Something Less To Zone Out About

Another great little release is Something Less, the debut EP from Melbourne's Zone Out, and it's the perfect way to see out the night. The quartet features members of the bands Hot Palms, Pencil, Totally Mild, Scotdracula and is the bedroom daydreams of one Ashley Bundang, and each release gets decidedly more wistful and sepia-toned - a cloud of nostalgia, heavy burdens, metaphysical fatigue and the light touch of hope. It saunters along absentmindedly, a dancehall slowdance for those about to drop out, but the tracks here never feel listless. There is a majesty here that hints at a lot more substance just around the corner. That shimmering guitar on 'Greeves Street' also imbues a wasted elegance - being opulent and sundrunk on a VHS rerun.

Something Less is out now in cassette (through Osborne Again) and CD (Why Don't You Believe Me?) forms.

Blissing Out On The White Poppy

Cristal Dorval has been exploring the heady terrain of the aural narcotic drift for some time now, first as part of My Friend Wallis and now under the nom de plume of White Poppy. Her self-titled record, out now on Not Not Fun, is the closest yet she has reached to distilling the ephemeral gauzy dreamstates of her mind into a mesmeric worldview. Equal parts New Age-aping guitar-as-spaced-synth circling loops (something akin to Mark McGuire), early Deerhunter youthful stargaze, fallen angel anguish and exhausted elegies - White Poppy is a blissful slide into a kaleidoscopic realm that doesn't shimmer so much as explode, a sonorous opiate mainlined through the mind. Dorval threatens to drown in her own dazzling vortex, yet it is all a ploy - she is the master of her domain, a Machiavellian Syren drawing unassuming listeners into the abyss. White Poppy is darkness disguised as light, and vice versa - a cunningly ambiguous yet seductive wraith of an album.

Enough with the amorphous euphemisms. White Poppy is the real deal, a lysergic fever dream stuck between heaven and hell, and you need to get it now.

Terry Malts Is Everywhere

San Francisco's Terry Malts ripped out an unexpected highlight of 2012 with their debut record Killing Time. The trio set up a tightrope sound that wavered over the territories of ebullient guitar rock, nascent gutter punk and narcotic pop hooks and clung desperately to the wire. Sophomore effort Nobody Realizes This Is Nowhere is a darker and yet more gleeful rendition of this dynamic. Skewing the title of Neil Young's excellent 1969 album, Terry Malts play their cards flagrantly from the outset. The band call themselves chainsaw pop, and the way the fuzzed-out guitars serrate the sweetest of harmonies, the most wholesome of melodies, so that the sweet and the sour intermingle like salt in an open wound suffered in a fair floss eating contest, makes true on that image of the lighter edges of devilishness. Its reckless, fast paced nihilism, but done with maniacal grins and hearts pinned garishly on their sleeves.

Buy Nobody Realizes This Is Nowhere here, out through Slumberland Records.

Everybody's Droning On The Weekend

That headline (and indeed lead picture - but that's nothing unusual here...) is a slight misnomer - some of these acts aren't really drone, just are producing instrumental pieces that offer differing styles of repetition - but I thought that seeing as most weekend mornings are spent in varying stages of a fugue state, why not try to provide a soundtrack for it? Let's see if any of these five acts fit the bill...

One band that does fit into the drone zone is English act Dwellings, whose Don't Say Nothing LP has just started shipping out of Trensmat Records. Originally out on Tesla Tapes, it's a heady leap forward from the split release they did with Druss that was "presented" by Britain's progenitors of black drone alchemy GNOD (seeing as Dwellings is the mask behind which GNOD bassist Chris Haslam resides, and Tesla Tapes was started by the band), encompassing as it does the double-helix concoction of trance-inducing percussion and heaving swarms of industrial ambiance. Say what? Trust me, when these elements meld into each other, a metallic sheet of white ephemera that beguilingly lingers in the air like burnt ozone. Buy Don't Say Nothing here.

Bathetic Records are privy to some good dronal material, and the latest act they have gotten behind with such a proclivity is Matthew Sullivan's LA ephemeral crawl experiment, Earn. On the new LP Hell On Earth, Sullivan strikes out on weightless travails through unfocused streets and neon lights - pastels and fluorescence out of sync, floating towards the precipice of unconsciousness and unconscionable acts, yet never allowing you to slip under the covers of darkness - a constant bucolic wrestle for the soul. A fair tangent from the harsh noise loops of the past, Hell On Earth  nevertheless upholds the uneasiness, the fleeting moments of clarity hidden amidst a miasma of half-images and clouded ideas - and is all the more entrancing because of its obtuseness. I definitely recommend picking this up here.

Over to New Zealand now and Wellington post-rockers Sunken Seas. They visited Australia a few months ago but didn't make it as far north as Queensland; let's not hold that against them, especially when we see how on-song they are on their Cataclysm EP. Ryan Harte's vocals are making more of a presence amidst the shuddering, shimmering walls of noise that cloister around them, threatening to topple at any moment in a cataclysmic torrent of fury. Again mired in emotions as dark as the political despair Sunken Seas engenders to unearth, Cataclysm turns the mirror onto the souls of the band, in a room of mirrors shining out on the world. As in its cyclical, and emblematic of a rising emotion, here etched in noise. Despite the squall it all sounds crystalline and precise - these guys know exactly what they're doing. Cataclysm is out now through Muzai Records.

A blog that is no strange to the world of drone is Colorado-based alum Tome To The Weather Machine. One of its creators Ryan Hall has branched out and started his own digital-only singles label, Heligator Records, and the first piece to come from the newly-minted stable is a beauty. 'Agrimony (Porch Music)' is a collaboration between Lake Mary and Nathan Wheeler, an 11 minute pastoral glory that is anchored on the delicate, plaintive pluckings of a six-string acoustic guitar and Wheeler's pump organ. (Imagine Black Eagle Child territory) Its the kind of floating gem that can fill you head with all kinds of Malick-esque ruminative natural montages - then the postscript is a pretty hilarious bursting of the bubble. More please.

And let's finish with a prodigy, shall we? Henry Plotnick is but a babe in the woods - ELEVEN years young to be exact - yet with Fields he has crafted nine sonorous suites of cyclical, coalescing soundbites of light. The experimental complexities and professional acumen present in these looping, kaleidoscopic classics defies explanation - it's good enough to be the lighthearted musings of William Basinski, or the nightmarish daydreams of David Lynch if 'Field 4' is anything to go by, let alone the machinations echoing forth from the mind of a child not ready to leave primary school yet. Holy Mountain have snatched Plotnick up (figuratively speaking, of course), and it's a coup of sorts - if this is what he is capable of now, give him five, ten, fifteen years. Seriously blown away by this. You can, and bloody well should, buy Fields here (how many people IN GENERAL can claim to have a double LP out which is winning global critical acclaim? Jesus.)

VIDEO VACUUM - Bushwalking, Violent Soho, Chicks Who Love Guns, Naked Maja

No preamble today, straight into the (full Oz) audio visual goodness...



Let's take a boat out on the bay with Bushwalking. The Melbourne trio can't walk on water (as far as I'm aware) but they can head out into Sydney Harbour and serenade you, topping it all off with a gourmet picnic and sun amongst the trees. 'In My Hair' comes fresh off their No Enter release. Definitely an exciting proposition - now about that show in Brisbane...



Speaking of Brisbane, Violent Soho just keep kicking goals don't they? Here is the video for latest single off their Hungry Ghost LP, 'Covered In Chrome.' All filmed at bassist Luke Henery's place, with some bite-sized cameos from the likes of Simon from DZ Deathrays, its a frenetic, cathartic one-take headbanger for the whole family. Really takes me back to my teenage angst-ridden days, hunkered in the darkness of my room, a green light bulb and my broiling thoughts...ha. Just don't go burning down that Hills Hoist just yet - it IS bushfire season after all...



Another band delving elbow deep into the grunge is Chicks Who Loves Guns, and their clip for 'Pencil Neck' is an oft-explored one - pour liquids and foods all over people. Yet as with most videos of its kind, it's a hell of a lot of fun, there is a lot of multicolours and love being spread around, and the song really goes for it, no holds barred. Bonus - these types of videos always remind me of You Can't Do That On Television. Please tell me there are people reading this who remember this...





Finally we come back home to Brisbane and Naked Maja. I spoke about their new single '#59' on Wednesday, and here is the video for their last single 'Take'. Filled with lustrous waifs lounging around in ethereal, gauche or suburban surroundings, it's all ambiguous, mysterious stuff - like Picnic At Hanging Rock remade by Sofia Coppola. Not that I'd want to see that - I'm much happier that we have this in our lives. This debut album from the band is looking to be an absolute corker...

These Mates Are Solid Cuntz

I only showed their fake baby handling skills on Monday, but here we are again, talking about Cuntz. The Melbourne devildrivers have polished off a second album in a year (we spoke favourably of their earlier effort Aloha here), and Solid Mates is a excellent counterstrike. It allows more of a focused caterwaul of baseness, becoming more vitriolic in the process. The bitterest pill to swallow - it goes down better, but cyanide is still cyanide. When a song about walking the dog (violently - I think it's a love song) hemorrhages into 'Ation', a song about masturbation, any innocence you were desperately clinging to is ripped from you and crushed into the ground. Bonus points for the song 'Brizbane' having throat-shredder Ben Mackie sounding the most bored and pissed he has been in his life before yelling the title over and over with his eyes bugging out - and yes, the cabs are fucking expensive. Pissed jeans and wet dreams - regardless of whether this is your idea of a nightmare or an orgasm, you're still left with the wet patch.

Pre-order Solid Mates from Homeless Records here. They've just completed their US tour that included an electrifying Gonerfest set. Yep, these guys are cuntz.

Naked Maja Soaring At #59

On the same night that Sonic Masala was showcasing Beef Jerk's Schooners 7" launch, another SM fave was launching their latest single down the road. Local architects of the atmospheric slowburn Naked Maja continue to evolve, and with '#59' we see the whispier elements of their musical genetics burn away to reveal a muscular solar flare drift, coalescing into a sonorous squall that belies the delicate, disembodied vocals. The darkness emanating from within this track pulses like a transcendental, viscous fugue state (have you seen John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness? Ok, never mind...) The download also includes a remix of the track by psychbeat weirdniks Barbiturates - and it's a broken siren of yearning that is all kinds of amazing.

In The Treehouse Zone

Tasmania's Treehouse came on my radar back in August when they supported Per Purpose on their 'Eureka' single launch. The fact that a goon sack and discordant guitar flailing complemented each other in their set meant I had connected immediately with Treehouse and their fuse-blasting fare. Now Vacant Valley are reissuing the band's debut Interzone on luscious 12" vinyl. This is loud, scuzzy, droning pop that is as ardent as it is flippant - throwaway nuggets of digestible, discernible knowledge, bashed out by dudes with too much time on their hands, for better or worse. Their live shows a set on a knife-edge, either elevated into an effervescent maelstrom of noise and light, or nosediving into a chasm of unrelenting chaos and despair. Well, I say despair - things are never that bad when there's an inflatable pillow of piss-yellow grape juice around... Luckily the trio come prepared with tracks made for either outcome. Interzone then stands as a shapeshifter of a record - setting the mood as the mood sets you. Corruption of two halves.

Pre-order the Interzone vinyl here.



And here is a clip of another Treehouse track, 'Dead Weight', recorded by Josh Watson (Sewers) at Matt Ford's Puerile Palais (I'm sure his slap-up den of dankness has a name much more suited to the house shows he throws, but this'll do for now) the afternoon before the aforementioned Per Purpose show. Good times.

Kes Is Better In Twos

I wrote recently about the new album from Melbourne multi-instrumentalist Kes, Duets, for The Music not all that long ago it should be coming out soon. Suffice to say that it is goddamn killer, an ambient melange of collaborations from varied artists such as Sonic Masala faves Lehmann B Smith and Justin Fuller (Zond) to Paddy Mann (Grand Salvo) and Laura Jean, and I discover new, amazing sounds every time I give it a spin. It's an incredible exploration of sonics with a wide array of objects, instruments and found sounds. Throw it on tonight, see where it takes you. Thank me later. 

Out through Polyester Records, you can pick up Duets here.

Shoegaze Is Not Well Lost

Last year I posted a couple of tracks from a band from Tel Aviv called Vaadat Charigim (Hebrew for Exceptions Committee). They released their debut LP The World Is Well Lost back in July, and I've had it in my possession for longer than that, but have held off due to trying to get a feature off the ground concerning underground music in Israel and Palestine during wartime. That as yet remains a work in progress. But I cannot hold off on this album, because it's just too damn good.

Originally slated for global release on Anova, Warm Ratio (vinyl) and Burger Records (cassette) back in July, The World Is Well Lost is finally earning a worldwide guernsey in November 12. Ten tracks of woozy, intimate shoegaze, assuredly precise, offering tempered squalling, tempered moods, and tempered vocals. That's not to say that the trio fail to rise above the calm - the calamitous outro to epic nine-minute wonder 'Kmo Lahzor Habaita' is killer. There is no need to understand Hebrew (though it no doubt helps) to revel in the raucous beauty of 'Haolam Avad Mizman' or the nostalgic miasma of lead single 'Ze Beseder Lefahed.' The end result is something that is both alluring and intoxicating. You get this is what Yuck wished they could cobble together, let alone deliver it with true earnestness and finesse. Fine stuff indeed.

You can buy The World Is Well Lost here.

Dirty Dancing On Crystal Shipsss

Yesterday I showed the Lee Ranaldo video for 'Fire Island (Phases)' that featured Berlin act Crystal Shipsss. That momentous occasion isn't the only thing keeping Jacob Faurholt and his cronies busy though - they have released a new LP Dirty Dancer. The album accentuates the creaky meandering nature of Faurholt's musical imaginings; a nebulous pendulum of dark and light quirk, refusing to sit still, to coalesce into something fully-formed. Due to this, and Faurholt's unique, shrill vocals, Dirty Dancer has wrongfooted a lot of critics, frustrated with the artist's knack of straying off the designated path of an album, or indeed a song. It is true that the album veers in all kinds of directions, thus connecting with the material requires dedication and attention. From choral drifts to lo-fi guitar jams, minimal scratchy beats and broken synth lines, anger that evaporates, despair that congeals, glee that drips maniacally from the fangs... Dirty Dancer is unapologetic for its schizophrenic meanderings and quick-cuts. Focus instead on Crystal Shipsss as something of a stream-of-consciousness flume ride through the mind of a beguiling artist, and you might start to get the idea. Give this Dirty Dancer ago, see if you don't get swept away.

You can pick up the album here.

Pushing Breedlings' Lungs All Over The Velodrome

As I'm not overly familiar with the bands that have burst out of the hallowed halls of Cambridge, England other than Pink Floyd, I can't let you in on the history of angularity and dissonance. That said, I met a guy in a pub there that loved my Explosions In The Sky T-shirt, and he then proceeded to school me in all kinds of awesome music. I believe I gave back as good as I got. I wish I knew his name - or indeed the pub. Swallowed in misty memories marred by substances far and wide, I'm afraid.

So I have no geographical reference when it comes to listening to this triple-A release from Cambridge trio Breedlings, other than to say that this kind of post-punk excellence is like the cast-off and eaten embryo twin of God Bows To Math - there are Minutemen references a plenty here too, and whilst it's a little more straight up the line than the NZ juggernaut, you could hear these guys doing a mean cover of 'Slow Decline'. And a band comfortable enough to release three tracks of equal merit is good enough for me. Discord is well and truly on the table here - a smorgasbord of collegiate angst, bubbling along the Punt, overflowing in bitter bile. Good times.

Wild Movements In The Arabian Dunes

About this time last year I gave a little lip service to Brooklyn wonky popheads band Beach Arabs. They finally have a full-length out, also called Wild Movement, and it's jam-packed full of frenetic, off-kilter, sunny concoctions that rock and/or roll. Liz Hogg is a happy amalgam of Screaming Females' Marisa Paternoster and Kim Deal in a dialled-down Breeders mode, whilst Nathaniel Sabat's droll, Lee Ranaldo-esque drawled deliveries offers a poignant counterpoint, two roughies that rub together to make a diamond. The focus remains the manic tempo shifts and Hogg's pitch-perfect noodling however, the math-lite precision (see closer 'Under The Whale') that underpins these lo-fi ramblings and elevates them beyond mere garage also-rans into something more appealing, a whispier Deerhoof, a American slacker take on Trash Kit or an East Coast Raincoats. Not that Beach Arabs are scaling those heady heights just yet - but with Wild Movement, they have at least made it to base camp.

You can grab Wild Movement through Mouca Records here.

VIDEO VACUUM - Scott & Charlene's Wedding, Lee Ranaldo, Angie, Cuntz

Sometimes it's hard to take life seriously. If you get thrown enough curveballs and low blows, you either shrug and laugh and find the stuff that makes your world go round, or you curl up into the foetal position whilst chewing a dogshit-stained shoe. Today could have gone either way. But a handful of Aussie degenerates and one sonic youth on his crystal ship(sss) got me across the line, just in time to neck a bottle of red, watch the new episode of The Walking Dead, and be thankful I get another day to get things right. Maybe these tracks will help you too, hmm?

Craig Dermody of Scott & Charlene's Wedding has a proclivity for suburban malaise and chagrin, yet on this latest video for 'Jackie Boy', he's taking no prisoners. A typically laconic take on the Rocky male fantasy, the clip sees Dermody jogging around NYC, looking decidedly weedy but with a puffed out chest and a decidedly grimy gray tracksuit (hopefully from Lowes),punching wet carcasses and looking to make a difference in this mixed-up world that we live in. And when Dermody mumbles-shouts 'When you've got nothing left you've still got rock'n'roll', goddamn if it isn't a mantra after my own heart. TKO, dude.

Lee Ranaldo - "Fire Island (Phases)" from Mouca on Vimeo.

The latest solo album from Sonic Youth alum Lee Ranaldo certainly divided the pundits what with its somewhat traditional mode of songwriting (well, at least for this progenitor of no wave nihilism and explorer of atonal terrains). Between the Times and the Tides is more about looking for more nostalgic and referential ways of telling stories, as opposed to crafting something outside the proverbial box, and in the main I'm a big fan. This six-minute clip for 'Fire Island (Phases)' is an ode to the Berlin winter, an experience that brings goosebumps to my soul, and he also garners help from skronky folk weirdniks Crystal Shipsss, which is pretty ace too. Ive been lucky enough to interview him AND speak to him in person - still one of my all-time highlights - so the bias has only risen, but I really appreciate the guy for forever being honest and subversive (even if that means travelling straight on when everyone else wants him to zig and zag).

ANGIE - PARALLELS from Angela Garrick on Vimeo.

If you want to circle back on the olde days of Sonic Youth, this might be your best bet. Angie is the new project for Angela Bermuda, the outlandish performer who props up the likes of Circle Pit and Straight Arrows. On 'Parallels' she gets the dirty, warbled, hypercolour VHS no-fi down pat, whilst the track itself is both Aussie pub rawk guitar noodling, buzzbin fuzz, and disaffected lyrics. It's a killer track, one I didn't see coming, and spiked my will to live even further. Nice one, Angie.

"Never Felt Better" - Cuntz from Tahlia Isabel Palmer on Vimeo.

And lastly, Melbourne's Cuntz deliver the knockout blow, ensuring that I've never felt better with, well, 'Never Felt Better.' Still giving out dark, despairing punk spirals, all the time. Despite the whole thing is a constant drunken shit-stir, you can't help but get swept up in the nihilistic charm of its atonal wares. This is actually a depressing song, isn't it? Fuck it. Scream to your heart's content, drink a shit tonne of beers, and hold the baby.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

The Tightly Wound Pairing Of God And Math

One of my all-time favourite bands, God Bows To Math, did some recording with all-time fave man Donnie Miller in his Nowhere Audio studio (AKA his home) when the NZ trio played Brisbane earlier this year. That show left an indelible mark on those who saw it (Cam Smith of The Waiting Room has it in his top five gigs since the seminal venue opened its doors two years ago), and the fruits of the subsequent recordings are about to be heard as the band release a 7" split with another rambunctious maelstrom of a band, Shanghai's Pairs. The 7" itself comes with pop-up artwork and a zine - awesome in and of itself - but if 'Tightly Wound' is a judge of character, then GBtM are at their face-melting best once more. It takes its time, builds the tension, then flays the skin and muscle from your bones. Rattling stuff. The record comes out next Monday - pre-order this sucker now, there are only 50 available. Now, about that next trip to Australia...

Walking On These Angry Seas

Melbourne punk survivalists Angry Seas were up here in Brisbane launching their self-titled 7" last week. Which is a shame, because I missed them - if only I had listened to the release (or anything of theirs) beforehand I would have made the journey into Fat Louie's for the show (they were playing alongside Grinning Loons AKA an incognito Spinning Rooms - on the same night Nation Blue & Batpiss were also playing - what a Melbourne-centric night...) Four tracks of tearing shit up, Angry Seas plays like an Aussie blue collar VB swilling Bronx, especially the jostling juxtaposition of melodicism and raucous riffs. Yet another Mikey Young production too - the guy has the Midas touch. If you like your punk rock in a pub, screaming and spitting and leaving you with cuts, bruises and a shit-eating grin, get this 7" ASAP.

Frenchkissing Over A Dream Shake

Who is keen for a Dream Shake? The eponymous debut LP from the Virginia Beach duo came out this week on Frenchkiss Records, and it's an album that slides down easy, tastes great and give you the warm and fuzzies well after the wax stops spinning - even if it's a little sugary at times. Not unlike a Royal Copenhagen Ice Cream Toblerone thickshake. Man, I really could go one of those right about now...

The nine tracks here, made up of names of women from 80s and 90s television shows, are delivered with the slightest of hazy, sepia-tinged, fuzz cauldron echoes, a crunching sound that can start to leaven things out after a time. Still, it's undeniable that Dream Shake knows their way around a solid hook, and when you create early-Deerhunter gems like 'Samantha', you are onto a great thing. This is a fresh new take for the band (formerly called We Are Trees - the shift of name was a good call), and there is more than enough here to come back to - and hold high hopes for the future.

You can buy Dream Shake here.

Ezra Furman

Illinois' own rock'n'roll soulmate Ezra Furman has just released his new record Day Of The Dog on Bar/None Records. The album is a soothing balm of throwback rock, complete with Springsteen-style sax, and you can't help but be energised by the guy as he embodies wholesome American rock for the 21st century, amalgamating all manner of 50s and 60s cliches along the way.

You can buy Day Of The Dog here.

FRIDAY COVER UP - We're Off To See The Colourful TV Wizard...

Last week a friend of mine was telling me I really need to listen to the new TV Colours album, Purple Skies, Toxic River. I still haven't done that. But my lackadaisical meanderings brought me across this cover of album track 'Bad Dreams' by Melbourne band Wizard Oz. I know nothing about them. But this track is cool, so I imaging the original is also cool, therefore I am going to listen incessantly until I can find that album and give it a good thrashing. What more can you want from a cover? Not much, I can tell you. Good night.

Throating A Mechanical All Seeing Hand

Sticking to something different (and another band I've championed of recent times), Wellington electronic drums-turntables-and-throat noise trio The All Seeing Hand have released their new record Mechatronics through Tenzenmen and Muzai Records, and its decidedly seven levels of fucked up weirdness. Throat ranting like a hoarse, maniacal Tazz the Tasmanian Tiger, spatial space landings, elongated discombobulation, inky black masses - the songs play like the score for a Mongolian Hellraiser remake, dubbed over by acid junkies. 'Surgery' is a killer opener to ANY album (Liars are wishing they were this astrally aligned and innately evil), and it gets deceptively more intrusive from here. You have been warned.

The All Seeing Hand are halfway through their first ever Oz tour. They play Hobart tonight, Sydney tomorrow, and the Tote in Melbourne on Sunday. No Brisbane dates - no good. You will have to console yourself with buying Mechatronics, which you can do here.