Aural Australia #5 - Equine Circle Jerk

The equine circle jerk of the season has come and gone, the nation resumes its bleary eyed actions, and the music floweth forth.

I do love me a scrappy, thrashy noise pop two piece - No Age, Japandroids, Tiny Spiders - and of course Sydneysiders Unity Floors. Their set at White Rabbit Gallery back in 2012 (I think?) was a random and happy memory for me, and their debut album Exotic Goldfish Blues lived up to the heightened expectations. Their follow up Life Admin doesn't fuck with the formula, taking their Japandroids-meets-PAWS-via-Male Bonding Petri dish and injecting indelible slices of acerbic Aussie wit and gurning grins. Taking pot shots at their hometown, Melbourne, young professionals, the 'burbs, the millennials - basically everyone in the near vicinity - Life Admin nevertheless isn't looking for eviscerating wit a la Andy Falkous, more a cheeky chappy dig in the ribs before downing tins and clapping backs. "Wouldn't it be nicer if we could wake up in a world where we belong?" No - it's better that you are standouts...

I can't say I know much about Sydney scrappers East River, but I stumbled over their album Modular Handshake back in August when I was in St Ives, on the sunny sandy beaches of Cornwall, England (yes, they do exist!) and wanting something new to fit with my feelings of happiness, relaxation and yet unnerving displacement. The trio's warped take on surf rock, paisley psych pop and late-night grooves really strikes a chord. It is such a heaving cesspit of touchstones - Jonathan Richman, Black Lips, The Shiralees, Chad Morgan, Meth Teeth, The Troggs, The Animals, The Locust... OK so I am being silly now. But there is something to these loose, cracked songs that are infectious, warmhearted and imminently likable, despite of and/or because of their unpredictability at taking traditional pop conventions and skewering them through an Adult Swim mindset. My wife kept saying, about half a minute into most of these songs, "What is this? The songs start out quite good, then they become shit." Which is snark short hand for "This stuff is the bees' knees." Whether you get what I am saying or not, just dive headlong into Modular Handshake, you will never know where you will end up.

Not much has to be said about Brisbane youngsters The Goon Sax - the three piece have gone from strength to strength since their inception only a couple years ago (if that - it feels like these guys were fishing for their first gig only a few months ago!) Their debut album Up To Anything on Chapter Music is killer, taking a leaf out of the Flying Nun/Go Betweens much-thumbed playbook (an easy reference seeing as Forster's son is in the lineup, but is also there in the easy, insidious melodies that ooze out of every pore here) and infusing something more, a melancholic brittleness juxtaposed with their youthful exuberance that comes off as confident self-deprecating ruminations of the world at large - like The Pastels in a Battle of the Bands. Their European tour was a real hit too (I missed their sold out shows here in London, although heard that their DIY Space show with Totally was a lot of fun). So in demand that we couldn't hook them for this year's Sonic Masala Fest. But I can't hold it against them - with tracks like 'Sweaty Hands', there is an innocuous, relatable, real likability that most other bands just cannot grasp. Special indeed.

Another group that continues to grow, but in a more subdued way, is Blonde Tongues. One of their first shows (may have even been their first show) was a Sonic Masala show supporting the Ocean Party, and their fuzzed out dream pop was exciting, breezy and surprisingly loud. They have been tempering the noise somewhat to come to a compromise with the melodies, and boy does it continue to pay dividends. '(A Song For) Paula E. Sheppard' is a bliss bomb of a track, a lysergic Galaxie 500 swirl in awe of the actress in cult classics Alice, Sweet Alice and Liquid Sky. An obscure reference maybe, but this dream letter is the perfect precursor to the band's sophomore album, out in the new year.

I woke up Monday morning to the huge news in my inbox that Sodastream have a new song out! It's been a decade - a DECADE - since they last put out an album, but their fifth LP Little By Little is on its way. My uni years are indelibly plastered with drunken/drugged memories that end with the night/morning stretched out on the back deck, 'Fitzroy Strongman' and 'Wedding Day' playing over the Paddington detritus. 'Three Sins' takes me back there - but of course the Melbourne duo are so much more than addled young man rites of passage. Each song hits a nerve you never knew existed, whether the subject matter is about domestic abuse, rustic ennui, social pariahs, the encroaching stigma of mortality, or enjoying the solitude of a darkened cabin with only wine and a dog as company. Whether drenched in frustrations or etched with the promise of redemption, every Sodastream song carries with it a kernel of joy. None more filled with joy than I - and if you like, you should join me and many others in helping crowdfund the vinyl pressing for the album here.

These last two feature Aussies but are based abroad - cheating, I know, but still in the same ballpark, right? London psych goths Bonfire Nights have always been a tendon-pulling presence around the local scene, grasping some great support acts while grafting away at their own brooding, swirling soundscapes of darkness. 'Heart's To Blame,' the single off newly released album Entopica Phenomica, continues the skewering of pop sentimentality with a enticing seduction of the dark side and inexorable squall of harmonic noise, all while still retaining those said same conventions. Think early Black Rebel Motorcycle Club melding with early Black Angels, Moon Duo and Velvet Underground. OK they are big touchstones to throw out there, but this band continually blows my head off while never eschewing the hooks, which is a surprisingly rare thing in this genre. Can't wait to partake in the rest of the album.

Fresh Snow are based in Toronto, and have just released new album One on white vinyl (we all know I like dem dere colours spinnin). A lot of their post rock improvisations are elegant and breathtaking - but then there are songs like 'January Skies' that a thundering Juggernauts, like Holy Fuck Hulking out. Their eclecticism works because it is freeform electricity, nothing done half-heartedly. Why is this ending off this Australian music post? Because one member, Tim Condon, hails from this sunblasted land. So tenuous, but with a track like this, who cares. Grab One here - it is an album of abrupt 90 degree turns, but always a wild ride.

Jerking Beef Is Tragic

I'm loving Tragic, the debut long player from Sydney amiable slack jaws Beef Jerk. Coming from a wide cross-section of the city's DIY aesthetic (members come from bands such as Bad Guys, Housewives, Adults, Day Ravies, Snotty Babies and more), this four-piece/sometime-five-piece have punched out fifteen laconic ramblers that takes some of the token tropes of the much-maligned dole wave subset (droll, monotone vocals about underemployed middle-class malaise, drinking booze and specific city signifiers) and leaves it in the sun to warp in weird and wonderful ways. This isn't so much about being laconic as being smart-arses - song titles like 'Stay At Home Dads', 'Jerking Off' and 'The Last Chiko Roll', the latter with its references to the idiotic current PM and the iconic battered roll of cabbage, corn and glutinous gunk, make it clear that these boys just want to write songs that make them laugh, but that aren't novelty value either (their affinity with contemporary literate soothsayer Nathan Roche becomes evident here). There are melancholic meanders through maudlin sunsets ('Cotton'), jumbled jaunts through the detritus of humanity in the backstreets of the NSW capital ('Rhythm Infection', 'Aisle Ten'), and cantankerous canters through the jumbled thoughts of tetchy urban sages, sorting through the bowel-trails at the bottom of the public toilets for divinity ('Reissue', 'French Dish'). Beef Jerk always feel like they aren't trying, but rather than it being an affectation it's  because it seems honestly beyond them to do so - yet their unctuous delivery and style belies an extremely likable band with an interesting, amusing and epochal Australian voice, something that can't be said about many bands of this ilk really. Two thumbs up (especially when smashing tinnies on the bus).

Grab Tragic here. They supported Twerps on Friday night, but have a bunch of shows combing up and down the east coast in June/July (although none in Queensland - YET) - see below:

Friday June 12 – Grace Darling, Melbourne VIC (w/ Chook Race, Black Vacation, Gentlemane)

Monday June 15 – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne VIC

Saturday June 27 – Hermann's Bar, Sydney NSW (w/ Unity Floors)

Friday July 10 – Brighton Up Bar, Sydney NSW

This Lamentable Au.Ra

Back in 2011-2012 I mentioned an artist from Sydney who went under the name Colours. That guy, Tom Crandles, pointed me in the direction of a lot of Sydney bands (such as Day Ravies, Unity Floors and Bachelor Pad) that I have since become massive fans of. Tom hasn't been sitting idly though - along with Tim Jenkins (Parades), he has transformed into the discombobulated pop of Au.Ra. Launching their debut LP Jane's Lament through felte Records, Au.Ra construct woozy soundscapes that envelop and entrance - the psych laced drift of 'Morning'; the jangle and drift of 'Sun'; the somnambulist float of 'You're On My Mind'. There are echoes of other lo-fi dreamers such as Beach Fossils in some of these tracks, with a lick of electronic sheen sliding in and out of the ether. The cover art is fairly indicative of what the album conveys - a seductive, flowing darkness, delivered with a slickness and vibrancy often found wanting elsewhere. Great stuff.

Grab Jane's Lament here.

Cheap Chooks Race On Unity Floors

 Chook Race

Unity Floors

Brand new Australian label Mystic Olympic are opening up their account with Cheap, a split between two of the more interesting and energetic bands circling in these waters, Chook Race from Melbourne and Sydney's Unity Floors. Both of these bands have graced the Sonic Masala walls in the past, and it's great to see these guys joining forces in what is likely to be a powerfully fun release. The two tracks - Chook Race's punch-pop 'Numb' and Unity Floors' louche growl 'Hold Music' - are two sides of the same twisted lovelorn coin (and 7") - the simple lyrics and call-and-response of 'Numb' is sub-two minutes of monosyllables on the beat punk, with almost a surf-like bridge, making for bubblegum lust in the sun rather than the shade; 'Hold Music' cribs from Harry Nilsson and lethargic drawls interspersed with cathartic squalls as only the duo know how (all recorded in Gus Hunt's kitchen no less). Scrap pop at its finest.

Grab Cheap here or here.

Finding Unity On Exotic Floors

About this time last year I tried to get Sydney two-piece Unity Floors to play a show up here in Brisbane. I thought their Women's Golf 7" was killer, and managed to see them play at FBi Social April that year. Anyway, they said no - something to do with international holidays and such. Now, a year later, they are coming up here under their own impetus (well, I'm sure Popfrenzy helps) armed with debut LP Exotic Goldfish Blues - and wouldn't you know it, I'll be on holidays! Karma - biting me twice?

At least I have this album to keep me warm on those brutally cold December nights over in Europe. Exotic Goldfish Blues is eleven electric tracks of two best mates getting loose - the only way a duo should really sound. It isn't all breakneck noisy ruckus (although with 'Holy Hell' the boys have rivalled early Japandroids for simplistic, holistic abandon, albeit a couple decibels under earsplitting) - opener and single 'Nice Fit' is a sunny ode to one-night-stand love; 'Day Release' chugs along, drawing you into the sketched-out story; the wonky maelstrom that is closer 'Crash Cars'. What is evident is the tone and melody in each of the tracks - you can't help but smile your face off when these songs come around. And around. And around. Because this isn't an album that allows you to get up and walk away - it's too lovable for that. Exotic Goldfish Blues is best mate material.

So - reckon you might come up 2014 when I am around? Yeah?

You can pre-order Exotic Goldfish Blues here. They are playing an Off The Rails show at the Grand Central Hotel Thursday December 5 with Screaming Match and Scrabble in support.

Buddy's Art Makes Me Green

Charles Buddy Daaboul is probably better known as the guy who bashes things for No Art, the Sydney-based minimal noiseniks. Or maybe not - but if you need educating, No Art just brought out the Forest/Dead Arm 7" and did this little thing with members of Unity Floors and Making for Mess & Noise which was quite interesting.

But we aren't here to talk about Daaboul's band - just Daaboul himself. He has his own niche musical melange of sounds to air and ware, and his latest sonic installation is the Three Colours Green EP 7" which is coming out next month. Stepping to the forefront, lo-fi guitar pop jams all a-jangle and fandangle, Daaboul is a beguiling presence, an amusing figure who nonetheless commands express attention. The four tracks on the EP show a continued growth as songwriter and wordsmith, yet with an acute handle on the quirky and surreal. It doesn't break a sweat, nor does it veer into the mundane without staring at the sky in childlike wonder. And he loves his cricket, having a previous track devoted to the backyard variety, and expressing his desire to be on the top of the world and never to worry about losing, "just like the 90s Australian cricket team." How things change, Charles - did you SEE that Khawaja dismissal? We have much to console - at least you have your music to soothe your troubled soul...

You can pre-order Three Colours Green here. Charles Buddy Daaboul is hitting the streets to drop this into your laps live, and Sonic Masala is proud to include his 7" launch as part of our next Waiting Room event on Friday August 23. Daaboul will be joining atmosphere-fearing psych journeymen Silver Screens (who are also launching their album), magnetic doppelgangers Multiple Man and squalling scion Kigo. Check out the event here, and make sure you come along - fun fun fun.

Floored By Unity Of Women's Golf

This has been out for some time - last year I think - but seeing as Sydney's Unity Floors has only just come to my attention in the past month, I think it's safe to talk about it anew. Besides, it's very likely that anyone outside of Sydney will have heard their excellent 7" Women's Golf, which is a goddamned shame, because it is one of the best slices of slacker pop to come from Australia for a few years - and there has been some excellent rock releases delving in this territory from this fine land recently. It's nostalgic, it's rambling, it's archaic, it doesn't care. But best of all, it's full of more hooks than the world's biggest shower curtain (six posts in one day is frying my vernacular...).


What I'm sayin is, this is a must have. Grab it here - you will NOT regret it (it's $3! Chump change!).



PS Got to see these guys kick it out when out on my Sydney fact-finding mission back in April, and they were just as good as they are on this record, if not better. There really are some quality acts going round in Sydneytown - hopefully Sonic Masala can lure a few up over the border for a show or two...