Hits From The Box #109 - Holiday Comedown

It's Friday; it's miserable; I haven't left the house other than to hit the off licence since coming back from Spain. Netflix, Bandcamp and Heinz have been my friends. Ah, the holiday comedown. No amount of sight and sound can stop me from realising that the bubble has burst and I am back in the "real world". So I need some real tearers to get me to the end of the normal "working" week. Here are six bands who are getting the adrenaline going for obvious and obtuse reasons...

I'm gonna start with Happy Forever, the fourth LP from Austin noiseniks Coma In Algiers. These guys aren't exactly unheard of, nor is this the freshest cut (the album came out in January). But as I trawl through the backwaters of the inbox, I stumbled across this just as I read a review of it on Terminal Boredom. I'm going to put my neck out there and say this is the best record Ive heard this month - alongside Deaf Wish's newie (which I will speak of soon) and Newcastle psychers Blown Out. It fits into many of the musical sensibilities that I have - the narcotic abrasion and gleeful, manic disregard of Jesus Lizard or Pissed Jeans; the frenetic multilimbed guitar insanity of Action Beat or Don Caballero; the hushed tension of Unwound; the unkempt, acerbic tension of Spray Paint or Shellac; the explosion of said tension like Big Black or early Mclusky...it's all there, a million ideas at a million miles a minute. Whether they are as good as any of these acts remains to be seen, but Happy Forever is a damn good tilt at the title. Stay weird (and come to London/Europe ASAP).

Now this self-titled album from Italian weirdos Tetrolugosi actually came out last year, but has just been released on cassette last week. I absolutely love it. The OTT Gothic baritone, crackling thunder and Castlevania synth of opening track 'The Golden Bug' is worth the price of admission alone. The horror pastiche is corny yet prescient - a seductive afterthought on both 80s New Wave glow and 70s synth other-worldliness. Would definitely love to see this act in a live setting, a small darkened room, all faux-Nosferatu and quasi-ABC - sounds amazing to me. (I've also watched some Giallo films lately so...)

I have actually written about Canadians Zuzu's Petals back in 2013 when they released The Fire Breathing Dragon (read and listen here). The five-piece have just released their new album At Long Last, and it continues in the same ramshackle indie rock vein. Favourites - the punchy bark (sorry) of 'Family Dog', the dark brood of 'Scorpio Woman', the rambling down-home burn of 'Loretta Lynn Madam' - which reminds me of Jason Molina, which makes me sad. A good little album, this one.

This Heel is a solo dude from Malmo in Sweden, Martin Månsson Sjöstrand. He has just released his second album of sorts, maybe an EP, called This Heel II, and this understated, slightly cracked 60s/70s pop is pretty great. The guy on the front cover is Sjöstrand's father in the 60s - the closing song 'Cold Outside' (a cover of The Choir) was one of his favourite songs - and it feels like the whole release is an ode to the man. I really can't get 'Empty-Headed Man' out of my head - I was singing this into an empty spaghetti tin over lunch. This could say a lot about my cabin fever, but it could say a lot about the hooks inherent within these songs.

Another song to burrow under the skin today is 'Pell Mell' from Ontario dudes Bronx Cheerleader. It starts off light and jangling, a twinkling daydream, with slight krautrock undertones, but this shimmering dream starts to colour darker at the seams. It never really bursts its beautifully cultivated bubble, but things move from carefree to careful, from infectious to infected, in increments. It's a wonderfully calibrated slice of indie rock. More please.

Rounding out the post (and the week) is Yorkshire act Grass House. The four-piece just started a month long residency at The Waiting Room here in London on Tuesday, and their track 'Unknown In The Scene' is an alt-pop gem that reminds me of Grandaddy dusting off the cobwebs with Malcolm Middleton while entrenched in Edinburgh in the 90s. It's a lot of fun, even if the sentiment of the song is somewhat maudlin. Next week though is the show to go see, when they play with Moon Gangs and have Winter Drones DJing - get a ticket here.



Happy Friday, everyone!

Hits From The Box #66 - 8 Pack FTW

I've just come back to the "day job" a couple of weeks - of which I also had a bit of a break from Planet Masala. Thing is, I can never quit this. I saw four great shows (including one of my own, which was actually one of the best shows I've put together), and had quite a bit of vinyl come through the mail. Therefore I'm focusing the first Hits From The Box back into the fold (and it's an 8-pack, no less) on those releases (plus one that actually came last year, but I was overseas then, and then lost it in the move, then found it last week, so it still counts). Trust me - these bands are built to last (and probably have bigger neck muscles than you too).

Let's kick off in Russia. Motorama is a five piece whose Calendar LP is a heady mixture of 80s synth throughlines, complemented by a baritone vocal that could be Matt Berninger from The National if he sang in a New Wave band from 1986, rambunctious post-punk guitar that segues from beach pop to glistening indie melodrama, and a drumbeat that is relentless in keeping the momentum at breakneck speed. It's quite possible this indie fusion has benefited from a discovery of old music and new, all at the same time - like being subjected to a cell for fifteen years, then when released heading to the nearest record store where your first three purchases are Phoenix, Bauhaus and Roxy Music (seriously makes me want to spin these back to back now...). Not that far from The National, if they were more musically upbeat - and I love the National, for better or worse, so there you go. Calendar is Motorama's second album, out now on Talitres (grab it here).

Scottish trio Poor Things are pretty great. Their EP Hurricane Poor Things (out through Vinyl Ritchie Records - a seriously great label pun) offers five slices of guitar pop delivered with verve, sunny tempo and reckless abandon - just three boys loving their guitar rock by way of Pavement, The Kinks and Male Bonding. Then is now. Fun intensity, a hurricane of candy cane? These boys won't be poor for long.

Poor Things - Ice Cream

Father Figures as an idea has existed for seven-odd years, yet the band members' other endeavours (which include other avant-pop amalgams such as Man Man and Matthew Dear) has kept these zombie jazz merchants from storming the world like a go-go virus. Like jazz, Father Figures offers instrumental passages that are often whims, an improvisational melange of like minds melding as one; unlike jazz, most of the tracks on their Bad Bad Birds EP are rhythmic, the saxophones speaking to the listener, a viral disease of the ears. It's cracked, it's decayed, it's deformed - it's delectable

Canadian wonk-rock heathens Zuzu's Petals took me by surprise, as I only listened to their The Fire Breathing Dragon record as an example for a friend as to how many emails we get at Sonic Masala HQ ("Look how much comes in a day! And most of it sounds like this...Actually this is pretty good, scratch that..."). It's classic off-kilter, semi-abrasive, wholly immersive rock that the likes of early Modest Mouse, Pedro The Lion and a goddamn plethora of other bands are familiar dealers of, and they do it well. Really well. It has that hazardous yet infectious as fuck vibe that Spook House and Pile have, two releases that blindsided me last year and continue to reap rewards. Don't be surprised if Zuzu's Petals doesn't crawl under your skin and keep you warm at night.

A subtle play on one of modern history's true wordsmiths, Bristol's Oliver Wilde has been scratching at the surface of reality for a little while now, finding a somewhat incongruous home on Howling Owl Records. This band is not post punk or no wave - yet there is something chaotic in the miasmic haze that the act casts over their soundscapes, an electronic unease that curdles the mind. There are moments, like on the AM fried harmonics of 'Flutter', that you feel like Oliver Wilde is a familiar, that they have always accompanied your greatest achievements; but before long another wave of warbled noise drifts across and hides the band's true intentions, an unnatural, perturbing pop with so many layers it's difficult to know where to start. Lysergic soundtracks to a cartoon crawl. Too many and too few colours to take in. I'm exhausted - but I just want another taste - just one more... A Brief Introduction To Unnatural Light Years comes out on white vinyl on Monday - pre-order it here (you really must).

Another label to come onto my radar is one closer to home, with Bro Fidelity providing a home for some of Melbourne's greatest heavy instrumental acts. One such band is Fire Witch, whose Liars record from 2010 was sent to me recently. It's incredible - a heady noise fest, sure, but one that requires patience and due diligence. The impressive thing about this trio is their insistence on the slow burn - sludge rhythms that roll forward, an insidious ebb and flow, that become a flatline for the Underworld, baiting silence before bursting forth in a wanton release of brutal force. 

San Diego gutter punks CHAMP, other than they made this EP. I like it that way. This feels like something I would find scratched on a cassette hidden under the passenger seat of the car, all covered in dust and lint, and not know whether I was listening to a mixtape or an album. The mood swings wildly - 'Nothing' is nascent, noisy, nasal garage punk; 'Burnt Alive' swings and sways in a heady malaise before sparking to life in an angsty rage; 'Bummer' squalls, offering a listless uncertainty before the afterburners kick in; 'Terror Of God' is maudlin misery in all its resplendent glory; 'Loser' disappears down the well, an acoustic plea never to be heard. It's all pretty ace. More please.

And we finish with the hypnotic guitar crawl of Glass Gang, a Brooklyn group that link a crunchy yet simplistic guitar line with wispy, tired vocals and elegant synths, a basic drum machine offering a quirky counterpoint that somehow ties it all together. I didn't think I would be a fan of this, but it immediately sunk its hooks in and some two weeks later has refused to let go. An intriguing prospect that I will watch closely from here on out...



HAPPY THURSDAY EVERYONE!