Everybody's Droning On The Weekend #4

It's bright and sunny in Brisbane today, but I don't feel like venturing out into the "real world" today - lets draw the blinds, batten the hatches, and let the drone wash over us... well, there is a bit of "variety" of drone today (IE there are some releases that show elements of drone in what is otherwise music that is aiming for other sonic climes), and I've doubled the size of this piece to twelve artists. I'm also ordering in food and drink - let the games begin.

I have been a massive fan of (now ex) Eternal Tapestry guitarist Dewey Mahood's solo excursions as Plankton Wat for a long time now, yet it's taken me a long time to getting around to talking about his latest album on Thrill Jockey, Drifter's Temple. Whilst more pastoral and languid than the likes of Expo 70, Plankton Wat shares the same exhilaration from pushing the boundaries of guitar as hymnal, as storyteller, as the forger of new worlds, and Drifter's Temple is a perfect example of Mahood's influences manifesting into a wholly different creative drive. The fact that Mahood changed his approach for this album from cutting-and-pasting compositions together from live to tape improvisations to incessant live performance jams and rehearsals has meant that there is a honed sense of purpose here, and whilst that isn't always a good thing (the looseness that made some of his earlier releases so exciting is sadly absent here) it instead allows Mahood to provide a childhood narrative in the mix, which further emphasises his love of Appalachian folk, cosmic psych, and astral phased malaise. Mahood is such a great guitarist, he inhabits styles and makes them his own, and every Plankton Wat release is a delight. Get this great album here.

Portland's Boyscout Discovery has a new LP on its way (called LP), and its another cheeky look at melding quirky samples, ambient field recordings and simple yet evocative melodies to gel it all together in a warm, glowing whole. There is retro-futurism in tracks like the excellent 'Coyotes In The Bronx', yet even it is a ruse as 8-bit blips cascade down the sonic walls in the background; the groove-laden 'Fuxong' also plays with form. Only a handful of tracks break a three-minute sweat, but the conciseness adds to the allure. You'll find yourself listening over and over just to get a handle on all the samples, yet LP is a mesmerising listen as a whole.

Brisbane artist Eugene Carchesio's 32 Days is a finely delineated microcosm of minimalist fury and menace, a dystopian netherworld of emptiness, of fatigue, of space. The 32 tracks, each number from 'Day 1' up until the thirty-second day, coalesce into some sort of cryptic radio signal from another race, its hypnotic mantras haunting yet only perpetuating the sense of isolation that this piece emotes onto the listener. It's quite foreboding, incredibly clinical, and not for everyone - but give it a shot, because it really is something that has a mind of its own. 32 Days is out through Room 40 in digital form - get it here.

I haven't spoken much about the Sonorous Circle collective for a while, yet at least one of the crew has put out a fine release recently. Eyeholes' First Airplane EP is a cut-and-paste mashup of hip-hop instrumentation, hiccupping deluges of orchestral and piano plinks scattered amongst drifting samples and spectral effects to deliver an effect like a barely-tuned-in radio station from the 50s, manned by an LSD addict with a predilection for subversive pop and with the first appearances of dementia. Its a wild ride to be sure, albeit one that lurches more than stutters along - a weirdly beautiful beast.

London dude Gyratory System have released their third album in the form of Utility Music, and its one electronic bliss bomb of a ride. At times like a lysergic Holy Fuck, at others like a motorik hallucinogen, Utility Music is a perfectly calibrated album, filled with myriad warm tones and multilayered beats, culminating in a glistening, evocative, yet inviting listen. There are moments where others enter his world (Katherine Blake on violins and vocals on tracks like 'AAA' or 'Lackland') and rather than feel like an intrusion, it's a welcome melding of minds. And listen to the saxophone on 'Thorney Island' - is that live instrumentation or digital? It doesn't matter - analog and digital are one and the same in this world - all that matters is that you dive in and dream away. Excellent stuff - you can (and really should) get Utility Music (through Soft Bodies) from here.

Woollongong-based Catman is in the Mark McGuire/Black Eagle Child vein of artist, delivering spectral guitar-driven meditations, sparse and austere. The Singapore Demos offers eighteen tracks of delights in this mould, each track garnering the name of a location that means something to him, especially wrapped around his sojourn throughout the titular country last year. The results are sublime - I want to live in Catman's sense of existential flux forever. He has signed onto Why Don't You Believe Me? (who are also featuring a single a month all year long from Snowy Nasdaq - read about that here). Grab it here.

I've been meaning to write about this record for MONTHS - my bad. Shores brought out Open-Ended back in August, so I've had this on my horizon for about six months - but it's a great little psych swirler of an album. The sheer abundance of instruments at the SF band's disposal alone is mind melting - drums, saw, acoustic bow, gong, lots and LOTS of percussion... And yes, that is truly a didgeridoo you here there on tracks like 'Excursions' (my favourite song on the album)! I don't know if there are physical versions of Open-Ended out there, but this album has many of the hallmarks of a fantastic psych rock record. The more people listening to these guys, the better/

Taketi Uloomu has up until last year been a duo, yet on upcoming LP The Fifth Season Kyo is going it alone. The shimmering soundscapes that make up The Fifth Season certainly show that there is no divergences from the band MO, the apparent lack of guitar the only true arbiter of a change in tack. The way these tracks ebb and flow, floating on ethereal synth lines that are nebulous, makes it nigh on impossible to walk away from Taketi Uloomu without being under her spell - if you can leave her sonorous world at all. Trestle Records will be releasing The Fifth Estate in February - you can pick it up here.

Another Room40 alum, Chris Herbert brought out Wintex-Cimex 83, a mini album containing four suites of sound that are offcuts from the same recordings that will constitute his next album, Constants. The four tracks meander, taking in various tonal shifts and sounds, attempting to find the commonality in these environments. Herbert has intimated that there was such a glut of material that he has amassed from his sonic experiments over the past seven years that it took the discerning ear of Lawrence English to help collate it into some sort of form. Wintex-Cimex 83 then is a moodscape of collated experiences, unintentionally creating a half-hour of melancholia through white noise, tonal discrepancies, static stasis and strange discoveries. Grab it here as a free download. A much better review of this from an avowed Herbert disciple is here - makes for good reading.

Live At The Surplus Of Options is the live-recorded improvisation/collaboration between Chicago composer Jim Baker and sonic explorer Sarah J Ritch. As individuals they have surfed to the outer edges of improv jazz, noise and metal (Ritch, as well as an amazing cellist, has performed in punk and metal bands over the past fifteen years); together this is something special. Ritch plays guitar and cello; Baker wrestles with the electronics. All and all this is an enthralling listen, more abrasive than I expected, which I love, but its the simmering energy between the two that in turn energises the listener. I strongly suggest you listen to this post haste.

Vancouver's Amir Abbey performs under the pseudonym Secret Pyramid, and has released an album through Students Of Decay called Movements Of Night. Its a darkly sonorous affair, the white mist rolling over a rich night landscape, disappearing into the earth, cocooned by a weightless sleep, apocryphal dreams - above all its a tragic yet infinitely beautiful, awe-inspiring ride into the unconscious. I could write a lot more here, but all I can say is buy Movements of Light here and drift away. Secret Pyramid is currently looking for help to do a European tour in the summer - head to his Facebook page if you'd like to help out.

We'll finish today with Studio Noir, the solo meanderings of Eddie Palmer (The Fucked Up Beat), creating a collage of Golden Age cinematic scores into a looped menagerie of swirled aural logic, condensing the periods of the 20s to the 40s into a sultry mantra. Sunset Boulevard is sixteen tracks named after actresses of the era who died suddenly, mysteriously and tragically, and each track holds within it an eerie elegance, like wandering through an empty house that has seen history, celebrity, success, avarice and tragedy over the decades, yet all that is left is the vapour, the lingering feeling that such decadence will never be experienced again. It's quite gorgeous all told, the glossy images from the classic films of the era flicking though your mind, even as the muted tones of the tracks belie more sombre experiences. Palmer has hinted that this will not be a one-off, so delve into Sunset Boulevard now before the next wave of film score beguilement begins.

Friday Cover Up - Peru's Passengers Serve Up More Than This

I've just arrived back in Brisbane, and after watching the first seasons of the Wrong Mans and Bates Motel, as well as a Cantonese action film (Drug War), Insidious 2, Wreck It Ralph and Elysium, and listening to The Velvet Underground and reading In Cold Blood, I'm still awake, and need to be in order to ensure jetlag doesn't come to bite me in the arse. So before I head out to throw myself into the closest body of cold water, I thought Id throw some light on this cover of Roxy Music's iconic '82 hit, 'More Than This'. I have bought a Roxy Music record this trip just gone, so to hear Passenger Peru put this lysergic, guitar/synth drawl mix on the classic pop ballad is ballsy, and pays off massively. I can't wait to hear more from these guys, that's for sure - which wont take long, because the debut self-titled album is out January 28 on Fleeting Youth Records.

Twelve Months Of Snowy Nasdaq Starts - Let's Get Physical

Apparently 2014 is the Year of the Nasdaq - Snowy Nasdaq AKA Liam Halliwell (The Ocean Party/Zone Out/Mining Boom/Pencil/etcetfuckingera) is releasing a single a month over at Why Don't You Believe Me? Records. January's kick-off is 'Physical Parts', a pop confection littered with disco simplicities, sampled quirks and sonic sleights of hand, culminating in a cute pop jam that nonetheless takes you down dark, hallucinogenic side alleys in the process. This promises to be a very interesting journey indeed...

Messed Up Liars

It seems like Sonic Masala was invented for Liars releases. Sisterworld came out the year I started this, and that album blew my mind; their single 'No 1 Against The Rush' (from WIXIW) is one of my favourite stand alone songs ever; I got to have a long and engaging chat with Angus Andrew at the beginning of last year... The trio are masters of subversion and confrontational art whilst never taking themselves seriously (although I know that seems hard to believe at times...but check out their "viral" imagery for this new album on their Facebook page) New album Mess is on the way, and here is a new track from it, a sort-of title track. Mess appears to be more electronic than WIXIW too, so that might piss some people off, but I like the insidious nature of their music, the dark terrains they create, and am willing to follow these sonic explorers to the brink of the abyss and beyond - are you?

You can pre-order Mess here.

CD Expulsion - Flotsam And Jetsam of 2013

So here are a bunch of physicals in CD form that I have collated over the past few months that I thought I would yammer on about in the one post. 2013 is over - the Purge is nigh... Ill try to stretch it all into a superfluous narrative for you though...

I saw Chicago's motorik finest Cave in Brisbane the night I flew out to England. Literally - I got to Brisbane from Maryborough at 3pm, went home and packed, went out with my big-arse suitcase to the pub to have a "meeting" about the Sonic Masala label, watched Cave, spoke briefly to Cooper Crain from the band, then stepped out, hailed a cab and went to the airport, in the air for 2am. Maybe it was the nervous energy, maybe they are just that good - but Cave were transcendental in their trance-like rhythmic mantras, their jams tightly coiled, barely suppressed double helix's of Kraut instrumentation and manipulations. All on the back of their new record Threace, which is pretty damn amazing. I wanted to give it a bigger write-up, but I only received it a week before I flew out, which was madness, then, well, anyway, have a listen. It's out through Drag City and you can buy it from here.

I received Gilded Pleasures, the new EP from Californian psyched out weirdos The Growlers, at the same time as Cave's Threace, and it suffered a similar fate. It did soundtrack a spate of marking 3rd year creative writing students' final projects, which was suitably delirious. Its pretty long - 9 songs at just under half an hour - Weezer would call that an LP - and can be hit and miss, as is the wont of the extended play format. But when songs like 'Dogheart II' or the great delivery of 'Hiding Under Cover' floats through the speakers, all unabashedly sleazy and breezy, The Growlers really nail it. This would have made my top EPs of 2013 in retrospect. Hot news - The Growlers will be in Australia in March, playing Black Bear Lodge in Brisbane on March 5. See you there.

Mucky Sailor is a band from Leeds. They are a two piece obsessed with flamboyant silliness and fancy dress. They offer a suitably unhinged live show. They feature one of the drummers from Nope. Said drummer is a close friend of my brother-in-law. My sister gave me their album Early Lad back in July. I have wanted to interview the band for a while, but my slackness has won out there. I could have seen them play in December as they played the Shacklewell Arms which is literally down the road from where I was staying - but I drank at home and watched six episodes of Bob's Burgers instead. Get Early Lad here, and get to one of their shows (AKA don't be me). Fin.

(taken by Glen Schanau)

I missed new Melbourne "supergroup"Heads Of Charm play Brisbane in December by a matter of days. The trio (David Gagliardi - Laura; Sam Reid - Bone; Sam Whiting - Nikko) played a number of shows and by all reports fucking slayed. Totally bummed - I would have been at these shows (especially seeing as the Saturday gig was with both bands on Sonic Masala Records...) Typically irascible yet tongue-in-check balltearers from these guys. Come back soon, yeah?

Melbourne dreamers Beloved Elk released the EP Peace Offering onto the world in December, and its a regal gem. I managed to sneak a listen to this the day I left Australian shores, on a train from Maryborough to Brisbane. The train was waylaid because a truck drove into a bridge. A lot of people were pissed off. At first I was too, but then I put this on and all anxiety and anguish and frustration with the idiocy of the general populace bled away. Beautiful stuff.

Brisbane chamber experimentalists Nonsemble released Practical Mechanics in physical form through Lofly Records. A beguiling amalgam of Conservatory punctuality and pragmatism with underground playfulness and subversive zeal, the tracks here are at times hard to digest, with deliberate shifts in medium and rhythm coming on rather strong. But the point is that Nonsemble are attempting to traverse new frontiers, and when they successfully create their own soundscape (which happens frequently) it's a majestic experience.

The final official Sonic Masala show of the year featured Auckland's nihilists Girls Pissing On Girls Pissing and Melbourne's inimitable Orlando Furious. We also featured the welcome return of Adam Cadell (The Scrapes, Nikko). Playing alongside accomplished drummer Tony Irving, Adam put on a great improv set that set the tone for the rest of the evening. Irving himself is no stranger to great live sounds though, and one of the bands he has worked with is The Impossible. The free jazz/noise trio recorded a couple of songs as part of an Audiopollen show, the results of which are below. Excellent stuff.

Back to the Cave show, and one of the supports was Ghost Notes (currently on a brief hiatus - expect them back midway through the year). Before becoming the excellent Ghost Notes some of the members were in a band called Buildings Melt. I only got my hands on their only album We're All Going To Be Dirt In The Ground that night - and its a fantastic instrumental release. The live nature of the recordings showcases some of the earliest works for Cam Smith of Incremental Studios, and it works well to create a warm, all-inclusive suite of sounds. I think Ill be returning to this quite a bit over the next few weeks as I try to crack on with my writing...

Sydney based, artist run label Feral Media continue to put out quality releases, including some seasonal EP compilations. I'm including Spring because I was sent a physical copy that I only got around to playing recently, and it features this killer track from Nimble Animal.

Finally, I was walking along the Thames back in July and this guy was busking, playing pretty rad songs from the banks, all through a little amp. It was stripped and laconic, and at first I thought it was Brisbane's debonair troubadour misanthrope James X Boyd (it wasn't, but its a thought mate...), but turns out it was Flame Proof Moth. I threw down some change and he got off his deckchair and gave me a CD. This is that CD. It's one of my favourite memories of that trip - and another reminder of how amazing music can be when wielded by people with creativity, energy and cheek (plus he's supported Jeffrey Lewis and Kevin Eldon - pretty bloody excellent I reckon).

Lawman Plays Dead - Singles From Girl Band & Savaging Spires

A quick post about two UK bands playing the traps. Irish noisekids Girl Band have just released this Lawman 7" (in a cloth sleeve, it's pretty sweet, I bought one on Saturday) and the titular track fits into that mould of off-kilter, insincere, nerdy/bratty banter jammed into the core of a lot of squall and bluster. It's fun, and rocks.

Then there's the ethereal wanderings of Savaging Spires, whose We Should Be Dead Together record is on the cusp of coming to fruition. This track is lovely. They played the Old Blue Last last week - unfortunately I missed it. AND Ill miss Girl Band's foray there next week as Ill be back in Oz. Ah well, I'm sure you can get along for me, right?

Bad Vision Is 20/20

Excellent Melbourne label Every Night Is A Saturday Night have corralled a damn fine roster over the past year and a bit (Batpiss, The Spinning Rooms) and they can now cram Bad Vision into the fold. The band released their self-titled debut 12" back in November (I know, where was I, right?) and with Mikey Young behind the controls, you know it sounds sick. Bad Vision is pretty straight up with its intentions - fast and loose figuratively, fast and tight musically, thrashing through the types of garage punk that proliferated the back streets of the Seventies. References are rife, but it's best to focus more on the whole album, one bristling with desperate, bratty energy, feverish sweat flying off the fret, relentless rhythms marching you into the sea of writhing bodies that makes up the front of the stage. Because Bad Vision, whilst not a "live album", is permeated with a sense that this is the tip of the iceberg when you see them in the flesh. Not so much a calling card though as it is a reminder that straight up punch in the face rock and roll is more than enough justification to live another day.

Buy Bad Vision (in pink vinyl) from here.

Eat A Gravel Samwidge Comes With Medicinal Requirements

What to say about Gravel Samwidge's new album Medicinal Requirements that doesn't require battery acid and a bilge pump? This shit is thick, diseased, and the best thing they have possibly ever done. They have been active of late, releasing smaller bits and pieces that seemed to exemplify the Gravel Samwidge of today - oh how wrong we were. This is all laid on the table from the first track 'Nervepowder', a song that has been doing the rounds for a while but is irrevocably turned into a behemoth here. Mark Spinks is in eye-rolled-in-back-of-the-head raging brilliance, and the guitars grind together (Spinks joined here by Kitchens Floor's Matt Kennedy) like a medieval torture implement, begging for dismemberment.


The buzzsaw attack continues into 'Rock God', where Spinks' vocal delivery delves back into his more recognisable deadpan rant, but the instrumentation here is what marks these tracks a cut above what has come before - Ashley Jenkins' bass cuts a swathe through the angular anger, a wrecking ball of monotone monstrosity. Alex Morrison lopes along, a pummelling metronome. 'Get Your Shit Together' and 'Carpool' march all over you with their Gestapo shitheel boots, and you love it, bloodied maw and all. 'Contact' is a tone-deaf precursor to closer 'Pronouncement', a warped swirling mess buoying forth Gerald Keaney's cracked poetics, before the speakers are blasted beyond all repair.

Such a virile and bilious shot in the arm - Medicinal Requirements is out now through Swashbuckling Hobo Records (you can grab it here). To add to the rough and tumble, Gravel Samwidge are supporting rock gods Mudhoney and obvious touchstones Feedtime in Brisbane at The Zoo Saturday 18th January! And here is a pic of the album in the new bin in the world's best radio station, WMFU! Thanks Ron!

Stephen Malkmus Still Wigging Out With His Jicks

I'm not the best person to be writing about Stephen Malkmus. I love just about everything he has committed to tape - even deemed weaker titles, such as his self-titled 2001 album, still has many killer hooks and turns of phrase. And it must be said that latest album with his Jicks, Wig Out At Jagbags, is a tighter affair, more loose in relaxed delivery than musicianship, with spaced jams kept to a minimum (which I always find a shame). But I at first found this album a little too quiet, self-assured in its faux-modesty. Of course, I'd been listening to Blank Realm all week, so the juxtaposition there is always going to be jarring. So today I have kept an open mind, thrown Jagbags on - and guess what? Yep, I'm a fan.

It's nothing overtly new - it's just another Malkmus gem. Im finding more and more that he is something of a Turkish delight amongst music lovers - a sweetly acquired taste. But when you can be so steadfast in your own unique vision, becoming a musical auteur with your skewed euphemisms and wayward approaches to life (I've been tripping my face off since breakfast/Taking in this windswept afternoon as on 'Cinnamon & Lesbians' or referencing ELO in the crooner 'J Smoov'). Malkmus is an icon - one of the greats - and Wig Outs At Jagbags only helps to affirm this. Just listen to the man play guitar, drawl weary rejoinders and witty rambles, and enjoy.

Wig Out At Jagbags is out through Matador and Spunk Records - get it here or here.

Never Grassed In(n) In A Blank Realm

I don't think there are many bands who have had such a bell curve evolution that I personally know than Brisbane's Blank Realm. The Spencer siblings (and Luke Walsh a sibling by proxy) started out making dirty, decidedly weird motorik psych, relying on mantras, improvisational hiccups and repetition all whilst hiding behind the cacophonous noise that bled forth. They were great, released some solid small releases, and cemented this with the dingy album Deja What. But as their confidence grew, Blank Realm's parameters shifted. They got tighter, more charismatic, and to an extent more flamboyant. Dan Spencer's ventures out from behind the kit resembled the barely contained energy the likes of Future Islands' Sam T Herring harnesses; Luke Spencer began to really lock down the spine of their sets; Sarah Spencer's headshaking shimmies and keyboard flourishes became an integral element to the song's construction, not just the presentation; and Walsh's guitar lines shirked masking distortions to find sinuous portals to other, incandescent worlds. In other words - Blank Realm discovered pop.



Go Easy easily exemplified this shift in dynamic - from the New Romantic/neon decadence of the cover art, to the tighter melodies and song construction. It wasn't a blast into the mainstream by any stretch of the imagination - there were enough jagged edges in songs like 'Growing Inside' and 'Acting Strange' to be cerebral and abrasive; 'Pendulum Swing' pinned down the histrionics evident from those early psych days. But the elongated amble of 'Cleaning Up My Mess' is an unmitigated delight, whilst the closing title track was by far the best thing they had ever written, a song wrapped up in tired apprehension, a wasted drift down a sun-drenched highway in a car without air-con.



So it goes to show that new album Grassed Inn continues to follow in this stead - in many ways a far poppier proposition from its forebears, but also promising more left-turns, sidesteps and leaps of fantasy. It's great to finally have 'Falling Down The Stairs' on record, an insistent gem that is a crooked sideways glance into the rearview mirror, a heady pop hiccup that promises a dancefloor stagger, eyes glazed, lost in the trance of the insistent rhythms. 'Bell Tower' is a languid creeper, the notes slightly askew as to denote unease, Dan Spencer's vocals ramping the tension. 'Bulldozer Love' holds the jangle, Walsh's guitar holding down the rhythm, Sarah's synth lines bubbling underneath before cascading and washing away halfway through this sinuous long play, before the heightened release that becomes a busy squall by song's end. It's these all-encompassing sepulchral moments that exemplify Grassed Inn as such a wonderfully elliptical release - within the majesty and fluorescence lies kernels of darkness, of abject truths, of nighttime confessions, of fear. The B-side shows more restraint - 'Violet Delivery' is a buoyant travail into the backwaters of 80s lipstick chic synth-lite musak; the orca warble that injects 'Baby Close The Door' wans to become a subterranean shanty electrified by retrovision and languid verses, a Bauhaus warehouse populated by Eric Burdon and JJ Burnel's strangled backing band; closer 'Reach You On The Phone' is possibly the closest musically to combining Joy Division and New Order into an organic entity, with Dan's best use of vocals juxtaposing amusing ripostes with maudlin reveries, all delivered with that off-kilter, crooked pitch.

Grassed Inn (out through Bedroom Suck and Fire Records) - frontrunner for album of the year. Pre-order it here and here.

Wild Honey Weather

I've had a strange Euro holiday, to the point where I regard this moment - writing a Sonic Masala blog in an internet cafe in central London - as a pretty good time out. That's probably because of the music I have in my ears though. Austrian quartet Hella Comet have been around for a few years, but I have only listened to Wild Honey, their latest album out through Noise Appeal Records, and it's pretty killer. It's like The Joy Formidable if they had some balls underneath their bombastic maelstroms - nine tracks of explosive pop crumpled and delayed, hidden within the prism of white noise - a Russian doll of sonics to find the melody within. Some tracks, like 'Nektar' or 'Scatter The Ashes' (although the latter song also has a wash of sound that breaks over the chorus akin to a Mogwai melody), are more straight up Euro indie histrionics with easily identifiable melodies, but much of Wild Honey feels raw and elliptic - the husky rasp that bassist Lea Honnek lends to the vocals feels indie-ready, but the coalescing waves of distortion, cymbal flare and noise drives her forward, a sinister edge suddenly and irrevocably all-pervading. The bareness of some of these tracks are deceptive too - like Young Widows, Hella Comet can find unease in repetition.  The perfect balance of sweet and sour, Wild Honey is a salve for the gloom of these winter days of apocalypse. Buy it here.

Hits From The Box #77 - Clearing Out The Cobwebs

Here is the first Hits From The Box for 2014. This week is all about clearing out the cobwebs of the year that was 2013 and some things I missed, for better or worse, so no preamble, let's just do this!

The Dictaphone is a weird one to start with. The French band revel in their indecipherables - what genre they adhere to, what clique they fit in with, what it is they are trying to achieve. It's rock and roll, just not as you know it - The Dictaphone bounces off more walls than a Gummi Bear playing The Last Action Hero pinball machine (sorry, but both of those bizarre topics have been hotly discussed by me in the last 24hours, hence they timely addition here...), wrestling myriad noises into a punk-oriented mincer. The result - stuttering, urgent, claustrophobic rants of varying levels of heaving hilarity and debauched depravity, delivered with a desperate energy that feels tapped from the dawn of the no-wave era, when post-punk nihilism was first rent asunder. Thus I love it. The Dictaphone is out now through Totally Wired Records, is totally wired, and totally worth your time.

Waxeater grabbed my attention for one reason. Before Breaking Bad slayed my subconscious and after Deadwood opened up the possibilities of televisual storytelling to me, The Wire came to be. And goddamn if it isn't the greatest sandbox drama ever created. Not that these power grunge punk knuckle draggers really fit into the milieu of the Baltimore set opus - but their Baltimore Album is a concept punk deluge concerning all things McNulty and Barksdale, equal parts a homage, a pastiche, a pisstake, and a bludgeoning. You come at the king, you best not miss.

Let's hit Adelaide now for some growling walls of noise, half-chanted vocals and youthful enthusiasm on the brink of existential angst. Horror My Friend feel like an amalgam of Violent Soho and DZ Deathrays after listening incessantly to mid-career Die! Die! Die! - having supported the first two, I'm cribbing references a bit there, but not far off the mark I think. There are a lot of bands from the bowels of Australia stepping away from the grime and bile of middle-class dolewave ennui or experimental experiental noise/pop/whatever and are flirting with 90s flannel angst in earnest. I personally love the possibilities here. An EP is on the horizon.

Winging it back to DC, we have Anchor 3. Some languid movements here, an indie slow grind that feels like Archers of Loaf on (C)odeine in Pedro The Lion's basement (references are contagious!). Nervous is a burner by increments; a miasma of moods that feels dated by two decades, yet seeing as such fare feels sorely remiss in this day and age it's nice to be regaled in such a manner once more. They are currently on tour Stateside, and play in Philly tomorrow night with SM faves Krill and Palehound.

To the continental continent of Europe now. Something not so 'continental' though is the Italian three piece Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger! - it's pretty much in the name. I'll admit that I was worried when I heard the name - I immediately thought annoying math rock noodling (that genre has aged terribly, hasn't it? Although Foals could do well to traverse back down that aisle once more - but most other Brit bands in this ilk? Don't...just, don't...). Their new LP Forever Young (out through To Lose La Track) is a lot of fun, kinda reminding me of 2010 when I cottoned on to Male Bonding for the first time (what the hell happened to those guys??) - from opener 'Broken' onwards, this is a rollicking guitar pop album with enough grit in the gears to keep things decidedly on the rock side of the equation. The kids'll love it; the oldies will reminisce about being so carefree (without wearing straight-peaked baseball caps). Win-win. You really should get this - and you can, right here.

And to keep the international vibe going, let's finish in Brazil with Filipe Alvim, a young dude who found himself unemployed and not much else to do but to create starbursts of sunny guitar pop that masked the uncertainty of his future - and Zero is the result, an EP that revels in intricacy masked by simplicity, eloquence wrapped up in loquaciousness, and fears of malaise within a Trojan horse of beach-battered laconics. That was all one sentence, so Ill stop there. It's great though, it's out on Pug Records, and you can pick one up here.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Cooking Up Some Belated Xmas Cheer With Lehmann

I know, I know, Christmas is over for another year. So I've missed the boat on Christmas-themed tunes, right?

Geddouddahere.

Melbourne rascal Lehmann B Smith wrote a great little pop song about Christmas, albeit dapper and downbeat, and the funds raised go to charity - to the fund for Typhoon Haiyan. 'Xmas Has Already Come' is a classy number, one that like most of Smith's oeuvre surreptitiously burrows beneath the skin, regardless of the festive season, and gives me a rash and a grin. And with lyrics like 'Your cooking oil's made a rainbow in my heart', there is no denying the ridiculous charm that is simmering on the stereo. Spare some change - we can give 365 days a year, you know...

Video Vacuum - Mesa Cosa, Bitches, Popstrangers, Nine Black Alps, Cull

Did you know it is Christmas... Or was. You probably noticed, seeing as it was jammed down your throat every five minutes. It's gone for another year, so relax. Or don't - because Valentine's Day and Easter paraphernalia are already in the shops! Fuck you, The Man. I'm gonna watch some videos instead...



Mesa Cosa are a bunch of loud, destructive idjits who love to rock. They don't want to go to Sydney either, enough to write a song about it. It's such a fun song though it sounds like they actually DO want to go to Sydney. Or maybe want to party hard so that they they don't have to go. But then 80 seconds in they ARE in Sydney...stop confusing me dudes!



London's Bitches have 'No Brain'. Read that sentence carefully - there are capitals and specific kinds of punctuation there for a reason. The duo are silly too, running around screwing with hipsters in garish ritualistic masks - but then they get their comeuppance by being chased down and killed - by themselves! Whoa. It's all typically serrated punk of the decidedly sloppy kind, fuzzy and loose as fuck, and all words are in their right place - a no brainer bitches.



Popstrangers burst forth with their excellent debut LP Antipodes earlier in 2013, and closed out the year with an EP with new single 'Rats In The Palm Trees', a little slower, glowier, and a fitting postscript to a highly successful twelve months for the trio. The film clip is simple yet intriguing. I want to never drink Red Stripe from a can again though (especially at venues like Scala where its almost five quid), and yet this video (filmed in London) makes it more than OK.



A surprise in the inbox this week comes from Sydney dreamers Cull. Their montage of vehicular-viewed landscapes intercut with other wind and snow swept footage fits the drifting cacophony beautifully - set your ears to swoon. I missed their album Ba Noi last year, Ill have to rectify that pronto.



Let's finish with some Brit grunge wails, huh? Well, it suits the fucking miserable weather they (and I) have over there at the moment. Nine Black Alps have always wavered in and out of favour with me, but the Manchester marauders have hooked me on the chorus of their single 'Novokaine' (REALLY could have done without the K though). The clip is straightforward band playing in a room stuff, but it's all about the bombast and bluster and gnashing of aural teeth. OK, lads - Ill crush my molars into dust too.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Mogwai Goes Mumblecore - It's All Subdued In The Rave Tapes

This is a tough thing for me to say. Sonic Masala is a blog built on the love of music, something that has been fostered within me as a child, and with each earth-shattering discovery it continues to build. One of the major progenitors of my particular predilections for music is my utter devotion to all that is Mogwai. The Glaswegians have been responsible for some of the most jawdropping, life-altering musical exchanges of my life - from inadvertently buying the My Father My King EP in a record store sale, to seeing that very song played at the sadly-defunct Livid festival, to feeling my heart skip beats when first experiencing 'Like Herod' in the flesh, to listening to Happy Songs For Happy People on an abandoned highway at 4am in 2006, to seeing them play in the middle of an industrial wasteland in Luxembourg in 2008, to watching them play at the Botanical Gardens in Brisbane in 2011 at twilight as a flock of bats flew overhead - the list goes on and on.


Last year saw two exciting Mogwai releases - the sublimely sombre yet sinister score to French zombie series Les Revenents (The Returned) - an album I forgot about until fellow founder of Sonic Masala Paul got the vinyl for me for Christmas - and 'Remurdered', the first taste of the band's seventh LP, Rave Tapes. The album itself is coming out next week. I've had it for about three weeks now, and...well...

I just don't know.

The bits where the band go away from the template the most - the sinuous electronics of 'Remurdered', the morbid orchestral organ of 'Deesh' - feel energised; yet the tracks that whisper to the thundering band of yore ('Hexon Bogon'), the Pajo spoken word histrionics ('Repelish', 'Blues Hour') or even the ethereal electronics of Barry Burns feels exactly that - a whisper, a shadow cast from the past. Tracks like 'Master Card', whilst sound raucous, feels deliberately tempered, deliberately calibrated - just deliberate. The combustible rage, energy and emotion that makes Mogwai one of the strongest, most destructive bands on the planet is that sense of palpability - that everything was being played, chanced, railed against, embraced. I actually enjoy Rave Tapes - but it isn't enough to enjoy it. Mogwai releases for me have always been about abject feeling and emotion, a powerful gut punch or soul wrench. Rave Tapes is more...comfortable. And for me, I don't find that comfortable at all. Anyway, here it is in its entirety - what do you think?

You can pre-order Rave Tapes here, and is out next week in Australia through Spunk Records. I will still buy it - will probably buy the deluxe box set too, it looks incredible. Expect tours soon too - they play two sold out show at Royal Festival Hall in London in a fortnight. I will always kill to get to their shows - their 06 show at The Zoo in Brisbane is still to this day the best show I've ever witnessed. And I'm sure this will be the album I listen to the most over the next month/s as I'm studying, reading, cooking, smoking - but is that good enough? We shall see.

Cordon Off That Pedestal Fan - Tape/Off Cool Off With Launch & East Coast Tour

OK then, let's get 2014 off and racing with a new single! 'Pedestal Fan' is the first taste of Brisbane rough-and-ready slackjawed literates Tape/Off's upcoming debut LP (about bloody time!). It's been a couple years since their great EP ...And Sometimes Gladness, a release I discovered on the Internet whilst living in Brisbane back in 2010 before realising they were from my hometown. 'Pedestal Fan' is a breakneck blast (complete with scatterbrained, skittish trumpet from a certain Pale Earth) that reminds everyone that there is more to these miscreants than Pavement Post-it reminders, lackadaisical rejoinders and perforated snare skins. Although there is all of that in this track too, really. It's raucous, flying off the handle, barely staying on the tracks - kinetic energy, amphetamine rush, slight acid tinged interlude, then clatter off into the dusk. Sensational stuff. I've heard the album, and it's an absolute cracker too.


Tape/Off launch the single with an East Coast tour starting this Thursday. See the details below. Sonic Masala is presenting their hometown fandango at Trainspotters on Saturday Feb 1, with support from LA/China duo Alpine Decline and Adelaide's Maids.

Thursday January 9 - Sydney, NSW
Brighton Up Bar w/ Skullsquadron & RAMPS

Friday January 10 - Melbourne, VIC
The Old Bar w/ Super Best Friends, Sincerely, Grizzly & Darts

Sunday January 12 - Melbourne, VIC
The Public Bar (Sunday School) w/ Chips Rafferty & Ciggie Witch

Saturday January 25 - Fremantle, WA
The Railway Hotel w/ special guests

Sunday January 26 - Perth, WA
Flyrite w/ special guests

Saturday February 1 - Brisbane, QLD
Grand Central Hotel Brisbane (Trainspotters)
w/ Alpine Decline (USA) & Maids

Brendan Masala's Albums Of 2013 (Top Ten, Hobourable Mention, and Another Fifteen Because Im Fickle)

Happy New Year! Well I guess this list is kinda redundant now, it being 2014 and all. But I had the list kinda written up, so it may as well be here. I won't bother with links and such - you can do that on your own - but rest assured, we have written about these albums, and you can hunt them down quite easily...

1. Bed Wettin' Bad Boys - Ready For Boredom

2. Batpiss - Nuclear Winter

3. Michael Beach - Golden Theft

4. The Spinning Rooms - Complicating Things

5. Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus Seven

6. James X Boyd & the Boydoids - James X Boyd & the Boydoids/Super Low

7. Pissed Jeans - Honeys

8. Kwaidan - Make All The Hell Of Dark Metal Bright

9. Yes I'm Leaving - Mission Bulb

10. Running - Vaguely Ethnic

Honourable Mention - Ensemble Economique. Brian Pyle's myriad releases were all of a stellar standard this year, and I found it too difficult to settle on just one. You should hunt them all down though - the guy's stretchin the outer limits.

See also - 11. Thee Oh Sees (Floating Coffin); 12. Dollar Bar (Paddington Workers Club); 13. Barn Owl (V); 14. Shocked Minds (Shocked Minds); 15. Violent Soho (Hungry Ghost); 16. Hey Colossus (Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo); 17. Surf City (We Knew It Was Not Going To Be Like This); 18. Ooga Boogas (Ooga Boogas); 19. Bone (For Want For Feeling); 20. Ovlov (AM); 21. Marnie Stern (The Chronicles of Marnia); 22. Cuntz (Solid Mates); 23. Transistors (Is This Anything?); 24. Popstrangers (Antipodes);  25. Wonderfuls (Salty Town)