Aural Australia #4 - Endless Loop

More Australian releases that are killer - some of these have been around for a while, but the never ending cycle continues...

I have been a fan of Perth based artist Lower Spectrum for quite some time, and his latest offering, the EP Inverse, is another slab of pure arctic synthesis. Three remixes (from LUCIANBLOMKAMP, Rioux and Satori) are bookended by two originals. The opener is the longest and most impressive of the two, 'Atlas (Movements I & II)', an ice melody that ebbs and flows with incremental serenity, an ambient soundscape that disappears into the terminal tundra to return, beats race, a night-time hypnotic state. Its groove is invasive, a nebulous being that locks in and doesn't let go. 'Oracle' on the other hand, is an literal riot, a gangs in the street trance lit by homemade flares and disillusioned anguish and rage.

From this we move into a different territory (in fact Lower Spectrum is very much the odd sound out in this post, although it has been what I have been listening to most in the twilight hours). I Heart Hiroshima are back! The mid-00s Brisbane mainstay went into hiatus as the trio did their own things (Martyr Privates, Rick Fights, Sullivan). But 'Fifty Three' is a great return to the fold - a more brooding, solemn take, treated like a resurgence, a renaissance, a rising from the flames of iniquity and anonymity. Not that the single players have stayed in the shadows, but their mastery of the liminal spaces of the musical landscape has left them with weightier crosses to bear. The earnest approach doesn't dull the IHH formula, but hones it. Can't wait for more.

Melbourne dark psychers ORB have followed in King Gizzard's footsteps with latest release Birth having been picked up by Thee Oh See's US label Castle Face. They have the heavier end of psych wrapped up - like Black Sabbath has been run through the kaleidoscopic deep fryer. But there are elements that are in keeping with John Dwyer's cracked gimlet gurning - the whine, whirl and cowbell of 'Reflection', the spaced spazzoid flares and '50s sci-fi trashed outliers in 'Birth Of A New Moon', the crunching groove aligned with paisley psych vocals in 'First & Last Men'. The 16-minute incinerator 'Electric Blanket' is the blasted cherry on this dazed cake.

Witch Hats have been a pretty underrated band in the Australian musical wilderness. They have morphed over time from a gnarled horror anarchy to arbiters of angular anxiety. Third album 'Deliverance' sees a shift again, the desolate cover art mirroring the untethered anguish and dusted dystopia that the quartet pour forth. It fits into a niche collection of Australian Gothic working-class malaise and outlier grotesquery that have become one of the strongest bastions of Antipodean sound for the past decade (others include the likes of The Drones, Harmony, The Spinning Rooms and Nikko) and deserves a far wider appraisal. START NOW.

Solid Effort have released this single 'Too Far Gone' in preparation for a full length release next year. It's a languid, almost blase sojourn into a hazed jangle epitomised by light heads and heavy lids, beers half full and the sun on the shoulder of the horizon. There is so much potential with this band.

The Ocean Party/Osborne St collective just keep spewing forth bands, don't they? Pregnancy is the silly, sultry half-sister of the brood. 'First Kiss' has that 80s in the 21st century gossamer sheen, the female vocals floating in through a Vaseline-smeared soft focus shot of bay windows with billowing white curtains, band members wearing a costume composite of David Byrne, Kenny Loggins and ABC. It's smooth, funky and chockful of hooks that you can imagine the band all looking at each other with grins plastered across their faces, in awe of how really really ridiculously good these sounds are. The fourtrack tape is out now, and the rest of the songs are great too - while I like the seductive yet simplistic New Wave primitivism of 'Society', you can never beat Slim Dusty - I recognised the man's melody before I even twigged that 'Biggest Disappointment' was indeed a cover of one of his classic tracks.

Finishing off with Church of Christ, a decidedly different taste from Lachlan Malone (Danyl Jesu, O). The loose garage punk distortion and broad as fuck Australian drawl echoes from the likes of Coloured Balls and Feedtimes of yore to the Drunk Mums and Straight Arrows of now, although more guttural and weird, and is added serious weight by Donovan Miller in the recording studio (Audio Nowhere, No Anchor). But it's the blood spatter guitar strum and flayed chord howl within the laconic beer chewing braggadocio that puts these songs right up there - and with titles like 'Song of the Year' and 'Greatest Song Alive', they sure know it.

VIDEO VACUUM - Future Of The Left, Girls, Colours, Witch Hats

A slow start to the week, but here are some luscious moofies to drag you out of the doldrums, yeah?

It's common knowledge that I have infinite amounts of respect for Andy Falkous. I'm a bit of a groupie, and getting to speak to him last year before the release of his band Future Of The Left's Polymers Are Forever EP was one of the crowning achievements of my life thus far. Now we are creeping ever closer to the release of their third album, The Plot Against Common Sense, and to whet our appetites (it's not out til May, dammit!) we have the video for teaser track 'Sheena Was A T-Shirt Salesman'. Ill be brutally honest - it's not their best. But it's good, and Falkous' lyrics are as acerbic, drenched in bile and tickled pink as ever. It has me on tenterhooks - I'm hoping for upwards and onwards...Plus it's good to see the Blue Man Group getting a job.



Girls was one of the best bands to grace us with their presence on the recent Laneway Festival circuit, and I've grown to embrace Christopher Owens and his inherent revivalist shtick more and more. Here is the rather disquieting flick for 'My Ma' and as always it is somewhat sumptuous and off putting, like a Gregory Crewdson photograph come to life. Intensely alluring.



Now I received this in the mail only the other day, and immediately thought it was a new track from British slacker rock band Colours. Turns out there is an artist right here in Australia called Colours, and 'In The Summer' is his contribution to the incoming compilation by Electronic Voice Records. It's hazed dream pop of the highest order, and has me hankering for more of the same. As far as I know there isn't a full length in the immediate future, but the compilation will be out on cassette as well as 12" vinyl soon, with pre-order starting March 10 (this Saturday!) here.

COLOURS ~ In The Summer from Toto Vivian on Vimeo.

Finally we have Melbourne's Witch Hats, who have had a bit of a directional change of late as witnessed on their stellar second LP Pleasure Syndrome. Here is the new video for 'In The Mortuary' off that very album.



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Watch Out For The Witch Hats Tonight...

Melbourne's Witch Hats might have started out as purveyors of dark, loud noise, but with the arrival of the excellent Pleasure Syndrome last year it's clear the boys have much more to their palate than shouts and moans. See how they marry this more melodic material with the visceral older stuff in Brisbane tonight at the Alhambra Lounge. Support goes out to enigmatic six piece Crass Creatures and dark surfers Feathers. It's around $12, so nice and cheap (even if the drinks aren't...bring a flask).

Love Me A Royal Headache

OK, so I kinda blew my wad over Witch Hats' Pleasure Syndrome. Well, I better change my pants AGAIN, because we have another absolute killer jumping out of the gates and totally destroying all preconceptions about what it means to create good music.

Royal Headache, in their debut self-titled longplayer, have done something that revels in its unaffectedness. In fact, it’s hard to imagine in this world today how such a band can exist. Devoutly and intrinsically DIY, these rabblerousers don’t pride themselves in living the music they play or the reputation they may garner; they just are. Now that Pitchfork et al (and to an extent, the glaring spotlight also turns on me, for better or worse) are espousing their brilliance, their progression can only go one of two ways - implosion, deliberate obscurity, or an evolution of sound. As it stands, then, 2011 will be a time capsule for the group, for this point forward their lives aren't likely to be the same unless they wilfully make it so. Therefore thank fuck for Royal Headache, an album chock full of influences, garage tendencies, fundamental mistakes and innate love of what they do that a better template of what it means to be rock and roll may not subsist.

OK, so that sounds like an outrageous declaration. However, after one listen to this album it becomes evident that this kind of lightning cannot be emulated. Each track on Royal Headache brims to overflowing with original wants, demands and expectations – this is fun, dammit. No pretensions, or aloofness, or affectations.

Maybe it comes from the juxtaposition between the frenetic musical interplay and the almost friendly, appeasing vocal stylings of vocalist Shogun (the comparisons to Ted Leo notwithstanding - and more than a little OTT) – his crooning on 'Back And Forth' when offset by the manic garage punk wailings becomes a beast unto itself. Shit, there is a song that sounds like fucking Rod Stewart! But 'Honey Joy', one of the strongest songs on offer, shows exactly who Royal Headache are. A song filled with heart-rending despair with a hint of loving redemption, played without a hint of irony, reference wink-nudges or aspirations.

Like I said, whether this kind of alchemy can be maintained under scrutiny is dubious at best. Let's hope that they find a way.

For the love of God, buy Royal Headache now! Its becoming very difficult to buy this on record, just so's you know...

Royal Headache - Girls
Royal Headache - Down The Lane
Royal Headache - Honey Joy

Get Pleasured By Witch Hats

Today heralds in a few days' worth of posts devoted to some fantastic Aussie releases that I have been saving up, including ones by Royal Headache, Straight Arrows, Dead Farmers, and Total Control. Not all of them are this year's news, but are warranted another look in. This one though, is fresh off the presses, and is a veritable delight to boot.

Melbourne's Witch Hats have the guttural firepower and diseased charisma necessary to corrupt the minds of the masses. On their debut release Cellulite Soul the rawness and aggression inherent in their swagger suggested that style and substance weren't independent of each other, instead always wrestling for control. And in Pleasure Syndrome they really nail their MO to the wall. The beauty of this LP though is that the cohesion, the Araldite that grips a band into a fevered vortex of sonic elation and cosmic power, seems to have arrived. By the metric tonne.

Opening track 'The Bounty' is the perfect example of this. Frontman Kris Buscombe still sounds ready to double glass you at the drop of an ill-place syllable, yet there is a comfortable presence behind his lyrics now that suggests that such a glassing wouldn't be a violent outpouring so much as a graceful balletic manoeuvre that you would be in awed fascination by even as pints of blood pulses out of your split forehead. Such reigning in of the bountiful seams of sleazy abandon is what makes Pleasure Syndrome an infinitely better release, and possibly one of the best Aussie releases of the year (neck and neck with another that I will talk about very soon...) 'Mahoney' lends lyrics that sings to their previous incarnations, the S&M rife imagery as disturbing as it is titillating. 'Hear Martin' has taken references to serial shooter Martin Bryant, thrown together some Clash and Doors hubris and percolated it all with a sense of lackadaisical longing - something that shouldn't work, yet offers a slinky number that exudes originality and intensity. Closer Closing out with the suitably heavy 'Ashley', Witch Hats assert the notion that they are well-heeled rabblerousers with hearts of tainted pitch.

Pleasure Syndrome is out now through Longtime Listener.

Witch Hats - Hear Martin