Aussie Attack - Hoodlum Shouts, Bad Vision, Us The Band, Le Villejuif Underground, Loose Tooth, Velcro, Weak Boys, California Girls

I am always struggling to keep up! So much good stuff to look out for and look forward to. none moreso from my native Southern Land. So here are eight acts that you should keep your ears peeled for over the next few months...

Canberra's always been an interesting place for music, mainly because of how isolated and idiosyncratic the place is in all senses of the word. So when great bands come out of there it is a pleasant surprise. There have been quite a few recently to be fair (Wives, Primary Colours, TV Colours) and today I bookend this post with two more. The first guys are one of the most underrated bands in the country - Hoodlum Shouts. Their gig alongside Tape/Off, Freak Wave and Bad Vision in 2014 at Public Bar really rocked my world, fully confirming their brilliance that is showcased on 2012's stellar LP Young Man Old Man and every other release they have smashed out. 'Heat Island' is the title track, and it is emblematic of the shuddering, heat-soaked post-punk these Australian battlers embody. in fact it makes sense that such a bruised band with a weary-yet-defiant eye on the state of the nation would be born in the nation's capital. Take it down from within, boys. VERY excited for Heat Island.

Bad Vision seem to have toned down the sloppy grime-flecked punk for new track 'Goon'. It is still undeniably BV though - despite the piercing sun rays sparking off the jangly guitars, playing like a rollicking indie-folk stomper, Jerome's laconic vocals and that howled chorus about staring out and about at the detritus of the population floating like flotsam on the shit-creek of life tells us definitively otherwise. It is the first cut from their sophomore record, Turn Out Your Socket, due out in May (pre-order through Adagio 830 Records here).

Us The Band have upped the ante with 'Ghoul' - while they played loose and fast with their DZ Deathrays associations early on, the new track feels more in line with that other killer two-piece, Japandroids. The EP But Where Do They Go looks to be a lung-tearing, ear-bludgeoning calling card - if you are in Sydney pop down to Petersham Bowls Club on Friday for the launch.

Nathan Roche is a true global troubadour - on the lam from landlords, ladies, beer barons and every government linked debt agency he has had the pleasure/pain of crossing, he has crafted out some great records with both Camperdown and Out and under his own name. Back incognito in the Sydney swelter, he has brought some of that Gallic saunter and swagger with him in the form of Le Villejuif Underground. His laconic drawl is the same louche observations, living in a hazy cloud, a unreliable holiday parallel to the real world, never breaking a sweat, even when the wall is racing towards the windscreen. 'On The Seine' is the kind of wonky lounge pop whimsy that only someone as careless, carousing and carefree as Roche can get away with, let alone do well. Just go with it - it might fleece you, but you will be happy for the experience... Watch for a release to come out of Rice Is Nice later in the year.

Out of all the acts on this Antipodean breakdown, Loose Tooth is the only "new band" to me, having only heard 'Bites Will Bleed' yesterday. It's impressive - a scuzz-blasted call to arms, both maudlin and steadfast, brutal and brittle, not reticent, unrepentant. They have been picked up by Milk Records (Courtney Barnett, The Finks) and their debut EP Saturn Returns will be out in April. (And how amazing is that band photo? Bloody amazing, that's what).

Curt from The Ocean Party has his own outlet as Velcro - he played a Sonic Masala show in Brisbane back in 2013 (to all of 30 people, on a $5, 6-band bill - but I sunk $300+ on the bar to make up for the disappointment so I think everyone had a good time. That image above is from the show). He has released a self-titled LP that was recorded around that time, and is finally out in the ether - you can see how his songwriting leads into The Ocean Party meringue. It's about the same laconic worldviews that his band mates' side projects Ciggie Witch and Hobby Farm - being bedridden ('Bed Ridden'), loving Victoria ('Victoria'), visiting Sydney ('Sydney')... Yeah, the name is definitely the game. Especially like 'Whine', but they are all good tracks. Bout bloody time, Curt.

Sydney upstarts Weak Boys continue to rattle the cage. These carefree slacker poptarts don't know how to take things seriously - except when they do. I was going to apologies about not writing about their fun as hell album Weekdays/Weekends, or their new single 'Life Rules'n (death drools). But then they got angry at the shitty situation of their home town and spat it out for all to see - 'Good One Sydney'. Fucking good one. Kings Cross living. Here is a link to their record anyway so you can see how good these goofballs are - and maybe you will see them in Brisbane in August for something or other...

And we sign off with California Girls AKA Gus McGrath (Wives, Primary Colours, Beach Slut). he has been a heavily prolific dude in the past, and you can see why - his latest, Desire, has already sold out in cassette form, with an LP version to be out sometime this month. It's New Wave gothic post-punk caught between a black hole and a vase of rotting roses, not wanting or knowing anything other than to sway to the sounds of anguish and desire. It lives in Australia, but could emanated out of the cold terrain of the European dour, a constant search for passion and longing through a prism of dancefloor disappointment and narcotic necrotism. In short, it is insidiously sensuous in its abject, knowing despair... See California Girls play this Saturday with Hobart legends Naked and locals Wives at the Phoenix, before he hits Melbourne to play at Howler alongside Bent, Hierophants and Waterfall Person.

Don't Palm The Novo's

I did an awesome interview with Leroy from Newcastle's finest/worst (I think it's the same thing) The Gooch Palms. Why? Because they are finally bringing out an LP. It's called NOVO's, which is shorthand for Novocastrians (the name given to people from Newcastle), and I think it's a derogatory slang. Don't be hatin' if I'm wrong - go the Newcastle Knights! Ahem. So yeah, this album coming out on Anti-Fade is pretty special. Now, live this duo (Leroy sings, plays guitar and gets nude) and Kat (stand up drums, sings) are a crazy bunch - it's the kind of manic performance that seems like it'll implode at any second, but underneath the sloppy exterior is a tightly calibrated machine of garage rock and soul. Yes, soul. Leroy may act the goat, but the dude has lungs - just listen to 'You' and wrap your head around the fact that it's a Gooch Palms stone cold original. The beauty of these two? They know their limitations, and are able to continually find ways to fidget and squirm within them, contorting and reforming into myriad sordid pop gems. They may not take over the world - indeed, they are more likely to get mugged for their bum bags and their Mariners commemorative T-shirts on the Hunter Street Mall - but they don't need global domination. They've got music, and beers, and each other. They'll see out their days content on the Gooch Farm -it's a true blue love story, strewth.

Grab NOVO's here. The Gooch Palms are launching the album in October, coming up here to play at Greenslopes Bowls Club (where Sonic Masala hosted Velcro and Hot Palms, yeah?) Saturday October 19. Oh, and the interview will be out soon, promise.

Mega Video Vacuum of Death

It's been a couple weeks - you miss me? I missed you. So here is a veritable shitload of music videos for us to catch up over...



Let's kick off with a brace of ace Aussie releases, starting with Beef Jerk. Great name, right? Wait til you get a load of their single - 'Schooners'. Man, talk about a band after my own heart - hence me having them up to Brisbane to launch their 7" at Trainspotters October 12. It's shambolic but has a real kick. Jangle booze - a bountiful charm.



If you are yet to partake in a lil Day Ravies, more the fool you. The Sydney band are embracing the wall-of-noise brutality that shoegaze pigeonholes kids into, and imbuing it with warmth and purpose. Many bands like this drift off into the dream pop world, but as 'I Don't Mind' attests, these guys are more the stuff of uneasy yet pastel nightmares. Think Lynch, if he was a LOT more lighthearted.



Sticking with the lo-fi video shenanigans are Adelaide slackerhounds Bitch Prefect who are prepping their follow-up to last year's excellent debut Big Time. 'Better Next Time' is off their latest Adelaide 7", and it has that desperation masked as nonchalance shtick down pat - except here it is distilled to an acute pang. Wastoids with heart.



The jingle-jangle-jungle that is Australia is rife with beast of the wild, and The Ocean Party is yet another of these laconic animals. Their shows in Brisbane last week were great; side-projects Velcro (in a Sonic Masala Presents show no less), and Mining Boom also slayed; their 3rd LP Split is on the horizon; and they will be launching it with Sonic Masala in late November. The love affair continues with the eponymous single, sung by newish drummer (and brother of guitarist/vocalist Lachlan) Zac Denton.



It has been twelve years since radiant guitar pop degenerates Dollar Bar gave us an album, but in Paddington Workers' Club, that wait is almost over. One of Brisbane's - nay, Australia's - unheralded gems, the four-piece might be flung to all ends of the East Coast, but if their show at The Waiting Room back in May, and new single 'Everyone's Everyone's' is any indication, the time apart makes the time together all the sweeter. I'm expecting to fall hard for this record. Plus, I AM thinking of leaving Brisbane to go to Melbourne to hang out with people from Brisbane! How'd you know, Dale?


No Monster Club - The Best Thing About Us Is We Never Grow Up from Bobby Aherne on Vimeo

Now after that delectable smorgasbord, let's head across the seas. First stop - Ireland. Last year we thought that No Monster Club was dead. No - the resurrection has been staged, now its time for the band to take over the world. On the cusp of leaving for an American tour (as in, in the next hour), No Monster Club give Sonic Masala a quick taste of where the band is heading - just over one minute of rad thrashy silliness. They have a recorded album, Foie Gras, that is unreleased - someone get on that!



Across the ditch to England now to nestle down with now-trio Yuck. New album Glow & Behold comes out on Friday - I've been listening to it for a week, and whilst it hasn't grabbed me, it's one of those sonorous earworms that is likely to lay its eggs in your brain for a long time after. 'Middle Sea' is the best bridge from the past and the future for the band - and possibly for English tennis (sorry England, but Andy Murray is fucking Scottish).



Whilst we are in the Mother Country, let's get our brains eaten. Leeds noiseniks Eagulls have a great little 7" on the way, and this video for the track 'Nerve Endings' is the epitome of nauseous tension. Basically swirling wraithlike band footage, superimposed over the quick-frame decomposition of a brain. Grim. At least the maggots are having a good time... But then again, this track is killer, a noise maggot for your brain.


HABITS "TOYMAKR" from HABITS on Vimeo.

I've played one video from LA's Habits, and here's another. In the same vein of course - VHS weirdness with schizoid fried scattered colours - it's an acid trip into the loser brain of a karaoke-performing prepubescent Beck. The dude is playing a show with Deap Vally and JUUJUU this weekend, he's for real.



Darting back now to New Zealand and HDSPNS, an Auckland  band that already had two strikes what with having all capital letters and no vowels in their name... Luckily for me (and them - I have vengeful clout you know) they have scored with the metronomic guitar rock of '54000' from their incumbent VIVIDISM EP.  Fitting in with fellow angular stylists Popstrangers, this is the kind of atonal thrashing that isn't necessarily flaying the skin from the bones so much as lightly scouring your cheeks with acid and steel wool. You just taken morphine though, so it tickles.



I'm leaving you with a double whammy of live psych revelation from two gods of the genre, Dead Meadow and Wooden Shjips. Both bands have new albums out, and they have both been kind to Australia in past years, so maybe this is something we will see with our own peepers soon enough. Just lean back and let your mind expand...



NOW GET BACK TO WORK! (And hey, glad to be back)

Zoned Out In This Place

Oops - I somehow posted this as the email I received from Lachlan at Osborne Again Music - MY BAD. So here is the actual post...

Enough people have mentioned to me in the past month the "fact" that too many people play in too many bands in this day and age that their efforts are wasted IE they should focus on making one thing the best it possibly can, rather than hedging bets with a plethora of acts that are variants on the same theme. I see their point - there are bands that are filled with half-formed ideas, merely because friends wanted to play together and it's so easy to record stuff rather than work and work on it until you have the money to go into a studio and make it right. Osborne Again Music is the kind of label that will fall into this category for some, seeing as every band on the "label" have a member or members from the same Osborne Street house in Melbourne. Beef Jerk, Velcro, Feline Fine, Shark Alarm...they all have that jangly, slacker, wasted suburban debasement vibe. 

Then there is Zone Out. Featuring members of Hot Palms (who are playing our September 6 gig extravaganza alongside the aforementioned Velcro crew' and hence the co-release of the EP through Hot Palms' Why Don't You Believe Me? record label), Pencil, Totally Mild (who I got to see the last time I was in Melbourne, they were pretty rad) and Scotdrakula, Zone Out has more of a considered, cosmopolitan touch (IE this doesn't feel burped out after a half carton and box of pizza has been consumed on a Tuesday morning). Their upcoming EP Something Less is one of spatial awareness - the band know their limits but are willing to surpass them, travel out into the glacial wilderness, their noise exacerbated by their willingness to drift and dream. 

Something Less is out on Friday. I'm quietly confident that this one will be a slowburner that will light your fire.

Feline Fine Under The Soda Eaves

Here are a couple of small Aussie releases that are deserved of everyone's attention, from members of a number of other bands - isn't that the way these days?

First up we have Soda Eaves, the project from Hot Palms guitarist Jake Core (he also has some tomes of poetry out there). Like Drapes Either Side will be his debut release in his solo venture, and 'Doll' is the first taste. It's a more raucous affair than the studied emotions that Hot Palms plumb, but that isn't to say that this rocks. It hulks, sulks and saunters into the fast approaching twilight, sucking furiously on a tailor-made cigarette, collar up against the wind, eyes stormy. Core clearly has a way with words, and with his distinctive Aussie drawl, blown-out fuzz and cheap production, he sidesteps the suburban slacker rock revolution by being resolutely maudlin and obtuse - and therefore, ironically, a genuine article. I cannot wait to hear more - and will get a chance to, when Soda Eaves plays the Waiting Room Saturday September 7 with McKisko.


Another band from the Osborne Again label (of Velcro and other Ocean Party offshoot Shark Alarm, mainly because these bands all come from the same house in Osborne Street in Melbourne's Brunswick) is Feline Fine, made up of members of The Ocean Party and Beef Jerk. Sunny twang, cat puns, boozy ramblings, vocals everything and nothing, existence meaningful and meaningless. When ARE you coming back?

Giving Rise To Velcro

Curtis Wakeling's solo endeavours as Velcro continues to thrive. Not only has it fleshed out into a five-piece that includes most of his Ocean Party buddies, but he is about to release a compilation cassette called Tidal Wave 2009-2013, made up some of his demos that are yet to be released (on Curtis' Velcro and The Ocean Party bandmate Lachlan Denton's new label, Osborne Again). The first taste from it is called 'Rise', and its awash with languid reverb and a sauntering weariness - a melancholy weight hanging over the seemingly perfunctory effort of getting out of bed. I've always wanted a maudlin downer to take with my morning murmurs - this fits the bill.

Velcro - Rise

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.

Australian Nonchalance

Are you as laidback as this character? I hope so. And many of our current crop of killer Aussie bands are too. Let's check some out.

Andre is the band of Andre Vanderwert, who is one of the carousel players in Hot Palms (I wrote warmly of them only last week). Andre isn't alone on this endeavour though, incorporating Jordan Ireland (The Middle East), Marc Requeiro-McKelvie (New Estate, Popolice, Teeth & Tongue), Hot Palm's Alec Marshall and members of The Ocean Part amongst others. The band has put out a helluva a lot recently: Too Much Talk was a cassette that came out in November; the Do Watchya Want CD-r in February; and the Mend b/w Have 7" this month (all out on Why Don't You Believe Me? Records - they are all available here). This shit is golden - more sonorous and accessible than some of their contemporaries, raucous, maudlin, grungy, gritty, funny - it's just damned fine. Get onto it, NOW -  these guys need to be playing much more often.

Speaking of The Ocean Party, one of their members Curtis Wakeling also moonlights as Velcro - his Wagga Wagga EP was one of my fave short-form releases of last year (check that out here). Well he now has a new lineup, and the trio are backing up with 'Bottle Shop' - distinctly Australian in tone and demeanour, with a perfectly calibrated pop composition ensuring this sticks like a burr. So easy, so effortless, so whimsical, so so good. There's promise of a full length later this year - consider all extremities crossed for that one.

Velcro - Bottle Shop

Now I'm cramming three bands in at once here, but they all contain the Ford brothers, Daniel and Matt. These Brissy-based siblings are the nicest, coolest dudes who are also cornering the market up here with excellent bands. The most prominent at this point in time is scratchy dreamers Black Vacation - so much so that they have scored recent supports for Wild Nothing. Their Scarred Glass EP is fantastic, if rough, and their newer material is much stronger - making them a deliciously dangerous proposition indeed. Not to be outdone, there is Kids Cryptic, a stomping, shambolic slice of garage flights of fantasy; and newest incarnation Thigh Master (man, these guys should be band name generators!) which is darker, dirgier, and also filled with sparkling gems (and are on the support bill for King Tuff tomorrow night here at the Primitive Room). If you haven't heard of these bands, or these boys, guaranteed you will have by year's end.

Black Vacation - Scarred Glass
Kids Cryptic - Shore

Here's footage of Black Vacation at the last Sonic Masala show...

And here is some footage of the excellent Thigh Master, filmed at Rics around the same time...

Whilst Greg Boring may have been better suited in my first post (and was, in fact, meant to be there), the Brisbane noise mumblers slot into the transient debris and shimmering sweatheaps that make up the Queensland capital's 'burbs. The band is not really a band - it's a happening, an anachronistic algae, an osmosis. It springs out of the cracks, delivers short stabs of melting casiotone combustions and wilting malapropisms before disappearing once more amongst the cigarette butts, vomit stains and saliva sprays. Yet they have also got an album out - Heavy Syrup - and the fact that its received an European release (through the ever excellent Critical Heights - grab it here) is unfathomable - and yet prescient. And while the molasses-paced tracks capture the band in "full swing", it never truly intimates how destitute, how coagulated, how haggard, yet utterly of its moment their live shows are. Fucks me when the next one will be either - I don't think even they know.

Greg Boring - Denuder
Greg Boring - Alvin

Great Earthquake is Melbourne's Noel Symons. The one-man looped-up melody maker has just released his sophomore record, Mind Maps, and its a quivering miasma of sounds, using a wide variety of instruments and samples to augment his own eclectic drumming patterns, and what is left is an album fully in tune with its master's whims and wishes. It swells and crashes in such a diverse fashion, weaving a meshed curtain of pastoral warmth, pagan rhythms and soaring vocal chants. Great Earthquake launches Mind Maps officially in May, starting with a show at the Tote in Melbourne Saturday May 4 and finishing with a show at The Waiting Room Friday May 17 (supported by the equally impressive McKisko and Sadglint) and taking on a supporting role under a Ghost Notes single launch out at Southside Tea Room the following evening.

Great Earthquake - Do. Make

I'm yet to see the wistful quirk of Wonderfuls play the traps yet, but based on the limited output the Brisbane outfit has bled onto tape, it would be a woozy, lysergic mess of an epiphany. Salty Town is a cracked malaise, washed down the sink into the underbelly of desperation and despair, all masked by a gauzy air of sun-damaged hope. Bobby's voice, flat and monotone, is the centrifugal force, and what pushes everything over the crumbling edge into the abyss of confusion and inertia - Harmony Korine via literary touchstones Praise and The Dead Heart for the ears. Can you escape? And if so, will you want to? Salty Town will be coming out on vinyl soon.

Wonderfuls - Freezing Cold
Wonderfuls - Relapse

Let's close this shop up with Pearls. I was shown this band by close mate Wilk, proclaiming their burgeoning talents, and he wasn't wrong. They slipped a self-titled EP out into the ether December last year without many people noticing, which is diabolical because these four tracks are damn fine. People are noticing though - they toured with A Place To Bury Strangers earlier in 2013, and have picked up the support for the muchly anticipated Bardo Pond tour in August. Not bad at all.

What Would Hot Palms Do?

I've been digging the new stuff from freshly-squeezed Melbourne collective Hot Palms. J.C. (out through Why Don't You Believe Me? Records, who have also put out gear from Lehmann B Smith and Velcro in the past) is the new EP, featuring three musical adaptions of poems by Jake Core (from his book Expecting to be Loved for Nothing), with Alec Marshall responsible for the instrumentals, playing and recording it all with Emma Russack writing and performing vocal duties and Jordan Ireland (The Middle East) on back-up. This novel approach is augmented by the band's fluctuating membership - much like England's Action Beat or Brisbane's Secret Birds, shows have been anywhere from a duo right up to the full eleven-person-deep rollout, with variants of this done based on who is available when.

J.C. itself plays like a strung-out mirage, skewed and medicated - Picnic At Hanging Rock with goon bags and paint huffers. 'Sunday In Milan' is a masterclass in subtle eeriness; 'Adelaide' lurks in the corners, a wraith in gossamer synth and gauze; 'Benny and the Jets' a wasted dream that wakes you in an acrid sweat, fearful, yet afraid that you will never fall back into it no matter who long you sleep. The ethereal wafts over everything...

You can buy J.C. in CD-R or digital form from here. Hot Palms aren't likely to play many shows in the near future as they hunker down to write and record a new 7" and hopefully an LP. 2013 is looking like a blistering year.


Normally I'd have a Friday Cover Up here, but in lieu of that, let's use a track off the EP that is named after a famous song. Not a cover, I'm assured. Hmmm...well, Beastie Boys had that covered ages ago anyway. This song is just so damn rad. Enjoy.

Hot Palms - Benny And The Jets

Wagga Wagga's Dreamboats Of Velcro

Here is a little lo-fi act out of Melbourne that I am absolutely loving at the moment. Velcro are a three-piece that released Dreamboat, a 6 track EP, earlier in the year on London-based label Njord Kassetts. Similar to current bands like Cat Cat and Dick Diver, with a slacker ennui inherent in the likes of Old Mate, Scott & Charlene's Wedding or Kitchens Floor, yet there is also an affinity for McLennan/Forster and the Flying Nun clan, thus allowing Velcro to steep their short whimsical numbers in a plaintive melody and surreptitious hooks so that the crooked pop tunes remain embedded in your mind for days afterwards. They have been putting out a plethora of cassette releases over the past eight or so months, demos on the internet at an alarming rate, and one of these releases is entitled Wagga Wagga and is out on Why Don't You Believe Me - which just makes me want to grab them and make them etch out a singular vinyl with all the tracks on it just for me - hell, even a CD-r would suffice! Especially as the digital version of Dreamboat is pretty pristine. But don't think you will get to see them in Aus any time soon, as the driving force behind the band, Curtis Wakeling, has moved to Brooklyn to try his wares solo whilst also playing in ace band Love Connection. If you're in NY, hunt this guy down, he is special.


You can get Dreamboat on cassette here.



And here is a track off Wagga Wagga, which you can purchase here...

Velcro - G&T