ATP Melbourne 2013 Mixtape

Not much to say really. Im heading off to Melbourne ATP. This is the mixtape that has been floating about the past week – amazing. I don’t want to rub it in, so Ill leave it at this. If you’re at ATP, yell out Sonic Masala and Ill come a-runnin. If not, well, enjoy whatever you’re doing!

Friday Cover Up - Future Primitives

 

Ah, another Sonic Masala staple is back!

I missed out on telling you about The Future Primitives, a South African garage rock band that put out a great little record in This Here's The Future Primitives last year. Well, after the world neglected to go to hell in a handbasket last December (it's still doing that, just a lot more incremental than the Mayans thought), the trio decided to hammer out a bunch of tracks that they like to listen to. The aptly titled Songs We Taught Ourselves features thirteen covers from the likes of Link Wray, Captain Beefheart and Bo-Weevils amongst many others, and they are suitably lo-fi shambolism par excellence. It’s a lot of stupid fun – and what else would you expect. Head over here to download the album, listen to it below!



Enjoy the weekend crazy kids! Ill have singles from Youth Lagoon and Mikal Cronin for you, plus my two-part ATP playlist, over the next two days – listening paradisio!!!

Another Breath(e) Out Brings Absolute True Love

 

When you say absolute true love, it kinda sounds like you are trying to convince yourself as much as the person you are talking to. Maybe it’s the tautological implications of the term. Which means that calling your EP Absolute True Love implies that the record is pregnant with meaning. UK band Breathe Out are intent on playing with the jangly guitar pop, awash with shimmering soundscapes, instilling these awkward moments involving electronic squelches, samples and subtleties to imbue these strong tracks with urgency and surprise. There is something Regurgitator about single ‘Dead Friends’, what either the Ely-esque deadpan vocals, the sonorous guitar line that slips into slight dirges and whoa’s before stretching into micro-second Pavement distort-o-quirk. Its within the art cover too – a derelict back lot, a solitary skull in the foreground, a beercan, a guitar discarded in a shopping trolley, drums abandoned by the basement door – dire, yet filled with morbid mirth.

 

You can pre-order Absolute True Love here – and seeing as this is Art Is Hard, the release is special - get in now and get yourself a nice T-shirt bundle.

Breathe Out – Dead Friends

Foxes In Fiction + Benoit Piourlard

 

Just a quick post, as I'm about to race to a plane whisking me down to Melbourne, and the ATP. This 7” put out through Wool Recordings is a split between Foxes In Fiction (AKA Warren Hildebrand) and Benoît Pioulard (AKA Thomas Meluch). The collaboration spawned in 2010, when Meluch played Hildebrand’s hometown of Toronto and invited him along on a road trip to Montreal. They started exchanging songs and files, before the two pieces (‘Ground Glass’ and ‘Etalon’) formed this 7”. Those who saw Pioulard play in Australia back in September, either at Newcastle’s Sound Summit or his show in Brisbane with High Wolf and Mist, will know how good this release is. Those who don’t, have a taste of ‘Ground Glass’ below – you won’t be disappointed.



You can get the record through Orchid Tapes here – it’s a limited and silkscreened 7” with artwork from Hildebrand himself. Really lovely stuff.

Lake Of Plankton Wat

 

Another day, another Sound of Cobra affiliate. Yesterday I spoke about Italian dark psychers Cannibal Movie, and today I'm bringing to your attention a great release from Plankton Wat (AKA Dewey Mahood of Eternal Tapestry fame), who I have heaped praise on in the past (his In Magical Light LP was one of my top albums of 2011). He has released the 5-track Mirror Lake one-sided 12” EP through the German label, and it is another slice of guitar exploration, working his way through kosmiche drones, explosive slabs of psych dirge, folk meditations and ambient ambles, like a harder edged Mark McGuire. Mahood is an incredible guitarist, and the levels of emotion and grandeur he reaches on this small release is incredible. Mirror Lake holds a warmth and resonance that only comes when the music is intrinsically tied to the artist’s personal experiences, especially with ‘Pastoral Rejoice’ and ‘Lone Pines’ – both utilise acoustic strings in a manner that isn’t far removed from some of Neil Young’s finest 70s moments, with gentle hand percussion pushing it all gently down the river. Eternal Tapestry is amazing, but I am just as glad that Plankton Wat exists in this world of ours.

 

You can grab Mirror Lake here (through Thrill Jockey) – I suggest you do so.

Plankton Wat – Lone Pines

Grinning Out On The Plateaus

 

The debut self-titled record from Southern Californian ne’er-do-wells Plateaus came out late last year on Art Fag, and is an interesting amalgam of doo-wop pop, sneering punk, and scuzzy garage rock, infused with a strangely sunny disposition. Only in California, right? The production is a little cleaned up after their Hozac release earlier in 2012, and it imbues these short spikes with some much wanted vigour. It’s true that some of these songs bleed into each other, but that isn’t an altogether bad thing – this is the kind of sunny party record that I want to chuck on. Its fun, unpretentious, precocious, and coy – but above all, it makes me smile. And that’s really the point. A good rock record that makes you smile is always going to win out.

 

You can get Plateaus (on white vinyl!) over this-a-way.

Plateaus – Jump Now
Plateaus – Do It For You
Plateaus – Jasmine

Those Idiots Are Dead

 

It often surprises me when I love something heavy. Not because I'm a poppy kinda guy, but usually because I'll have spent half the day listening to some guitar pop band, and then I'll hear something that is the polar opposite of what I've been enjoying and a perverse shiver of excitement runs down my spine. Today, that was Idiots, Melbourne metal miscreants Dead’s new album. Friends of mine, No Anchor, told me about this last year, yet I never really got around to listening to it. Even now, with it blaring out of the speakers, it attacks my brains with rusted skewers, my eyes feel raw, my teeth ache. Yet this kind of visceral dirge is electrifying. Plus, Dead are fucking funny. In most ways that’s the best thing – bands like Part Chimp, Melvins, The Austerity Program, Big Business – they don’t take themselves seriously at all, which is why their music rules. They play because they fucking love making a racket, without wanting to get tied down in the histrionics of being “metal”. The fact they are a duo and craft such a brutal sledgehammer of primitive noise makes it so much better also. How do they do it? Without a guitar? No Anchor should know – but they now have three members, so a double bass assault – yet Dead rivals them in intensity and annihilation.

A favourite? Hard to say. The slight, wraith-like opening before the explosion of entrails in ‘The Carcass Is Dry’ is sneaky, and all the more brutal because of it; ‘Couldn’t Keep His Mouth Shut’ is frenetic brute strength, a kick to the ribs and pliers to the teeth; ‘Up’ crawls along like an undead, unrelenting in its base desires, before bursting forth in a sudden rush of rage and wanton fury. ‘Murder Hollow’ is a freakshow, an ominous cauldron of pent-up fears and anxieties that coalesce into much darker emotions. ‘Bed Bugs’ is fast paced awesomeness, a rippling masterclass of musicianship that elevates itself above the sludge, propelling headfirst into the violence of ‘Inherit The Wind’, just before submerging again in the menacing yet restrained closer ‘Lego Men’.

This noise rock is what the world needs – a cleansing of the skin, one eradicated reality TV show and Madden brother at a time.

 

You can get Idiots from Melbourne label WeEmptyRooms here, either in black or white vinyl. There is a limited edition version too - it's a 180 Gram LP, a 7 colour screen printed insert on archival paper hand made by the band and all sold for way less than it is "worth" labour wise.

Dead - Couldn't Keep His Mouth Shut
Dead - Bed Bugs

Music's Mondo Holocaust

 

I have spoken about the excellent Cannibal Movie before, the Italian drums & organ psych duo who brought out the mindbending Avoria cassette through Sound of Cobra. Now they are back with Mondo Music. Two long sinuous tracks that easily supersede their past recordings, Mondo Music is a pagan voyage through fizzing synapses, captured in an underground cathedral of ochres and shadows, briefly glimpsed faces and masks, flickering firelight and an epiphany ripped from your soul. The second track is especially entrancing, an ambient meditation that coalesces into a demonic dance, the haunting organ and maniacal percussion interweaving in an orgiastic rhythm that is sensual and base. This is incredible stuff, the kind of psych experiment that goes beyond the extremes of genre and enters your pores, fusing with your membrane, refusing to die.

 

Mondo Music is available through Yerevan Tapes in pea green cassette form here. It's a great release.

Nothing Is Greater Than Nothing

 

I've done this a few times now. I thought I had posted about Downward Years To Come, the new release from Philly shoegazers Nothing. I was listening this afternoon to it and thought, “I can’t remember what I wrote about this” – turns out I haven’t. I’m not going entirely senile then…

It’s been out a couple months, through A389 Recordings, and I'm a big fan. It hits all the requisite wall of noise blanketing your ears goodness – a silky opening in ‘The Dives (Lazarus In Ashes)’ bleeds into a more explosive title track – but the moment that gets me is the singular track on the B-side, ‘The Rites Of Love And Death’. It’s a gentle, languid track that drifts away, an ethereal beauty that benefits from the acoustics and gentle vocals, almost like a cast-off from The Virgin Suicides soundtrack. It may seem a strange way to finish what has been a physical suite of music, but it fares incredibly well, the gentle coda to the despair that takes place beforehand.

 

At less than 25 minutes Downward Years To Come is fleeting, but the richness of these songs resonate. You can grab it here, hopefully still in white vinyl... If you're in Philly tonight, or close by, you need to get to Johnny Brenda's - Nothing will be supporting Psychic Ills. Now THERE'S a show!

Nothing – Downward Years To Come

Running Guns At Tiny Migrants - They're All Friends Though!

I was going to write about these Brisbane bands separately, but seeing as they are interrelated, what with sharing band members and all, it made more sense to join them together, like re-attaching Siamese twins (?!).

 

First up is Tiny Migrants. I have spoken extensively about these crazy space-garage tweaks on many an occasion – they supported Mark Sultan in 2011 in what was the first gig Id been to in Brisbane for almost four years, when on returning from Europe I thought I might be doomed to a dire music scene, just to find it stronger than ever; and they also played Sonic Masala Presents… and The Waiting Room’s 1st Year Celebrations. Now, they haven’t been overflowing with releases, so it’s very exciting to see we are close to seeing their debut 7” EP come to life (thanks to Mere Noise Records). This band has improved exponentially over the past two years, so it stands that this first proper release is going to slay potato chips (I don’t know what that means either – I've just come back from my first day of work in two months and am currently on painkillers and beer). Apparently the record is “a collection of western movie tunes, spazzed out psych and reverb trenches”. They are currently mid-celebration – having supported Nobunny on his ad-hoc party annihilation, and will also support Day Ravies in March (the excellent Nite Fields round out that amazing bill). Who know when we will actually see the thing – Tiny Migrants are predictably slacker than a sack full of sloths – but in the meantime, here is this track. Control yourselves now…

Tiny Migrants – Uncontrollable

 

Wild leading beer monkey Julien James then jumps over to his “other” band Running Gun Sound – he is also in Thee Hugs, Woodboot, has a bit-part in the Shiva of garage gods Velociraptor, and other acts that take his fickle fancy. The rest of his band don’t sleep easy at night either – all in Velociraptor and in bands such as Tiger Beams, Lovely Legs, and The Majors, with some solo endeavours just for shits and giggles, RGS fleshes out with Jeremy Neale, James Boyd, Michael Fletcher and Lauren Jenkins. They have an album coming out, called Friends. Because they are friends, you know? Aren’t we all? Maybe. I haven’t made my mind up yet – are you looking at me with the evil eye, or you just need corrective surgery? Either way, this so-laconic-they-should-be-played-on-higher-speeds-and-on-a-slightly-warped-turntable just so that you are leaning in the right direction. Great, jangly, discordant pop that leaves the tracks because they sold them for scrap years ago. Listen if you like sitting next to an open window which is always open in your house because the rains warped the hinges, drinking from a tallie (or regular stubby – I wont push you into new frontiers if you aren’t ready), watching the neighbours’ weed garden bearing fruit, the sound of lawn mowers and verbal domestic abuse flicking your earlids, and faintly remembering that you owe your housemates money but bought this record instead. Everyone’s been there.

Running Gun Sound – Best Of It All

You can buy Friends (the record, not real friends – although I'm sure if you slip them an extra tenner, some flakes of weed and the pretension that there’s more where that came from, they’ll be friends forever!) here. They are touring next week too – Julien is busy when he gets his shit in rollerskates - Oxford Arts Factory in Sydney and Gasometer next weekend, then Brisbane’s Crow Bar on the 28th. UPDATE - After 5 years of recording, playing shows, and pal'ing about, Brisbane's RUNNING GUN SOUND are calling a hiatus. To celebrate singer Michael Fletcher's big move to Germany the band have recorded Friends for one last hurrah (well, until the next time - Fletcher is considering taking the moniker to Deutschland with him). That means this tour is crucial. Make these shows, or you're jerks! (Unless you have seriously legit reasons - you may still be a jerk, but not because you didn't make it).

Hits From The Box #59 - Can't Sleep, ATP'll Eat Me

 

I've been having trouble sleeping lately. Partly to do with the fact that I'm recovering from surgery, true – but also because its less than a week before ATP in Melbourne. The playlist is a-comin, but to tee things off, I had a pretty high watermark moment last week. I got to interview Aidan Girt, he of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The only print interview in Australia! I can’t claim that it was an easy interview, or even my best – but it was good enough that he extended the twenty minute interview by an extra twenty, laughed a lot, and really seemed to enjoy talking about Crass and Chuck D. So the excitement is palpable. Couple that with the anticipation of seeing said band at ATP (on top of soooooo many other top notch acts, not least of which are Swans and My Bloody Valentine), but also tomorrow night at the Tivoli – its too much! My lil ticker can barely take it – and my head surely cant. Ill try to calm down by seeing Thee Oh Sees on Thursday – who am I kidding? ITS GREAT TO BE ALIVE!

Ahem, but here are some other reasons that life is pretty sweet – it’s Hits From The Box time.

 

Let’s start with Earth Rod. I know very little about them, other than they feature members of Leicester sluggers Thee Ludds who I have featured in the past and am a big fan of (funnily enough it took their split with The Growlers for me to discover the latter band – and that was a special moment indeed – I still can’t get enough of their ‘Graveyard’s Full’ track). The trio have a few trashy tracks for perusal, and they are understandably fast paced, cacophonous and shambolic fun.

 

 

Not far away in Nottingham is the teenage trio Kagoule, whose Monarchy/Mudhole 7” comes out through Denizen Records at the end of the month. There is a lot of wild noise here, yet it is all reined in, a controlled anguish, shoegaze without the gazing at shoes; grunge without the flannelette; post-punk without the leering contempt and social commentary. Yet none of those omissions prove to be costly – this is a dreamy yet ominous form of rock that avoids being airy or self-important. It’s an impressive little record, with a lot of gravitas emanating from a band so young. Definitely keep an eye out for these guys – their debut record (out later this year) could be a sleeper gem. They also are launching the single in Nottingham on Saturday, with a Midlands romp over the rest of the month – check em out if you can.

 

 

Let’s change tack. Wry Climate are a guitar-driven indie rock band from New York that is more in line with the likes of Beach Fossils and Lotus Plaza, albeit more inclined for swirling feedback fades to fill in the gaps between understated contemplations. ‘Comfort Decay’ certainly fits that reference to Lockett Pundt’s solo endeavours, but there is an elongated sprawl here that evokes his “day” band Deerhunter, awash with colour and light as it soars above the sawing guitars. This is the first taste of an upcoming EP – jingle jangle.

Wry Climate – Comfort Decay

 

Hailing from Brooklyn, and mining similar territory, is quartet Lazyeyes. Their EP is out now, and whilst this isn’t as clean cut and relies on reverb too much (it’s an effect that is becoming too much of a fall back without adding enough to the equation), these four tracks hold indelible hooks. Again, that Beach Fossils connection could be made, or even early Dylan Baldi if the bubblegum had soured earlier, but he hadn’t discovered his 90s rock roots. Its moody and melodic, shimmering in the distance, a mirage within the concrete jungle.

 

 

Back to England now – the village of East Malling, to be exact. Its south-east of London, looks nice on Google Earth. Anyway, Tom Greenwood contacted me about these tracks he started playing with a couple of days before New Years Eve. On New Years day, whilst most were nursing headaches, heartbreaks or the toilet, he endeavoured to write an entire album. Ambitious – I was too busy watching Gremlins and drinking ale at a pub in Wimbledon next to a wet shaggy dog. There is a album in that too, probably…anyway, this is the first taste, ‘Give Up’. I hope he doesn’t take on his song title, because this is a warm and soaring track about persistence – it’s actually fairly life-affirming, in a finger-snapping, lysergic kinda way. it's got heart, and I’m won over, at any rate. I'm looking forward to the next instalment to this NY burst of creativity. (Seriously though – write a song about watching Gremlins and drinking ale in a pub in Wimbledon next to a wet shaggy dog).

 

 

And not far away, in Bristol, we have Joe Sherrin AKA Milo’s Planes. Sherrin drums in both Let’s Kill Janice and Me, You & Thomas (both bands being on the Howling Owl Records roster), so he is a dab hand in the local scene. Milo’s Planes has been the name for his solo material, but this time around he has fleshed it out some. In the past year alone he has written an album and 4 EPs worth of material. This is his latest set of demo offerings, initially only intended for Sherrin’s girlfriend before she convinced him to show the world. It’s all recorded into one microphone in his brother’s room, hence the overriding ride cymbal – yet it all complements each other. There is a laconic griminess to these recordings that fit in well with Sherrin’s songwriting, a mixture of DC garage punk and indie off-kilter melody – think of a more dissonant Superchunk or Black Lips doing Pavement covers. I really like this stuff – it’s the ground zero of something that could be quite productive. Hey, I really didn’t like Yuck when they first came out and they turned out pretty good – this has similarities, yet I'm already a fan. Can’t go wrong there.



Happy Tuesday!

Iceage Proves You Are Nothing

 

Young Danish punks Iceage took the world by storm with their nihilistic (I have been using that word a lot recently – I'm definitely in that mode right now) debut record New Brigade. Picked up by globetrotting tastemakers, the quartet found themselves spending much of 2012 playing the US and Europe, cracking out stifling, antagonistic 15 to 20 minute sets, looking bored of the types of crowd they were attracting, barely allowing an emotion to crest the surface over derision. If anything, this further amplified their relevance. I overheard a few people at Barden’s in Dalston in December talking about them, remarking that they had seen them twice and hadn’t lightened up. I almost spat out my beer (but didn’t – that would be a waste). Why like something if you want it to change? There are many arguments to be had over that question alone, but posit this – Iceage have hit a chord because of their disparity, their atonal apathy that dissolves into abject anarchy at the flick of a shorting switch. They are mirroring many of the abject horrors of the disenfranchised, which is what punk rock is supposed to embody anyway.

Then last year they signed up to Matador, and breaths were collectively held. Is this the “lightening up” that those “fans” so desperately wanted? Will this be a selling out? Or will this be an emancipation, a freeing moment for the band to truly expand on the feelings of isolation and simmering aggression that fuelled their creative wellspring?

The result is You’re Nothing – and it has somehow done it all. The selling out part is meant in the most literal sense – they have harnessed themselves to a label that has past and present experience in nurturing important and innovative punk and hardcore (Mission of Burma, Unsane, Fucked Up). Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s still plays like a modern-day Ian Curtis embalmed in spit, venom and (W)ire, his jagged vocals at once fierce and droll, yet his presence is more forceful, more deliberate, and this fact alone tells us how focused and distilled the Iceage medium has become. Thus many of these tracks are still as breakneck, abrasive and unrelenting as is to be expected, yet there is a channelling of forces in tracks like the closing title track and ‘Burning Hand’ that puts you inside the songs, rather than just riding the wave of their aggression. The music is still hovering on a knife edge, threatening to implode under its own wanton destruction – yet unlike New Brigade, you never really believe it will. Iceage are still a bunch of boys headbutting the walls of their perceived oppressions, yet with You’re Nothing, they are more likely to come out on top. Not that they give a shit either way – and that’s what makes it all the more viscerally appealing.

 

You’re Nothing is out soon, pre-order it here.

Iceage – Coalition
Iceage - Ecstasy

All Day Breakfast comp

 

Midday Music is a compilation showcasing much of Brisbane’s underground music scene was put out last year on cassette. Handcrafted (featuring tactile “fried eggs” – white and yellow Blu-tac, on the outer sleeve) and collated by 4ZZZ presenter Makeda Zucco and her project All Day Breakfast, outlet for the documentation and exploration of music and that which pertains to it, the 25-track compilations covers the gamut, from experimental synth pop (Shooga, Brainbeau, Scraps), nihilist rock aggression (Per Purpose, Sewers, Slug Guts), avante-garde noise (Cured Pink, Sky Needle, Multiple Man), unhinged guitar pop (Blank Realm, Heart Flew, Old Growth Cola), slacker malaise downers (Kitchens Floor, Martyr Privates)… In fact, although there are a few bands on the release (X In O, Fig, Perpetual Nervousness) that I haven’t actually caught or even heard much of, the cross section of bands here is pretty indicative of what I immerse myself in here. It is all lo-fi recordings, as you can imagine, but if ever there was a document detailing much of the diversity of the scene (without going into the Long Gone, Lofly or Lost Race crews), this is a mighty fine one.

 

Unfortunately all the cassettes are sold out, but you can download the compilation for free here. Do so – there are some artists here that never get exposure, either because of their standing, their sound or because they never put out that much music for private consumption – then get out and about, supporting these bands in the live arena.

Knee Chin – Thrall Of It All
Greg Boring - Tomb
Cannon – I Should Be In A Fucking Museum

Gayzeing On A Black Soul

 

One of the better random “discoveries” that Sonic Masala has made in the past eighteen months has been Idaho outfit TEENS (see my post here). And although they haven’t produced anything for a bit, leading member David W Wood has released a pretty damn fine EP under the guise of Gayze.



The seven tracks on Black Soul EP delves deeper into the mythology of the garage rock sound, injecting the squall and swagger that is often missing in today’s carbon copies. As such, songs like ‘Ain’t It Brave’ have that heady mix of hard-edge and desert psych that Roky Erickson excelled at and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club used to nail to the wall. Again, the lo-fi aesthetic suits these tracks, especially the reverberating isolation that informs plaintive (and surprisingly upbeat, considering the grimly excellent music video by the growing talent of Tyler T Williams (remember Youth Lagoon’s ‘Montana’?) that accompanies it) track ‘Done To My Love’ – although sometimes Wood’s drawled vocals are lost. That is a minor quibble though – Black Soul is an epic sounding 7”, tapping the seamier side of garage rock that was encapsulated by the leather-clad motorheads of the psych-fuelled 60s, and such a down and dirty sound is a welcome return. I hope this becomes more than a “thing” for Wood – there is an exciting electricity riding through these songs that alludes to something bigger (and darker) just around the corner…

You can get Black Soul through Bleeding Gold Records here.

Black Soul – Ain’t It Brave
Black Soul – Done To My Love

Arbouretum Come Out Of The Fog

 

Baltimore’s Arbouretum have covered most sub-genres within the rock spectrum over the course of their eleven year career. Yet there has been a smoky bonhomie ever-present in the music that, whether pared back or tearing apart the speakers, always underlined the fact that they were earnest songwriters, searching for the perfect way to convey their viewpoint of the world.

Coming Out Of The Fog is their fifth longplayer, and it focuses more on conciseness. It still remains a heavy mix – 'The Longest Night' and 'The Promise' have solos that are unrelenting – but the tracks don’t trail out as much (‘All At Once, The Turning Weather’ stands as the longest track at 6:47), the drones and drags reined right in. What’s left are eight doom-laden songs that still wallow in the direr side of human nature that frontman Dave Heumann revels in, but with a coiled precision that amplifies the darkness that belies these apocalyptic tokens of Americana and the Self.

Lyrically, it’s typically verbose, and obtuse – intent on focusing on the murkier regions of the human psyche, Heumann focuses on everything from futility to the story of St Simeon, who lay on a pillar for 37 years to experience death, in order to experience life and God. Sonically, its cyclical – repetition is key, with thumping, plodding drums (not a disservice – such efforts are perfectly in sync with much of the dirges that are on display). As an overall package Coming Out Of The Fog is a rocking album in delay overload, full of loaded imagery, smoke and mirrors, and a swirling repetition that evokes the best of Besnard Lakes at their dirtiest, or even Neil Young on his Crazy Horse (especially on a smokier track like the country-tinged winner ‘Oceans Don’t Sing' or the elegant closing title track).

 

You can grab Coming Out Of The Fog (out through Thrill Jockey) here. Arbouretum are launching an European tour next week, playing some usual haunts (London’s Corsica Studios, Dublin’s Whelans) and some not so usual (Clonakilty in Ireland, Hasselt in Belgium, Savignano Sul Rubicone in Italy). If you’re a fan and can get to one of these more out of the way shows, I highly recommend you do. Check the list below.

February

20th Brighton, England The Prince Albert
21st London, England Corsica Studios
23rd Clonakilty, Ireland De Barra's
24th Dublin, Ireland Whelans
25th Cork, Ireland Crane Lane Theatre
27th Hasselt, Belgium Muziekodroom
28th Antwerp, Belgium Trix

March

1st Schorndorf, Germany Club Manufaktur
2nd Leipzig , Germany UT Connewitz
3rd Prague, Czech Republic Klub 007
4th Freiburg, Germany The Swamp
5th Geneva, Switzerland Usine
6th Turin, Italy Blah Blah
7th Rome, Italy Circolo degli Artisti
8th Foligno, Italy Auditorium
9th Savignano Sul Rubicone, Italy Sidro Club
13th Cologne, Germany Club S
15th Creil, France La Grange A Musique

Arbouretum - The Promise
Arbouretum - Coming Out Of The Fog

Rational Hauntings Make For Brutal Brilliance

 

Ben Thompson has been a veritable mainstay on the Brisbane music scene for over a decade now. Seriously? Dude, that sounds insane, but it’s true. And whilst his Pale Earth electronica guise is starting to get a workout, and it all kicked off from Toowoomba band The Autumn Giants, the vast majority of that decade has been spent on the ever-evolving musical quest that is The Rational Academy. Three albums and a multitude of recorded material under their belt; a carousel of partners-in-crime; successful tours of Japan; some illustrious support slots (Deerhoof, Grails, Grouper). There was a stage in the mid 2000s where I'm pretty sure I saw them four times in a month – and that is probably an understatement. Saturation, clandestine, flirting with the breakthrough, shirking the mainstream – they have done it all. But for the true advocates of the band, it has been intriguing watching The Rational Academy grow in its amorphous way, the emotions riding on each track, release, performance open for all to see like a flayed cadaver. Choose to view this journey with the impassioned glaze of a disillusioned coroner, or the fascinated gaze of the biology enthusiast – either way, Thompson has never kept things close to his chest, for better or worse.

Which is why seeing Winter Haunts as a minor masterpiece isn’t a flippant remark. The gradual move from elegiac indie rock that revelled in its wispy delicacies as much as poignant pauses or therapeutic tremors, to a denser, more brutal sense of catharsis, is the result of a man who is throwing everything at the wall – not to see what sticks, but because he’s sick of second-guessing. Thompson’s vocals remain as hushed and reverent as ever, yet rather than the music crowding around it and buoying it up, it crashes over the top like a tidal wave of static destruction, an aural razing of the landscape. This louder approach doesn’t drown out the nuances of the songwriting though – rather it helps to embody the desperation that these songs hold at its core, and The Rational Academy have never felt more relevant, more alive – more there – in any of their other incarnations.

The musicians – Luke Zahnleiter (Guitar), Tom Roche (Drums) and Matthew Cooke (Bass) – hold a lot of responsibility for this, their performance preferring that denser soundscape that colours the songs in thick, abrasive swathes of darkness and light. ‘Vast Uncertain’ holds down the brutal drone of early Boris, no easy feat indeed. And although ‘End Of The Year’ may feel like a heavier squalling interpretation of Swans-era RA, when you hear ‘Yellow Pony’, if you didn’t get it before, the penny will drop here – their best all-round effort ever, it’s the entire history in a three-and-a-half minute soundbyte. Thompson hasn’t been stronger, and his presence is the calm before – nay, within – the storm. It shows the band breaking free of the carapace of the past and becoming something altogether different – harsher, yes, but therein lies the beauty.

If you finish with the acoustic wistfulness of ‘I Catch The Warmth’, you will feel yourself torn asunder by the wall of feedback that completes this epic sojourn, walking into the blinding light to disappear. Will this be a defining moment in their career? Is it a resurrection? A martyrdom? An ascension? No one knows, least of all Thompson himself. But something tells me that this won’t be the last we hear from him in this guise – and I wait with bated breath for his next reincarnation.

 

You MUST buy Winter Haunts(through Lofly Records) – the fullness of this sound is never more noticeable than on the purple vinyl – get it here! There won’t be many shows (if any) in this lineup for the foreseeable future, and when you put this record on, you will realise what a shame that is – but, as I said, the next manifestation will bring us something new. I can’t wait.

The Rational Academy – Yellow Pony
The Rational Academy - End Of The Year

Mogwai's New Score

 

As if I WASN'T going to post about this! NEW MOGWAI! Its a soundtrack to a a French thriller TV series called Les Revenants. I have only heard 'Wizard Motor', but it is perfect soundtrack material. I'm writing this quickly, I know, but this has been the soundtrack to my night, and will be on repeat for the rest of the week. So...enjoy!



The EP has been put out now to coincide with the series' finale, and has been released as a limited edition 10" vinyl via their Rock Action label. A full soundtrack release on vinyl, CD and download comes out on February 25. Get hold of the EP here.

Friel's Feral Sonics Become Total Folklore

 

Ex-Parts & Labor anarchist Dan Friel released an EP on Thrill Jockey late last year, and has wasted no time pumping out a full-length. Total Folklore is loud – a headscraping raspberry popsicle of noise that somehow manages to maintain a childlike wonder. Industrial electronics shouldn’t be able to exhibit such playfulness, but Friel’s aural exploration plays like a madcap mage, a sonic 8-bit loving Willy Wonka with tinnitus.

 

'Ulysses' is a lengthy track to open things up, and the first twenty seconds is an aural assault, alluding to a relentless cavalcade of abrasive white noise. But then the rhythms come in, the melodies, the soaring harmony – and Friel’s genius is realised. ‘Valedictorian’, the standout on the Valedictorian/Exoskeleton EP last year, still packs a candy-coloured wallop here, yet is propped up by the thumping gaiety of, well, ‘Thumper’ (and that melody is killer, I would actually buy a ringtone of that – not a glowing recommendation maybe, but I hate ringtones, so it works for me) and the frenetic squall of ‘Landslide’ (a schizophrenic cousin of what Civil Civic do in my opinion – yet more freeform and unhinged). The warped field recordings that make up the three Intermissions are necessary respites – seriously, this level of squealing, decibel-eating sound needs space to breathe – but Total Folklore stands as an exciting sonic scrapbook of confection and confusion, a cacophonous candy cane that rushes to the head. Expect headaches of happiness with this one.

 

You can pre-order Total Folklore through Thrill Jockey here. The first 500 LPs are orange, always an incentive to get in early. Even more exciting, Friel has crafted a series of homemade music boxes that play ‘Thumper’ on repeat for some lucky pre-orders. How fucking rad is that!?! Get in there!!!

Dan Friel – Thumper
Dan Friel - Valedictorian

Flamingods Dance Towards The Sun

 

On Friday I showed London band Darkstar's filmclip for 'Amplified Ease'. It's good, don't get me wrong - that's why I included it. But if you want to be honest - I think that it's all in who you know. Because there is another London-based band that have really killed a record that are in a similar vein, and I haven't heard much about them - despite Dustin Wong (Ponytail) having some involvement in their record (playing guitar on single 'Quessa').

The record - Sun. The band - Flamingods, a five-piece made up of Kamal Rasool, Charles Prest, Sam Rowe, Craig Doporto, and Karthik Poduval. They have an amazing genesis story too - 4 of the 5 members (Kamal, Sam, Craig, and Charles) met in Bahrain before moving to London and becoming friends with Kartik. As early gigs go, Flamingods’ couldn’t have gone much better. Having all bought tickets to the Animal Collective-curated ATP festival, they decided to take along a selection of their huge instrument collection and embarked on an 8 hour set in a chalet on-site – with up to 60 people crammed in to try and grab a view of their constantly changing line-up and enchanting tribal rhythms, and those who couldn’t squeeze in danced outside or tried clambering through windows.

Sun is a hypnotic melange of African inflection, tribal rhythms and quirk, all centred around discovering a loop or beat that serves as an electric bolt down the spine. Animal Collective, Boredoms, and Sun City Girls are cited as influences, with the former’s irreverence and innate sense of fun most evident in these tracks. This is dance music for those who don’t like dance music, and don’t hate Vampire Weekend enough to turn their backs on the brilliance Afro rhythms. Rave on, you crazy hipsters.

 

Sun is out now on the ever-excellent Art Is Hard Records - head here to get it in sexy green vinyl.

Flamingods - Quesso

And here is a stream of Sun in its entirety - it'll get you moving, even if rigor mortis has set in.

Hell Or Blankus Larry - I Know Where I'm Heading

 

There is this psychedelic garage duo (which has expanded into a five-piece, according to their website) from Washington, DC and VA Beach, VA, called Blankus Larry. AAAAAAAges ago they contacted me, letting me know that they had released the second song from their upcoming LP, ‘I Am A Heatseeker’. It’s a ripsnorter, that’s for sure – but for whatever reason I neglected to post about it. Well, they have finally released their album, Hell Or High Larry, and it’s pretty bloody good. The first two tracks show the band’s split personality – ‘Fall Forever In Tha Sun’ is slow crawling, howling psych rock from the deserts of your mind; ‘I Am A Heatseeker’ is that dirty garage blues that the likes of John Spencer can deliver when he isn’t wildly thrusting his loins and slinking around like a madman. The album ricochets back forth between these two extremes, making it a strong record that steams along with violent intent. And don’t be misled by the long tracks – ‘Nassau’ and ‘Scupper’ are the strongest songs on here. Its that grit that sticks in the gears of these tracks that truly makes this band – dark, rocking tunes that will tear your head off, if only you’ll let it. Douse that wound with a bottle of booze, and get back on the horse, because come hell or high water, Blankus Larry will be coming back for more.

 

You can get Hell Or High Larry for free here. Seriously good.

Blankus Larry – I Am A Heatseeker
Blankus Larry - Nassau