Dis Is Miniatures

What a lovely little EP DIS is. Four short tracks of glistening, orchestral noise, Melbourne act Miniatures have proven on DIS that brevity does not need to dampen the all-encompassing wash of shoegaze guitars and ethereal vocals. If you had or are still having a rough day, this is the perfect antidote (obvious pun resisted...just). Gorgeous, mesmerising stuff.

SCRATCHIN' ROUND - Sealion, Foolish Atoms, Milo's Planes

All I know is that this is rad. The group choruses, the wrist-wrangling guitar and nonchalant nods make me want to chuck down all the work I have to do and drive straight to a show. Or a dilapidated beach shack. Or better: a show at a dilapidated beach shack. There I could wear the same clothes for a week and let the salty air work its magic. I could put Sealion on repeat through the sunlight hours and try to nail the harmonies in between falling off a yellow old surfboard.



The pissed (of the late night uninhibited conversation type) pop of Kenneth is out through the fantastic Lo-life records (more on them later this week) now.

And if the evening rolled on nicely and the stars rolled out nicely then I'd move out to the sand and feel my way through the new Foolish Atoms release. Collections of gas would become numinous and numerous as I'd stare on and on out towards where it all began. I might even try to explain to any passers-by about how we are the universe becoming aware of itself. And if they didn't want to listen I wouldn't mind either, A Crack in the Glass Eye would be enough to sustain me for the evening.

You can find your own copy through The Adult Teeth Recording company now.

After getting all nestled in you might think I'd be pissed off when the neighbours started making a racket, but not if it turned out to be these two brothers from Bristol. Anyone keen enough to use a Catch 22 reference in their name is okay with me. Plus this is good fizzy stuff. It's the kind of stuff we all need every now and then to keep us on the level. 'New Tricks' is the pick for me here. It kinda reminds me of  rougher DZ Deathrays. Milo's Planes; sell all the cotton you got and get yourself a copy today.

Resurrecting The Rayon Moon

Melbourne punks Rayon Moon are allergic to fidelity, pretension, and sense and sensibility (probably Jane Austen too, but I don't want to cast aspersions here...). The four-track Resurrection EP is loose, raw, raucous and ridiculous - like listening to a tremolo-addicted Television lose their minds over the B-52s. There is a infectiousness inherent in these tracks that lend a hallucinatory element to the fringes - this isn't generic garage scuzz, this is an acid-flecked spit in the eye - now with luaus, coconuts and alcohol poisoning. Grab a copy here.

Colliding with Everyone Else

It's December already. It seems like the more years you see, the less you see of them. The countdown to Christmas is on; another few days steeped in tinsel, guilt and mid-strength beer. Thank God for Collider though, they how know the holiday season works: People arrive, people greet, people drink too much, terrible times - in every sense of the word - are had. So what if last year you woke up on Boxing Day nude in a pile of hay? What could be more divine than that? You're gunna be fine.


There is such a great camaraderie in both tracks here. If I were in Sheffield, I would be following whatever star I could to get to one of their shows.

Pontiak Were Never Innocent

Pontiak is one of my favourite bands of the last five years. They are bringing out a new album on Thrill Jockey, one of my favourite labels of all time. This is a track off it. I listen to this when I wake up, and just before hitting the hay at night. I'm hugely looking forward to this release, as should you. That is all.

Video Vacuum - Angel Olsen, Tropical Strength, Gentlemen, The Entrance Band

Final week of work for the year; Australia wins the first Ashes Test - it's a pretty good place to be for me right now. I still have a mountain of work to get through though, and hence the procrastination. So - let's have at the vids!



Angel Olsen is a beguiling chanteuse. Firstly due to her musical endeavours up til now have involved skeletal, atmospheric, cavernous folk, all shadows, smoke and mirrors. Secondly because the first cut from her upcoming album is the complete opposite of that. 'Forgiven/Forgotten' is two minutes of chugging rock, Olsen's vocals strong and bold, the video a frenetic edit of car window views. It's not a total backflip - the 'Sweet Dreams' single from earlier this year was a haunting number with a more prevalent guitar, but Olsen is more operatic there - it feels particular and staged. It's light years away. It's bizarre, because I love Olsen's old stuff (especially her album on Bathetic Records, Half Way Home) - and yet I love this track. Guess I just love Angel Olsen. The new album Burn Your Fire For No Witness will be out early next year on Jagjaguwar and Dead Oceans - can't wait.



Here's some Aussie dudes making a lysergic number with birds chirping in the background, a mega-slowed down video of a guy falling into a wake pool by the sea and ink dispelling into water. It reminds me a bit of Snowman at their lightest at the beginning, then becomes spun out wasteland of nude swimming and barbecues. Tropical Strength is their name (you know, after the insect repellent?) and 'Wake In Fright' is the song's name (you know, like the gritty outback existential nightmare novel written by Kenneth Cook, or the film directed by a young Bruce Beresford?). It's all weird - and fucking amazing. I really need to see this band, stat.



London band Gentlemen aren't usually my kind of band. 'Late Nacht' is an OK song too, don't get me wrong. But it's this film clip that gets me listening to the song over and over. The screaming and feverish drumming? Then the slip into a hypercoloured set of landscapes? It's pretty genius in my opinion. Bashing skin as catharsis. True that.


Spider from Paz Lenchantin on Vimeo.

Now I'm probably being blasphemous here, but I knew very little about Los Angeles' The Entrance Band before I saw this clip for 'Spider' - and I still know very little. All I know is that this song is a pretty good slice spaced-out and decadent garage pop, and the film clip - all arthouse surrealist noir, arachnid nightmares, Bunuel masturbation - is even better. I'm keen to check out their new album Face The Sun, if that's any consolation.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

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.

Scratchin' Round - So Stressed, Nonagon, Violent Past

This guy tells me today that he did a management course last year. Is it wrong to think immediately worse of someone who admits to such a thing? Nope. He goes, 'Yeah, they told us that if employees are getting their backs up about things, you just form a committee and let them bluster. After that, it's too late for them to do anything." Seriously. Some chump stands up in front of a whole bunch of other chumps and straight-face tells them how to make chumps out of everyone else. I cringe whenever I hear people ask for feedback.



So Stressed have not been to management school. And from what I hear, if anyone tried to junk them into a committee, the noise would be so resounding that the bosses would have to up and leave the building. I'm beginning to think that this might be the only way to break through; to make the noise you want to make, for as loud and long as possible; to give them THIS as feedback when they ask for it.

I 'strongly agree' with all of Attracted to Open Mouths but if you're too busy collating data for your focus group presentation, you still need to make time to give 'Hairstyles' a go.

And damn, if I ever get up the guts to give it back to 'em, I'm gonna play Nonagon. Out on their own label, Controlled Burn, the name sums up the sound perfectly - this is organised stuff. Organised stuff capable of doing some real damage. Controlled, yeah, but in the back of your head you just know that while it's meant to be under wraps, next minute could very well be licking the building upside down, turning all that carbon they thought was theirs into atmosphere forever. That'll get 'em up the corporate ladder quicker.    

'The Last Hydronaut' is drilling, relentless and passionate in a way that a lot of music out our way - the lazily complacent, climate change denying, land down under the average line of intelligence - isn't. See, 'cos if you think about things for a bit, and you don't just want to roll over and take it, this is the kind of music you'd make, I reckon.

But wait, maybe I'm getting a bit carried away. Burning the place down isn't the only way to resist getting caught up in the tidal wave of ignorance threatening to wash us all into frothy oblivion - and plus, it'll just add to the whole (very fucking real) emissions problem. Maybe getting your mates together to spread the news rather than the gasoline is a better idea? There's no easy answers. But you do have to make people realise that they don't give a shit before they will.



Violent Past are infected by the malaise, but there's some self-awareness here on Demons, something that looks to the future and gets a little ready. 'Yeah, I'm wearing a white business shirt,' it says, 'but I'm hungover and I ain't cleaning that stain off today, and who knows what'll happen tomorrow? You really want me to join your working party?'

So whether you spit or march or yell or whatever, just don't let some chump pin you down - or at least make the clammy fucker have to put down his briefcase to do it.

Joey Fourr Beats Reality

It can be hard to keep up with English skewed punk leprechaun Joey Fourr (I don't know how big he is, I'm pretty much writing what pops into my head for this one). He has an EP out now called Luv Is In The Mornin, which is pretty awesome wonky pop (the title track is pretty awesome to be fair, an 80s weird pop wigout), but I've been digging the split he's done with London grunged out crawlers H.Grimace a couple months ago, Nothing Beats Reality on Bad Paintings (this wont be the last split release I talk about this week).  Its all pretty straight up indie rock fare, albeit a little heavier on the guitar crunch, but just as liberal with the garish sugar rush. The charm is that he doesn't really feel awkward about being so overtly cartoonish, and that's where the genius lies. You can't deny that - a guy that isn't earnest, but isn't taking the piss either. Lots of words shortened and spelt with z's will do that to you. It's frenetic, its reckless, it's fun. What the doctor ordered.

You can buy Nothing Beats Reality here.

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.

TONIGHT - Sonic Masala & Spunk Records Presents The Ocean Party Album Launch

We here at Sonic Masala have always been big fans of the somewhat innocent navel gazings of Melbourne suburbians The Ocean Party. Their second LP Social Clubs from last year was one of clarity, brevity, and early-middle-twentysomething malaise - not so rail against the world as it was rolling with the genial punches. The band members are best mates, great blokes, and have an even better record in the form of Split. They played in Brisbane recently for the Spunk Records showcase, but tonight is the official launch party for the album - and Sonic Masala is along for the ride. It's cracking off at the Beetle Bar tonight at 8pm - come early to see local upstarts Dag, Thigh Master and Blonde Tongues, as well as Sydneysider Nathan Roche (he of now defunct Camperdown & Out infamy), all for a tenner. See you there - I'll be the guy propping up the merch bar.



DAG - 15.07.2013 from Joshua Watson on Vimeo.

Eat Scott's Shorts

Man, sorry about the lame headline guys...it's too hot to think. Not too hot to listen to slacked out guitar pop though. Im Australian - it's a given nowadays...

Ah, yes, Shorts. The NYC band have a "distinctly" Australian sound, and there's a pretty good reason for that. Michael Caterer used to live in Melbourne, played in Full Ugly, and is in the New York edition of Craig Dermody's Scott & Charlene's Wedding. The two tracks on offer below are more full-bodied though - 'Berlin 1971' is more like 60s pastoral psych pop transplanted in Central Park with tattoos and the faux blues; 'Silver Circles' is just downright sexy, in an autumnal dappled sunlight kinda way. And look at that scrawl of the bare-breasted lady with cocks on her arms. Its a world of juxtaposition, that's for sure. they have releases in the wind - stay tuned, this'll be worth waiting for...

Painting Up Gizmos For Gulcher

Two records that I received belatedly over the past month have come from the stable of Gulcher Records (Kurt Vile, Home Blitz, Screamin Mee-Mees).

The first is a veritable veteran for label - 70s Indiana miscreants The Gizmos. The Gizmos Go To Purdue 1979 is pretty self-explanatory, and is the only way to really experience the garage punk pariahs - yet there are plenty of live recordings of this band, why am I so in love with this cut? Because it's recorded from a performance at a house party - the insanity is already buzzing through my subconscious - but is also one of the best sounding efforts due to it being a 4-track machine as opposed to being converted from a tape deck. They had just opened for the Ramones! Plus they open up with 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing' - who isn't going to get some festive cheer before downing their own weight in frothy beer? The entire performance is uncut, so we hear the PA fuck up, songs played out of tunes, new tracks aired that only a few gigs later were cut from the set list, never to be thought of again - these are the best parts of my favourite bootlegs - it's the full visceral experience short of actually being there. And sure, it would have slayed, but I missed it, so why bother? Because I wasn't even born yet, you donkey. So this is the best I can get - and it fuels parties of my own, so the cycle continues...

Then we have David Drucker. Don't know him? That's cool - he won't mind. He would rather you knew him as Painted Faces anyway. The guy has emulated the bedroom pastiche recording philosophies of the most peripheral of artists, molding it into his own style, and it makes for amusing, eclectic, infectious listening. Alone In My Head collects recordings across the last five years, and the influences Drucker lists speak for themselves - experimental composers and improvisers, second-rate pop stars, freaky outsiders, B horror movies and other films, art both "high" and "low," mind-altering substances, psychedelia, sound, boredom, isolation, junk food, conversations, environments, dreams, revolutions, time travel, low-level philosophy, memories, insanity, humour, science fiction, nature, surrealism, literature, observations, things, people in general, and smoking lots of pot. Above all else, though, Painted Faces is a wonky pop behemoth that will dig its hooks in relentlessly, even if you can't work out why.

You can buy these releases here and here.

Corralled Together On This Pale Earth

(Photo by Ian Rogers - taken @ Sonic Masala Presents Campfire Tales #3 - Sept 12 2013)

Celestial beat explorer Pale Earth is bringing Christmas early with a burbling miasma of sounds in the plastic 3D rectangle that is a cassette. Coral Corral is its name, and its three tracks that showcase how far out of the comfort zone he is  nowadays; in fact, the glass ceiling has been well and truly shattered. 'Skip Peg Marker' is a three minute excursion into the nether regions of a neon-streaked night, all inky shadows and silhouettes, simultaneously sensually inebriated and sated - these lethargic grooves hitting a submerged dancefloor near you. 'Coral Skulls' starts briefly like a night ride into the mainframe, before the trumpet takes us deep into the downward spiral of Mooged chagrin. The B-side track 'Bare Mountain Picnic' offers a prismatic high, sun motes floating through refracted light, yet imbued with a fluidity that hits like languid waves of weightlessness - floating on a hypnagogic Dead Sea.

I'm babbling, I know, but I'm truly floored by these tracks - I cant stop listening. Bypass that cassette prejudice and buy Coral Corral here - its incredible. The inserts are handprinted by 7th Disaster (AKA Matt Deasy of Do The Robot/Ultra Material - he does quite a few of Sonic Masala's gig posters), so it's all quality. Pale Earth is playing a night of chilled greatness this Saturday at The Waiting Room called Melody Beat, alongside Andrew Tuttle, Cedie Jansen, White Palms and Hether.

Stealing The Black Mekon

General all-round good guy Luke over at London/Stockholm label PNKSLM Records (Al Lover, Charles Howl) has another killer release on his hands, this time the new LP from Birmingham's doyens of debauched debonairness Black Mekon. The third PNKSLM release in existence, Stolen Bible 2 is a chugging sleazeball of garage blues. Drinking liberally from the poisoned chalice of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, snorting the chronic crassness of Supersuckers, biting the hand of the Misfits that feeds them, Stolen Bible 2 is riddled with that much debasement and wanton gleeful destruction that your ears will need to be immediately quarantined. That said, what's been heard cannot be unheard - you're caught in Black Mekon's clutches forevermore. Ah well - total corruption does look like a hell of a lot of fun...

You can buy Stolen Bible 2 now (here for the last two copies of the ltd edition marble vinyl, and here for the standrad (misspelling intended) black).




And try this out for size - a Halloween track with theremin! These guys are great.

Southpaw Women Look At The Mirror

This isn't so new now - most Australian websites mentioned this about a month ago - but Sydney band Mere Women (whose Old Life album of last year was an underrated gem) have a little release coming out soon on American label Southpaw Records (who've put out gear from the likes of Ty Segall, Warm Soda and Bare Wires - excellent garage rock, in other words). Not the kind of avenue I would expect to pick up the band at the best of times; furthermore, the track they are airing from it, 'Hands & Face', was NOT what I expected. That faint, sinuous synth for starters is something you expect to hear emanating out of a Not Not Fun cassette. This is all lysergic menace, with spectral guitar moaning in the background, Amy Wilson's vocals elegiac yet defiant. It's a cavernous slowburner - and I never expected to use either of those superlatives to describe Mere Women, but there you go. And you know what? I goddamn love it. What this means for the weird, cantankerous trio for the future remains to be seen, but if they can balance this kind of track with more virile fare, then 2014 should be a huge one.

VIDEO VACUUM - September Girls, DZ Deathrays, Surf Friends, Super Wild Horses

No mucking about today - I mean business (as you can tell from the buffaloes, who clearly mean business, and the stolen artwork that I don't give a shit about), so let's forget about everything and lose ourselves in these videos...



Dublin lovelies September Girls have a decidedly dark, dour, Gothic video in store for new single 'Heatbeats', with the bizarre colour coming from the flower tealights floating in the bathtub with one of them (?). It all feels a little Pandora's Box mixed with Psycho and a pinch of Eraserhead around the 1.10 mark, before they venture into the wilderness (A Field In England), and finishes with the gang at night standing in front of a car... I don't know what to think! Am I supposed to be happy? Put off? Perturbed? It's all good though. 'Heartbeats' comes from the forthcoming album they're unearthing on Fortuna Pop! Big things ahead, it seems...



Local party starters/heartstoppers DZ Deathrays have this glitchy little video to go with their decidedly glossier (and slower) newie 'Northern Lights'. The polygon scramble is pretty ace, as is the warped landscape screens. Its a fun little experiment at any case, and makes me want to get drunk at Alhambra to this - now THAT'S not something I say everyday...



Ever jumped into the water with all your clothes on? Surf Friends have. Here under the duress of incessant bullying and in the face of thankless work. I mentioned that idea of drowning under the wait of disappointment in the last post about Astro Children - here it is literally encapsulated for all to see. Surf Friends' new track 'The Sea' off upcoming Flying Nun-affiliated album Endorphins is pretty great, it has a bit of flange on the guitar, and because it's so hot today I would rather be deep in the sea rather than plying my wares on the shitty day job. Speaking of, it's almost knock off time, so I'm gonna hustle to this last song...



There isn't all that much to say about Melbourne duo Super Wild Horses' video for the latest single to come off sophomore LP Crosswords. 'Ono In A Space Bubble' is a killer chugging garage rager, all to the beat of Yoko's ridiculous bugout beats. Love the yelps too. A little creepy, a little silly, a whole lot of radness.

Normally I would yell at you to get back to work, but I'm done. It's beer time. See you on the beach.

In The Beginning, There Were Astro Children...

Ive been a little burnt out of late. The "real" world has me running in circles, writing relentlessly on pieces of paper, ticking generic statements in countless matrices, listening to ill-founded diatribes on Australian identity, preparing self-serving diatribes of my own, rinse and repeat. Staring down the barrel of potential unemployment from atop a veritable mountain of looming debt, manuscripts and report cards. Job hunting amongst the heaving masses of the have-nots, trying to prove my worth as being more worthy than you.

Dunedin duo Astro Children's Proteus is the kind of melodic yet atonal, young-kids-screaming, everything's-all-right-when-the-music-is-all-wrong album that I intravenously syphon into my inner core, knowing that happiness can come from the simplest things. There is a schoolyard petulance to these new tracks that not only eschews the band's previous sugar-twee stance on noisy guitar pop, but belies that there are positives to the world being a little hostile. Millie Lovelock's vocals sway from schoolgirl screeching ('Shoe') to floating babble a la Raincoats ('Gaze'), showing the duo's newly formed dexterity, but it's the mid level groovers like 'Jamie Knows' or 'Big Muff (Strikes Again)' that Astro Children beeline to the core of what is enjoyable about deliberately off-kilter, slightly lo-fi, muted, horizontal-slacker pop. I thought I was going to drown today, but Proteus proves that sometimes to get to the end, you need to start at the beginning. Nice work, kids.

You can buy Proteus through Muzai Records now - pick it up here.

Casting Spells Over The River Of Souls

Spirited alchemists Magic Trick are conjuring up another album in the form of River of Souls, due out in December on Empty Cellar Records. Tim Cohen and his cronies appear to be falling further down the rabbit hole of pastoral psych folk pop (insert genre here...), yet Cohen's vocals are stridently front and centre, the laconic instrumentation is meticulously placed - there is a effortless confidence here. Below are the first two tracks given from the album. It's a nice way to see out the weekend. Pre-order River of Souls here.

David Vangel

Night time smooth grooves from David Vangel. Bnapth is incredible - four songs of intricacies and delicacies cascading down relentlessly, like a shattered chandelier in the middle of an opulent ballroom flickering in the light of a thousand tealights, masked revellers flittering in and out of the flickering shadows that climb the gold-gilded walls. The fusion of genres is effortless, seamless, limitless. Seductive, anthemic, insidious, lurid, languid - it's all these things and more. Vangel has crafted a world of groove in fifteen minutes flat. How knows what he'll achieve in later releases...