cult Of Death

Deafcult is a new band out of Brisbane who I hadn't even heard of before the other day - but considering it's a new project from Innez (Roku Music, Tiny Spiders, Feathers) and Matt Bach (The Quickening, El Motel, The Gifthorse), it shouldn't surprise me how bloody great it is. Taking the shoegaze shine of Roku and adhering it to the Nothing mould of post-hardcore ferocity, the tracks on the Deafcult EP (recorded at Incremental Studios) are incredible intense, sonorous, intricate and cathartic in their sonic expulsions. I'm blown away by how complete this six-piece already sounds - expect massive things from these guys this year.

Deafcult have a few good gigs coming up - they are supporting Pale Heads (alongside Deadshred and a rare show from the excellent Tiny Migrants!) June 20 at Trainspotters, as well as an earlier show at the Sewers fundraiser as that band prepares to assault the US with their excellent second album on the cusp of hitting the shelves (it's bloody killer) June 6 at The Underdog.

Michael's Gone Gold Class

Here is yet another "new" Australian band to take in and be excited about. I remember seeing the name Gold Class on a poster for a Sunday School show at the Public Bar in Melbourne, I think in April or May? But never really cottoned on to them - and it seems I've really been missing out. Listening to the Michael/Gone release, I have this weird conflicted notion that I've somehow wedged The Smiths' Meat Is Murder and Wire's 154 into the same piece of 7" wax. Adam Curley's baritone does hold some of that Morrissey moan, but the cutting guitar and insistent rhythms does recall his cohorts; whilst the tapered aggression that simmers under the surface evokes Colin Newman et al at the more measured. It is all decidedly dark hued and downer (Brit)pop, which alone lends it an unique place on the current Australian music milieu, but Gold Class exude a sense of literate sensibility that is also very exciting. I can't wait to hear more from the four-piece.



Gold Class release the 7" next month. You can catch them in Brisbane on Fri 24 October at The Bearded Lady (supported by Dag) and the following night at Trainspotters (with Multiple Man and Per Purpose serving props). These will be excellent shows - get along.

Fighting The Curlew Urges

Mark Zian has one of the most unique voices in Brisbane today. He was (is?) an integral part of the intricate machine that was (is?) Knee Chin, but finds his voice (literally) in the likes of solo outfit I Am Not A Nihilist and his “rock” band, Curlew. Not that many people know it – Curlew (Zian on guitar and vocals; Callum Wheeler on drums) have been something of a hermit/recluse for the entirety of their conception. I have had the pleasure of seeing Curlew three times in twelve months (nigh on a record), two times this year (both of which were Sonic Masala shows – hey, if you want to watch bands you really like, best put them on yourself). The duo have just released Animal Urges, and it’s an album of exquisite, and exquisitely painful, beauty – a sparse malaise of contemplation, rumination and ruin, all spun in a instrumental narrative that is both spare and dense, an exercise in steely tension and gallows humour, an extraordinary existence borne from the sweatboxes of suburban Brisbane, spat under hooded eyes and a sly yet weary grin. Zian has a cracked vocal delivery somewhere suspended between The Drones’ Gareth Liddiard and another of Brisbane’s hidden lyrical geniuses, Amateur Childbirth (their kinship came to fruition when Curlew played the launch of AC’s second album, PRIPYAT, back in February).

Animal Urges is a somewhat different beast from Curlew’s other major releases. Firstly the songs are much looser and longer in length – only three of the nine tracks on offer stay under five minutes, and three surpass the ten minute mark. Take as example the title track. Essentially a suite of songs, the tracks has a spluttering rhythm that suits the primal questions, assumptions and experiences that Zian explores. Whether it be a conversation in a café that circles the nostalgic mores that remembering the highs of narcotic highs can bring, the adolescent realisation of the strengths of being a male yet the pull towards the female, or the internal conflicts that such primal mores can cause, Zian’s presence is magnetic, drawing you into his esoteric, conflicted world. From the soft jangle accompanying soft-focus childhood memories to the harsher preamble to a venting diatribe, the instrumentation mirrors the ever-shifting narrative tangle. Curlew is a band that inhabits a singular worldview, drawing you inexorably into the swirling mental philosophising, and never have I felt more in tune to a person’s unchecked experiences and explorations of what the fuck this life might mean before. And for that you should all be eternally grateful. And the story outlaid on ‘Fitness First’ is brilliant – it gets me every time.

You can grab Animal Urges here. One of the best Brisbane releases of 2014, yet its verbosity, obtuseness and bared-vein honesty will scare some away. Be brave; step inside; close the door behind you; and listen to someone who isn’t afraid to breathe life into the confused world they live in. Amazing stuff. Their next show is at Trainspotters this Saturday July 26 alongside Black Vacation, Ciggie Witch, Blonde Tongues and Pare Ohm - an incredible line up for free.

Cordon Off That Pedestal Fan - Tape/Off Cool Off With Launch & East Coast Tour

OK then, let's get 2014 off and racing with a new single! 'Pedestal Fan' is the first taste of Brisbane rough-and-ready slackjawed literates Tape/Off's upcoming debut LP (about bloody time!). It's been a couple years since their great EP ...And Sometimes Gladness, a release I discovered on the Internet whilst living in Brisbane back in 2010 before realising they were from my hometown. 'Pedestal Fan' is a breakneck blast (complete with scatterbrained, skittish trumpet from a certain Pale Earth) that reminds everyone that there is more to these miscreants than Pavement Post-it reminders, lackadaisical rejoinders and perforated snare skins. Although there is all of that in this track too, really. It's raucous, flying off the handle, barely staying on the tracks - kinetic energy, amphetamine rush, slight acid tinged interlude, then clatter off into the dusk. Sensational stuff. I've heard the album, and it's an absolute cracker too.


Tape/Off launch the single with an East Coast tour starting this Thursday. See the details below. Sonic Masala is presenting their hometown fandango at Trainspotters on Saturday Feb 1, with support from LA/China duo Alpine Decline and Adelaide's Maids.

Thursday January 9 - Sydney, NSW
Brighton Up Bar w/ Skullsquadron & RAMPS

Friday January 10 - Melbourne, VIC
The Old Bar w/ Super Best Friends, Sincerely, Grizzly & Darts

Sunday January 12 - Melbourne, VIC
The Public Bar (Sunday School) w/ Chips Rafferty & Ciggie Witch

Saturday January 25 - Fremantle, WA
The Railway Hotel w/ special guests

Sunday January 26 - Perth, WA
Flyrite w/ special guests

Saturday February 1 - Brisbane, QLD
Grand Central Hotel Brisbane (Trainspotters)
w/ Alpine Decline (USA) & Maids

Spotting Black Trains On My Black Vacation

It's been a while (two weeks to be exact), but I am back from holidays. To celebrate, Sonic Masala is combining with Trainspotters to help launch 'Glazed', the newish single from Brisbane's own purveyors of lackadaisical guitar pop whimsy, Black Vacation. They are growing in stature, and should be huge by the time 2013 tolls its final bell (if there is any justice in the world).

The supports are incredibly stellar too. Shambolic rocktards Cobwebbs have an album of sorts coming out on Long Gone Records, with more potentially on the way. 

Brainbeau are another band that defy categorisation and are so goddamned good that Grimes should be tweeting about them...or something. They are squirrelling out from the underground cracks they have been trapped in, and to see them playing bigger, brighter shows is a true blessing.

Newcomers Dag are something of an unknown quantity, but if this track is anything to go by the trio will safely make a home here on Planet Masala.

It's all happening at the Grand Central Hotel tonight. The band times is below. It's free entry, beers are relatively cheap (most pints will give you change from a tenner - not to be sneezed at in this money-crunching age), Black Vacation have a few more shirts on sale, and it goes into the wee hours. See you there.

Don't Take Naked Maja For Granted

Local dream sculptors Naked Maja took to Trainspotters on Saturday to launch their single 'Take' - the night was a resounding success. There is a bit of vested interest here - I had the band's Cedie Janson play the first Campfire Tales show at the End only two nights previously, and I helped write their presser. They have a longer release in the wings, which is mightily exciting, so rather than babble on with new terminology and hot air, Ill give you the "old" terminology and cold air that is the presser:

"Constantly evolving Brisbane five-piece Naked Maja represent the new sound of Brisbane’s burgeoning experimental pop scene. The release of their first single ‘Take’ shows the band broadening their horizons to the farther regions of ambiance and Krautrock. The music inhabits a netherworld of searching melodies and misshapen harmonies that embody a waking dream state. Their MO is to beguile, to seduce, yet to deny.

Disembodied vocals waver in and out of focus of a magnetic wall of sound, made up of ethereal guitars, synthesizers and propulsive motorik rhythms. Naked Maja draw inspiration from a cosmic sinewave that includes Stereolab, Slowdive and Eno as corresponding frequencies. Captured in the studio by local experimental producer and musician Michael Whitney of Nite Fields fame, the mesmeric ‘Take’ is the band’s most self-assured and exploratory work. It represents a sizable step forward for the five-piece and a promising indicator of what’s to come."

You can buy Take in cassette form (alongside two other original cuts and two remixes by Brisbane's aheadphonehome and Adelaide's Swimming) here. Naked Maja are travelling to Melbourne this Thursday to grace the Grace Darling with their presence, alongside the aforementioned Swimming as well as Sui Zhen, then stick around on Friday to join No Art (also launching a 7"), Infinite Void and Halt Ever at the Public Bar. Rad times in Melbournetown. They are playing Tassie too, not sure on the dates there though (sorry!)

Glazed Haze On Our Black Vacation

I meant to get this out sooner, seeing as their first two shows (in Newcastle and Sydney) were this weekend. Better late than never I guess... Local woozy amblers Black Vacation have just released new single 'Glazed', and its a suitably excellent track that doles out nonchalance and whimsy in equal, chiming measures. Its the most concise, crystalline effort that the Ford brothers have slapped their name to thus far (Daniel and Matt are also in Kids Cryptic and Thigh Master), whilst the added gravitas of Helena Papageorg (Feathers) and Michaela Chin (Marl Carx) helps to anchor Black Vacation's sound somewhere between the Australian slacker pop revelation and the Stateside introspective fare that the likes of Beach Fossils and Wild Nothing delve in. Excellence par none.



Black Vacation travel down to Melbourne and the Gasometer on Friday July 5 (with support from SM faves Velcro as well as Legendary Hearts and Aktion Unit), before finalising their launch in their hometown (and a Sonic Masala Presents!) at Trainspotters on Sat July 13. Supports for that one will be Cobwebbs, Stress Waves and Dag.

Campfire Tales w/ Tutts, Ceeds and Uncle Sonic

Last weekend was incredible for Sonic Masala Presents. It was the first time we have (officially) gone back to back with SM Presents... shows, plus the first time we had (officially) moved away from the hallowed ground of The Waiting Room - and it was a huge success! A sellout crowd came to see No Anchor smash out yet another stellar set, ably backed by the brutality of O and Vassals, and the proceeds went into funding NA's trip down to Sydney the following night. I would have booked a ticket with them (seeing as I was partially responsible for the windfall) but instead I handed over all the dough and moved on to Saturday night, where the first official SM curated Trainspotters night took place at The Grand Central Hotel. Dreamtime's first show since their triumphant return from playing the Austin Psych Fest was incredible, with Multiple Man killing it (despite, or maybe because of, Chris' disdain in proceedings ha) and Gazar Strips ripping apart the place with new songs. The venue was packed, easily the biggest SM show to date, so thanks to all who came.

But this week is still rollin', and I have one more surprise in store. This Thursday we travel back to West End, this time the intimate surrounds of The End on Vulture St, for what I'm tentatively calling Campfire Tales, a night of two solo artists doin their thang. It's Sonic Masala though, so it isn't straightforward. The first show is the EP launch for Andrew Tuttle (the artist formerly known as Anonymeye). He will be assisted in the wings by the dulcet tones of Naked Maja frontman Cedie Janson. I'm really looking forward to this one, and you should be too. It kicks off at 8.30 and is free entry, so come have a boutique beer and turn this 3-day weekend into 4.

Sonic Masala Presents A Double Whammy Of Shows!! EXHIBIT B

The second Sonic Masala show this weekend takes place on Saturday at the Grand Central Hotel, in conjunction with Trainspotters. It marks the triumphant return of local psych lords Dreamtime, fresh from their US jaunt where they ruled Austin Psych Fest, grace the pages of Impose Magazine, and spent all the hard earned. The trio (sometime foursome) just announced they have snagged the highly coveted local support slot for the legendary Bardo Pond when they come to Brisbane in August too which is further cause for celebration. They are supported by the bucolic excellence of sibling androids Multiple Man, and the cantankerous merchants of phosphorous sneers Gazar Strips. It promises to be another killer showcase of burgeoning talent, plus its free entry, and it's right next to the train station. No excuses then. Check out more on the event here.




Multiple Man : Whipping Boy, (Film Clip By #459) from = ) #459 on Vimeo.