Pining For The Harshest Of Blackouts

Remember No Anchor? The brutalist Brisbane trio who reckon they aren't together much anymore? Donnie Miller records music and is in Sonic Masala-affiliated shoegaze band Roku Music; Alex Gillies cuts wood and is in metal throwbacks Greig; and Ian Rogers elocutes about music and plays in Shaking Hell. But Ian isn't done with flaying his vocal chords or our eardrums, as new side project Black Pines (joined by Rational Academy alum and the Pale Earth duke himself, Ben Thompson) attests. In the most obvious move yet from excellent outre outsider label Wood & Wire will take any risk, they have put out Harsh Out, six tracks of psych - but not as you know it. The duo want to scrape the underbelly of the 60s psychedelic dream with rusty knives, before diving straight in and letting the intestinal truth shower down. With comparisons of Bardo Pond, Boris, Swans and Unsane (circa 89-92) bandied about, you know that this is atonal obliteration of the most delicious kind. The red-eyed tint of a man driven insane by demons both without and within; swastikas etched through the skin, through sinew, through bone; nightmares real in Giallo Technicolour, an ecstatic mess, before spiralling into a pastiche of Korine-helmed dirt and Noe-driven madness. All done without preamble, without compromise, without apology. If you thought The Golden Bridge saw an upswing in Ian's temperament, with tongue embedded in cheek, then Black Pines is here to irradiate those memories beyond reproach.

As always, Wood & Wire are offering Harsh Out as a free download here. Let's hope there is some sort of physical release of this soon, yeah?

Everybody's Droning On The Weekend #3

As you huddle in the confines of your den, either being battered by freak storms, baking under pedestal fans and intermittent showers, or freezing your bollocks off, you probably wish you were somewhere else. These next ten acts will take you there - but "there" is objective, and you may be kicking and screaming...

First up is Shortwave Broadcaster. A US native now residing in Copenhagen, Denmark, Shortwave Broadcaster brought out Everything You Do Is Deja Vu through Saint Marie Records the other month. An exercise in reverb-heavy guitar minimalism, a soothing loop (ahhhh, I see what's been done there!) whirlpool of glacial majesty and grace. I was swept away when I first heard this, and now it's my go to record for when I have a headache, or am tired, and want to float away to a place far from here. When I do this, I'm rewarded with rejuvenation and a virile imagination, waking up refreshed and with vivid memories of my dreams. It's pretty incredible - I suggest you grab a copy and see for yourself.

I loved the two tracks New York-based sound artist Ajnabi did based on his time in the West Bank - I wrote about it here - and now he has a self-titled album out. It's darker stuff, more errant and experimental, and the fact that each song is given a specific date had me searching the internet for events that took place on those dates that I could connect with. Because that is what Ajnabi is all about - deep, core emotional connection, the draining kind, the cathartic kind. Boris Pugo, the USSR Minister of the Interior committed suicide on August 22 1991 - and its sonic counterpart does sound apocalyptic, the moment when you realise everything you ever fought for, no matter how awful and ill-conceived it may have been, has been all for naught; everything has caught up with you; your soul is officially bankrupt. Standing on the building's edge...man, I AM Boris Pugo. Ajnabi is that powerful. Amazing.

Let's head to Oakland now, and to self-proclaimed "psych-beat minstrel of the Left Coast" Daring Ear. His latest release Afterflash came out on Magnetic South earlier this year - you can still get copies of it here - it toys with Eastern drone mantras, kosmiche cycles, opaque paisley undulations, noise meltdowns, some warbled r'n'b, even a lick of northern soul. It's a warped little number, and well worth a listen.

Scottish wanderer Matthew Collings has impressed me a lot this year, and he has presented me with another track that is a marching kettle tin of otherworldly mystery. 'They Meet On The Subway' plays quite like a Sigur Ros symphony actually - and there is never anything wrong with that - until it ends in splintered noise, ala Sigur Ros' darker moments - again, happy days. Its a studied progression in emotion through burbling manipulation, the quiet/loud dynamic exactly that - dynamic. Collings just did a live soundtrack to a screening of Berberian Sound Studio, and his constant explorations of sound can only mean greater things are in store.

Its been a while since I'd heard new tunes from my Macedonian friend FYDHWS. His latest unsettler - 9. Eschewing the more psychy jams and Branca squalls, what we have here is the undulating wails of despair, an industrial viral scream of muted metallics and ever-shifting shadows. All I can think of whilst listening to this is that this should score the most fucked-up psychological horror movie we are yet to lay eyes on. Something like very early Dario Argento but crossed with a baser, more unhinged Nicolas Roeg - baroque body horror Giallo, anyone? This is European music, thinking of post-Soviet urbanscapes left behind, concrete ghost towns of macabre architecture, perennial grey skies and a distant church bell tolls... Creepy, and amazing. A must - get it here.

Chicagoe ambient/drone artist Cinchel has been doing his thing for over a decade now, trying to recreate the sounds in his head. That sounds kinda daunting and borderline scary - not when these voices are the arbiters of soundscapes far, far away (although he does have a song called 'I Think I'm Hearing Voices', so...hedge your bets), no harm can be done to you, now come sit and listen. He sent me two of his releases, Stereo Stasis and Sometimes You See Yourself (Through the Cosmos). The recordings are vastly different in some ways - Sometimes... revolves around the glass harp/wine glass cyclical sonics with guitars looped in, whilst Stereo Stasis is more standard guitar/loops/laptop deal - but these extrapolations of experiments in space and time converge into a likeminded aesthetic - that of entrapment in the nether glow between waking and sleeping. Not a bad place to be...

Hailing from Providence, the same burgh that spawned one of Sonic Masala's all time favourite bands Lightning Bolt, drone-ite Matthew Kattman AKA The Rainbow Body has released a lovely spiralling squall in the form of Magnetic Highway. Kattman is crafting some celestial sprawl here, his electric guitar expanding out in all directions to create a sonorous noise that feels both invasive and effusive at the same time - immersion through the pores, through osmosis. It's hypnotic light shining forth, rising and falling like synthetic breaths - its majesty incarnate. With earplugs.

Coming off the excellent Wood & Wire assembly line is Domestic Cinema, the new release from Melbourne drummer-cum-sonic jigsaw artist David Evans. The subtle tinkerings and intricacies inherent across the breadth of this album belies Evans' predilection for the vernacular of the mundane; but rather than stand idly by whilst the minutiae of life drives him into an early grave, he has harnessed the manmade sounds that echo as a metronomic constant in the back of the mind's eye and brings it to the forefront. Therefore the coalescing unease that a song like 'Telco House' brings about is the inverse of malaise - it's rife with nervous energy. Mouse clicks, whirring machines, brooms, typewriters, whipper snippers - everything is ripe for creating impending doom. The sheer tenacity of Evans to work these "found sounds" into his incestuous beats and explorations is commendable - the fact that Domestic Cinema is so captivating is a minor triumph. You can get the album here.

New Zealand dreamer Sleeper brought out his debut record From Beyond on A Guide To Saints, Room40's cassette label, earlier this year. Apart from sharing the same name as the pretty good (in a batshit crazy, Jeffery Combs kinda way) Stuart Gordon sexual horror movie from the 80s, these meanderings are ripe for dissection as they coalesce over you - the sounds of sinewaves when in a cryogenic coma. It'd be frightening if it wasn't so beautiful. Incredible stuff - you can grab From Beyond here.

Let's close out with the ethereal bedroom schematics of Melbourne's The Galaxy Folk. The dude, Angus Bell, insists that this is all electronic, not live instrumentation of any kind. Jesus. Don't tell the next generation that - the guitar shops will go out of business. His Honeygarden EP is one of spectral elegance, and whilst it doesn't fit with most of the previous molds of sonic deviations, it suits the fade out mood that dusk brings, and that is where I'm at right now - and because he has a song called Down Under, it's awesome, and Australia just won the 1st Ashes Test. You can buy Honeygarden on 10" lathe-cut vinyl (only 50 made) here.

Everybody's Droning On The Weekend #2

This weekend, pull the curtains over the windows, shut everything intrusive about the world out, and come on a journey as Sonic Masala and eight global artists take you into the wonderful world of experiental noise, clatter and drone... If like me you've burnt the candle at both ends this week/weekend, you may need it.

I'm going to tee off with what could argued to be the most rock-oriented group on this list. Locust Of The Dead Earth is Marcio da Cunha, a Portuguese artist more known for folk/blues transgressions than dronework. Mithridate is nine exquisite songs of dense noise, sun-scorched Morricone-on-acid squalls, languid psyched-out jams and electronic space-highway meanderings with the occasional vocal whispering over the top. It's a fantastic release, and you can get it through Nostril Records now. The perfect high point of terra firma before we let go and spiral into the abyss of the unknown.

I was a fan of Portland artist Charlie Salas-Humara AKA Grapefruit's self titled release on Field Hymns Records last year, and it seems they have continued to ramp up the seductive synth/guitar madness on new release Stolen Highway (out on cassette through Constellation Tatsu - you can grab it here). There is a motorik pulse beating at the core of these songs (especially on the coalescing title track and 'King Felix II') that reads like a beating heart, albeit one encase in metal and electrodes. It's an intense listen that transports into a prism of refracted disco and classroom mainframes, crushing down from above until a sonic black hole leaves nothing left but heady ruminations and dilated pupils.

Greenhouse is Canadian artist Curran Faris. Tired Forever (out on Prairie Fire Tapes) is eighty minutes of guitar drone, feedback and manipulation stretched to the outer limits. It requires more patience than most artists of its kind - but therein lies the genius. On twenty-minute track 'Early Mornings & Late Nights' alone, Faris keeps things sparse and incredibly foreboding without any true catharsis - such a level of composure lures you in, then when the slightest shift in effect or tone comes about it's like striking gold. 'Glissed' harnesses looped feedback into a glorious orchestral orgasm in the synthetic light of an artificial sun; 'Accept This' takes a more guitar-obvious route, something akin to Black Eagle Child or Mark McGuire; then reaches back into the dronal hole for the apt 'Drop-Off'. Such a great release - get it here. You'll thank me later.

It feels unfair to have anything follow that up, but Perth's Cycle ~440 is just the band for the job. The duo's 17843+ release (out on the inimitable Wood & Wire) is semi-improvised crystalline sound sculptures of fragility and sepulchral grace, building gently on piano flutters and moments of stasis, a staccato pulse always emanating from somewhere in the ether... It all adds up to a haunting, expansive experience that is as frightening as it strikes awe into the soul. These guys won this year's WAM Song of the Year (Experimental) award, which is amazing news. Come to Brisbane soon, yeah?

Another release to come out of the Constellation Tatsu stable, Panabrite's Cortex Meridian is a fun, frenetic synapse burner that somehow manages to get atmospheres, emotions and places out of synthesised manipulations that you would think would be nigh on impossible. The undulating pulses and kosmiche rhythms are made for headphones, moreso than any other release on this list - listen to 'Night Sweat' and you will know what I mean. Panabrite (AKA Seattle's Norm Chambers) has crafted a suite of sounds that are synonymous with nocturnal reflexes, atonal weightlessness and fried 8-bit hypnosis. In short, it's a enthralling piece worthy of your time. Grab it here.

UK artist Sunset Graves describes his musical tangents as his life as a ghost. Listening to Variants, artist Andy Fosberry's debut isn't as drone-centric as most others on this list, incorporating trip-hop seduction ('Safe & Empty') and post rock nihilism ('Sixty Minutes Sixty Seconds') into his productions. He even endeavours to merge the two together on 'Cala Fia' - Variants is the right word for it. Much more likely to make you dance than anything else on this list - even if it's in a somewhat sunkissed, drugged state - but also to rock out to.

And you thought Sunset Graves took us off course? Francesco Giannico & Zac Nelson's intriguing collaboration Les Nomades Paysages is an exercise in marrying improv drumming with ambient soundscapes, which leaves the effect of being on a tumultuous expedition across unfettered environments, whipped by the elements at their most beautiful and dangerous. You can almost smell the rain and burnt ozone on the title track. The field recordings enmeshed in these meditative studies are perfect also. Buy it here.

Finally we have Geometrie Variabili, an Italian free jazz improve band and their album The Breath. The quartet take a minute element and tinker with it, play with it, dissect and reassemble in various forms, in a fragmented staccato style that often takes my breath away. This type of music isn't always my thing, but The Breath really rewards, its technical intricacies not just marvels but hugely rewarding listens. You can buy it through Netlabel here.

Cadell's Melting Away

In today's Hits From The Box I spoke about Fatti Frances's Sweaty, put out by Australia's underground pushers Wood & Wire (a subsidiary of New Weird Australia). Here is another album that has made their hallowed halls, and in my opinion it's even better. As one half of Brisbane's improvisational duo The Scrapes and occasional violinist for Nikko, Adam Cadell is a virtuoso who can do anything. He's currently residing in Ghana, continuing to look for transcendence in music. Here he puts out a release called 'Til It All Melts Away. The more he moves away into the wilderness, though, Cadell has found himself embracing the synthetic, with the four tracks showing an electronic edge that adds to its alienation and urgency. Swaying from haunting meditations to cacophonous maelstroms without end, 'Til It All Melts Away takes the violin, bends it into distorted contortions, and throws it to the wind. It's breathtaking.

You can get the tracks here.

Hits From The Box #68 - Ballin'

So I coach under 16s high school basketball. It's my second year doing it, and so far my teams across two seasons remain undefeated. I can't claim to being a tactical genius in the manner of someone who analyses the NBA religiously - I thought the Hornets still resided in Charlotte until the beginning of this year. Still, my "unorthodox" practices (which pretty much means making plays up as I watch a game) has paid off in spades. Coach Carter ain't got nothin on me.

Enough trash. I'm tired of dunking all damn day. Let's hit the box, see what we find...

Whilst they might claim to have Dinosaur Jr and Pavement in their genes, Birmingham duo Heavy Waves have other more contemporary bands on their mind, such as Japandroids and the scuzzier moments of JEFF The Brotherhood. Their bio lists about a hundred other reference points, but suffice to say that ‘No Good’ has all the angst, the noise, and the inherent boozy party vibes to smash around and celebrate in rock. Anthemic in liberal distorted doses, Heavy Waves’ upcoming EP comes hotly anticipated.

For nearly two decades Per Nyström has been hiding in bands like The Concretes, Mackaper, Diagnos and Monster. Yet his instrumental altruisms are far more eclectic than these bands might attest, and Nattarbete perfectly encapsulates the minimalist hamster-wheel that Nyström wilfully employs that rolls in the interstellar innerspaces, under the hardwire floorboards, and impregnates the synapses. It's at once plaintive, sinuous, seductive and playful, and it's keyboard heaven. You can get the cassette here.

Time Hitler & The Assholes From Space - seriously? Out of all the names in the world, real and imagined, this is what this Pennsylvanian garage band settled on. Yet these guys know what they are doing - the languid approach to warbled rock psychedelia that is laid out on their Wild &Willing album is damn impressive. The five piece, self-described assholes (and who am I to argue?) may claim to come form a parallel universe to revive all things sacred in rock n roll, and there are enough bizarre intrusions here to suggest that not is all as it seems, yet Wild & Willing is a classicist garage psych behemoth, a fun menagerie of big chords, hollered vocals, the hefty waft of marijuana and copious amounts of sweat and booze, all instilled in a sonic package for your easy consumption. Tune in, drop out, jazz up, rock out.

From the excellently eclectic halls of Wood & Wire comes Sweaty, six shards of queasy, feverish electronic shivers from Melbourne-based drummer extraordinaire and newly-minted experimental RnB producer Raquel Solier AKA Fatti Frances. Wanting to take dancefloor bangers that idols Missy Elliott pumps out and combine with pastoral yet evocative songwriting (she quotes both Karen Carpenter and Scott Walker in her bio), Fatti Frances achieves something of a quivering, heaving hybrid of overt sexual come-ons and coy musings, all the while manipulating sound into an electronic vacuum of stutters and uncertainty. Its an alluring mix, and one that deserves far greater attention. You can get all sweaty with Sweaty here.

Another bedroom release is this four-track cassette from New York band Amadels, and it is pretty rad. There is next to nothing I know about this band, other than it comes out on Sunday Fir (as does Acid Glasses) and that it has a dangerous link to casual sleaze, sun and narcolepsy. It does have that bedroom scuzz on its shoes, but there is something warm trickling from the pores of these tracks that mesmerises. And they were about to play their first show on next Thursday except it's now been cancelled. That's right - THEIR FIRST SHOW. And it's now cancelled. That means they haven't played yet. Fuck me.

Yet another cracker band from the Exploding In Sound stable, Boston’s Kal Marks has drifted into the oncoming traffic of driving slacker rock on their sophomore LP Life Is Murder (which both Sophomore Lounge and Midnight Werewolf are also distributing), and its an impressive dig. Musically this album slays, at stages almost bringing things to a sludgy grind even as the rhythm section pushes things into sprinting paces. Some will struggle with Carl Shane's curled, pitched vocals (think Devendra Banhart gargling marbles), but give it enough space (as this is also a pretty full on record lyrically, focusing primarily on depression and keeping shit together) and it will knock you over (especially the torn lyricism on songs like 'All I Want In Life Is A Solid Porch'). It doesn't grab me as quickly as Pile's Dripping album of last year - but these guys are running the same lines, which is an eminently great thing. Grab it here.



HAPPY WEDNESDAY!!

Australian Ambiance

Seeing as it is ANZAC Day here in Australia, and seeing as I have the day off, and seeing as there is a lot of great local stuff that has been languishing in the inbox over the past few months, I'm dedicating today to a series of posts that will focus predominantly on great releases that may not have gotten the coverage they rightly deserve. This first one is delving into the more ambient, electronic, experimental side of things - there will be a look at some bands that adhere to the slacker pop ethos (or thereabouts - we're killing it for variants of this "sound") then end off the day with a collection of the rest (read: LOUD).

Starting off we have Angel Eyes, an act that isn't really flying  under the radar (Andrew Cowie's project has been flaunted by Not Not Fun in the past), but nevertheless their Final Fare LP deserves much praise. Out through Bedroom Suck, the synth warbles that emanate from this set of songs epitomises the kind of lysergic manipulated meanderings that seem wayward and opaque, yet steals your heart while you are bewildered and hypnotised; Mega City One and Blade Runner aural clash, all dirty neon and base desires - the perfect crime. Cowie is clearly becoming more comfortable in his own skin, and the results are often breathtaking; miles above most other pretenders in this sonic realm. You really should get this - and you can, from here.

Angel Eyes - A Light Distraction
Angel Eyes - Golden Gleam

Out through Fallopian Tunes Records, Syrup is the second EP from Melbourne's Yolke. The self-proclaimed psych-ambient quartet have spent last month touring the US, pushing their regenerative hypnogenics onto all and sundry, and the strength of the drifting dreamscapes here, augmented by Errol Green's sonorous vocals wavering above and behind the mix, is palpable. Aural Ecstasy with added Tortoise bass warm and fuzzies (listen to 'Tough Times', you'll get it). I'm hoping this floats into the right slipstream, because Syrup is such a great release. Have a listen below, see what you think, and if you like, buy it from here.

I have neglected the excellent digital releases from Wood & Wire (AGAIN...) but here are two that I particularly enjoy, Solace by Gillian Lever AKA The Vainglories, and Sarah Phelan (TANTRUMS)'s pseudonym as solo production maniac Drill Folly's No Love Lost. The former is a darker sojourn into the depths of isolation, yet the murkier undercurrents are highlighted by space and the occasional bright melody, alluding to the search for solace as a positive retreat, not just a forced ostracision. Think of some of the work from Crow and The Dirty Three on the Praise soundtrack, and you are in the same early-morning park. It's stark, elegiac, and often quite beautiful. In contrast, Drill Folly is all about machinery - manipulation, combustion, morphology, dependence, therapy. No Love Lost is not an easy listen, but then again it was made with isolation and headphones in mind. Give yourself into the stilted industrial sounds, though, and a warmer, existential focus comes to the fore. Extremely interesting stuff.

The Vainglories - I Am The Only
Drill Folly - Bittersweet Escape
Drill Folly - Third Movement

Sydney's The Knechts defies easy categorisation. Delving in improvisation and electronica, every genre is grabbed, throttled and spliced. Divination, their latest release through Etch_Music, straddles some desert drone and garage rock before breaking ranks in a free-jazz downward spiral, all greasy sweat and cotton tongue, before the headache comes back in force and you know you are still alive. It's a schizophrenic listen, one that rewards from different quarters from each protracted listen. Give it a shot, straight into your earhole.

The Knechts - Crosshair Delivery
The Knechts - Rotating Jazz Detectives

When a band called Footy fell into the inbox, I was prepared to throw it into the bin sight unseen (sound unheard). But I saw it was from Lost & Lonesome, responsible for putting out gear by the likes of Deerhoof, Great Earthquake and Milk Teddy, so I spun Mobile Cemetery and was most pleasantly surprised. Footy are an experimental electric piano duo from Melbourne, and this debut LP showcases the duo's listless meandering drives through the industrial fringe suburbs of the Victorian capital - yet could be through the broken-down urban wastelands of anywhere. It's beautifully haunting, occasionally funny (not sure if it's intentional, but it also isn't derogatory - the humorous shifts in tone such as on the title track are welcomed) and wholly immersive. It's out May 3 - I suggest you pre-order it here.

Footy - Sea Home

Nonsemble is a chamber pop experiment led by Chris Perren (Mr Maps) to explore compositional positions within certain genres. As part of tertiary studies (doctorates and the such), Practical Mechanics is the result of much of this analysis, and sees Perren adhering the ideas of the likes of Yann Tiersen and Michael Nyman to more materialist, "commercial" fare. Its a noble and often very rewarding result, and toys with emotions and pace, ambiguity and listener interaction. Above all, it's great. you can listen to it here. No plans to release it in a physical context...yet. So hassle them here to make it happen.

Nonsemble - Constructional Details Of A Novel and Fascinating Machine

Finally I was trying to get a headlining act for a show I put on back in February (I ended up sticking with video game revisionists Boss Fight, and it was damn killer) and I stumbled across Nimble Animal. This comes around full circle, because although Dumb Dirge came out last year, it was on Fallopian Tunes, same as Yolke, and bears some passing resemblance to Angel Eyes' wares. The moniker for Dom Stephens (who also works under the Outerwaves nom de plume and used to front Oh Ye Denver Birds), nimble Animal utilises tape machine processing and manipulation, circuit bending, analogue drum machines and intentionally distorted instruments to create a warm bed of bristling synth and dense musical wizardry. In short, it's fucking rad. So have the entire album to chew on.


Man, I need a break. See you in a few hours with a metric shit tonne more sounds!

Can't Hear The Wire For The Wood - 10 Releases

 

New Weird Australia is an Australian institution that champions this continent’s more left of field experimental artists, branching out from a mere radio program on Sydney’s FBi station to become a beacon of ambition and exploration. This year they have opened up into a record label too, albeit a digital one, called Wood & Wire. They have close to ten releases out already, and with another due out this month I thought it best to do a small feature on these albums – because there are some amazing gems here.

 

The first four releases were released simultaneously back in June. Inter Alia was the first, and the third from drumming maelstrom Peon. Fusing jazz improv (which may be a catalyst of The Necks’ Lloyd Swanton joining the duo) and almost subliminal electronic manipulations with ritualistic rhythmic patterns, Peon create a sinuous sojourn through the echoing halls of psych mantra.

Peon - Io

 

Chocolate Syrup is the debut of Sydney’s Emily Grantham. Playing with form within the electronic genre (Grantham studies composition), Chocolate Syrup is an experiment in chopped up waves of metallic sheen, soaring from ear to ear like an electric shock, whilst her almost-childlike vocals shifts in and out of the robotic dissonance. Its equal parts the future-pop, and the stuff of nightmares. Monster’s rave.

Emily Grantham – Coconut Flesh

 

Bok Darklord is like an industrial obsessed Doctor Who whose only weapons are sonic awareness and common sense. Aiming to eradicate Metallica and Lou Reed’s abomination Lulu, the same-titled record here is skewered on a bilious fist of liquid dominance – it hurts, sure, but this cavity search is the enema that the whole world needed.

BOK Darklord – The View

 

Another debut, this time the self-titled Machine Death LP. Penned by its creators as New Wave Sludgecore, Machine Death is fairly brutal, with the whisper of melody trying vainly to smash through a static wall of distorted viscera. Fuck Buttons would be proud.

Machine Death – Carried On A Wave

 

Solid opening, no? The next two releases are just as good. WW #5 is しSD, the self-titled debut EP from 19 year old Canberra-based Felix Idle (しSD is pronounced Shisd, which is how I will refer to him as from now on…or maybe the tech-core Prince…) Juggling hip-hop rhythmic aesthetics with undulating musical arrangements, and collaborator Cape North’s vocals wafting in and out of the mix, adding and subtracting harmony and texture like the turns of the tide. This kid sounds like he knows what he’s doing – but he is learning as he goes. The power of these songs is dulled only by the knowledge that his next foray into sonic manipulation promises so much more.

Shisd – Canyon
Shisd – Bay Wash

 

Stacey Wilson isn’t a stranger – her work with Terrible Truths and especially her own Rites Wild moniker have made ripples across the globe. Regional Curse sees Wilson donning the solo guise in the form of a cowl made of tar, and third LP Natural Living has noise oozing from every pore. Since starting out making cassettes of her explorations, she has utilised home-made electronic drums and a malfunctioning looper pedal. Refracted through pervasive themes of ascension and natural progression, Regional Curse marks itself as an arbiter of isolation and vice, hidden away in the scum-soaked hovels of paranoiac mind. Desolation reigns here – yet it never has sounded this sleek.

Regional Curse – Best Believe

 

Onto the next two Wood & Wire releases. Sydney’s Joshua Gibbs offers a vibrant experimental EP in I’ll Be Good under the guise of Setec. Whisking away into a rustic parallel world of refracted lights and cascading gamma rays, woollen jackets and snow blindness, the looping and graceful percussive interlay on display, along with Gibbs’ great vocals, evokes likeminded sonic slicers such as Cornelius (especially on the title track, and is a comparison that is likely to be made quite often I reckon) and the Avalanches (see ‘Vowel of Owl’ – hey, we may as well ask for someone to take the mantle that the Avalanches are unable to fill). A magical ride that ends too soon – keep your eye on this lad.

Setec – I’ll Be Good
Setec – Vowel Of Owl

 

From Perth comes Laura Jane Lowther and her electronic project Kučka. This self-titled EP is intent on eschewing normal notions of electro pop, instead trying to colour the furtive outer regions, neither aggressive nor reticent; neither glossy nor gritty. These arrangements expand and contract like a psychotropic headswell; Alice In Wonderland in cyberpunk sound-byte form. Tying it all together is Lowther’s plinking vocals, somewhere between Deerhoof’s Satomi Matsuzaki and Alison Goldfrapp, a skittish yet ominous mist, a dark seduction threatening to swallow you whole.

Kučka – i

 

The final two releases are from Sydney based producer fm and Melbourne’s Automating. fm’s EP Buttons uses analog, digital & video game equipment to create an amalgamation of artificial electronic pop that is unsettling in its apparent lack of human emotion. This feels like computer music, made by a computer, when coming home to seduce another computer, which as an end product is weirdly alluring.

fm - Maise

 

In some ways Automating’s effort Somnambulist is the most ambitious of this incredibly ambitious brace of releases. Comprised of 18 tracks that investigate the stasis and psyche of sleep-states, hypnagogia and hypnopompia via field recordings, found sound, tape manipulation, noise and effects units, the end result of Somnambulist is the interior score to a technologically-obsessed paranoiac (there’s that word again…). I honestly found myself going a little crazy whilst listening to it, it invades the skull so completely. This, combined with vivid imagery due to the inventive use of the field recordings, paints a garish vista of modern societal nightmares akin to Todd Haynes’ Safe or Darren Aronofsky’s Pi. Even Lost Highway plagued my mind. Now I love these films, but I don’t want them fusing with my mind – God, I can see the Mystery Man’s eyes upon me! Seriously, this is an incredible trip. I'm not sure I’d recommend taking drugs whilst watching this one…

Automating – Rosetta Stone
Automating – Synaptic Transmission

There are two more on their way – expect to hear more soon. Until then, head over here to divulge in some exciting otherworldly delights – it’s a brave new world.