The Sea Shall Not Have Them Again

In November 2012 I had just finished off a year of putting on gigs under the Sonic Masala banner with the album launch for Gold Coast-based instrumental duo The Sea Shall Not Have Them. That album, Mouth, was one of my favourites of that year, a totally underappreciated post-rock-metal-whatever piece that held considerable heft seeing that only two men were responsible for that racket. Since that show they have gone on to support both Russian Circles and Pelican, and have now released new EP Walking Through Walls/Elim. The two track release clocks in at 24 minutes, so there needs to be a lot of time invested in this - but God is it worth it. I have to say that this is not only the best thing that TSSNHT has done - but it's the best release of this ilk I have heard this year. It is a perilous task nowadays to craft instrumental rock without it sounding in any way derivative. The two songs here - the fourteen minute behemoth 'Walking Through Walls' and the "minuscule" ten minute 'Elim' - focus on building a cavernous atmosphere, bleeding out the nuances and emotions, with a delay and slightly dulled production that shaves the edge off the band's precision. This is an imminently good thing because most "post-rock" bands in this day and age focus so much on precision and production values, that there is no mystique involved - it is all contrived and obvious. The chimes in 'Walking Through Walls' gives a Mono delicacy - there is a patience here at building the layers, rather than a join-the-dots necessity to drag a tune out minute after minute. 'Elim' has a more sinister bent but is nonetheless patient in doling out the atmospherics. And when the catharsis arrives, it isn't in an explosion of noise and theatrics (and don't get me wrong, I love that when it's done right - that's why Mogwai is my favourite live band) but a controlled roar that never loses focus. This isn't about ticking boxes. It is a little grandiose - the piano in the last element of 'Elim' in particular - but grandiosity is welcome when the foundations warrant it.

Grab Walking Through Walls/Elim here.

No One Says Pronto When You're Gone

I never thought I would say this - but it looks like we have another Cannon on our hands. That loose-as-fuck party punk meltdown of a band from Brisbane know how to wrap up a hook in cellophane and goon, ram it down your throat and make it the damned best experience of your life, even as your stomach is pumped. And yet here we are with Pronto, a five-piece from Melbourne who are all about thrashing about maniacally, partying hard and somehow keeping the garage rock juggernaut on its tracks - and even when they caterwaul into destruction, it's down with a dumb grin plastered over their gurning mugs. There are harder edges under the drool - 'Shut Up' and 'Red Flag' in the middle of the album has a steel spine that reminds you what a punk gig used to be like. But above all else, When You're Gone plays out like an origin story: a drunk dude stumbled on stage, grabbed the mic and let loose - and no one, least of all the band, is brave enough to wrestle him from it. The band joins in, because after all he will tire himself and puke on his worn BOMP Records shirt in a minute, right? But he doesn't. And he endears himself to this band. And Pronto is born. And the world is saved, and destroyed. A sequel is imminent.



When You're Gone is out through Off The Hip Records - get it here.

Xylouris White's Chicken Song Is Punk As Fuck

I had to post this. I was writing a review of Goats, the excellent album that melds the minds of Cretan folk legend George Xylouris and Dirty Three drummer Jim White (as Xylouris White). As the review only is 100 words long, some of the review was cut. Including the above phrase. Well it actually went 'And 'Chicken Song' is the one song where White and Xylouris get dark, mystical and punk as fuck.' The reworkings of traditional machinations into the musical genius of these two twisted troubadours is great, yet not many people may prescribe to such a outlandish claim - but I stand steadfastly by it. There is a sinuous, almost sinister groove that insinuates itself at the core of 'Chicken Song', taking it from European or Eastern composition, caricature or appropriation, and moving it into a sonic plateau all its own - with serious attitude to burn. There are many more great songs on Goats - it's an incredible suite of rhythmic interplay, both mischievous and elegant, a series of games that the duo play where the winner invariably is the listener - but 'Chicken Song' displays just how kindred their spirits really are. Let's hope for many more collaborative efforts between Xylouris and White if this is anything to go by.

Xylouris White - Chicken Song from Michalis Aristomenopoulos on Vimeo.

Goats (which was also produced by Guy Picciotto from seminal outfit Fugazi) is out through Other Music Co - get it here.

Culled From Magi Fuel

Sydney atmospheric dreamers Cull have come out with a single in 'Magi Fuel' that is multi-faceted - it's spiky yet languid, warped yet layered, streamlined yet running at right-angles. The weird effects breakdown in the final third is both creepy and energising; Chumpy Ly's guitar and falsetto drifting in and out of the melange of sounds, both orchestrating and being guided by the natural lifeblood of the song. It toys with shoegaze and muzak - elevator music for a environmental utopia/dystopia narrative.

'Magi Fuel' comes from a new EP of the same name that'll be out soon. Looking forward to it.

A Not-so-subtle Turn Of The Homeless Hips

Let's start the week with some unhinged French punk rock, yeah? Subtle Turnhips actually brought Redhair With Some out back in June (through great Aussie label Homeless Records no less) but it slipped through my fingers until this weekend. As I was charring sausages to within an inch of their lives, smoke billowing around me, a pint near at hand, the meltdowns this trio dole out fit perfectly with my fried mind. It swings from crunchy blues with feral hues to gravel-rash gutter punk and broken glass rock, all with unfettered, crazy-eyed abandon. And the connection to Homeless is clear from the bent-string anarchy of 'Cousin' and the last-gasp whisky rasp of 'Digit (five)' to the (suppression) rings being run on 'Slime'. Redhair With Some is the missing link in Franco-Oz punxploitation (even the artwork is like a lewd reimagining of a Mick Turner/Dirty Three watercolour) - get it here.

Video Vacuum - Dean Blunt, A Kenny For Your Thoughts, Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders, Las Tetas

Normally I do a Video Vacuum for the weekday when the working grind is bearing down on us (me). This Sunday I am buried in bed, watching British folk horror movies. And these music videos. Come nestle in beside me.

Dean Blunt a force unto himself - a part of the enigmatic genius of Hype Williams, and just as beguiling on his own. Here is the clip for 'Trident' - half slow motion inner city unease with ambient brew, before the discordant groove finally smashes through. The otherworldly beats and Blunt's voice echoing from the dark depths, equal parts aggression and ominous croon, combine to present a narcoleptic spiral into a disturbed netherworld. Excellent. And for good measure - here is 'Trident Pt 2".

Liam Kenny's solo downward slide A Kenny For Your Thoughts is something else, right? And finally we have some visuals to go with this electronic melting pot of eclectic nihilism. 'Avalanche' is such a great industrial grind pop song (or something), and the smoky dinge, sordid card games and lurid Aussie currency pile is custom-built for Kenny's skewed work. The fade out B&W and the bleeding colour swaps add to the mind melt pyrotechnics. Brilliant.

Jackie Lads (Jack Ladder to you) and his Dreamlanders are bailing Hurtsville and have a podium riding Sharon Van Etten in tow for 'Come On Back This Way'. His is a truly idiosyncratic approach knows no bounds - this is 80s lounge croon, C&W twang brood, and with a slide guitar solo from a man with a glowing hook for a hand - just in time for some good damn coffee. Now where is that backwards talking dwarf when you need him? Brilliant.

And we finish up out on The Plains with Las Tetas. A film clip that plays out like a kitchen-sink realist approach to Gummo, middle class Antipodean style, this video has me transfixed. There isn't anything overly sordid about the whole piece, but (for the second Lynchian parallel) there is something hidden amongst the grass behind the white picket fence here. Especially digging that fat bassline that reverberates over the top of everything, refusing to stay buried (just like that bloody severed ear). Brilliant.

A Winged Victory...

I was waiting for the Tube yesterday and saw this poster for an event in January 2015 called Minimalism Unwrapped (and yes the excellent photography above is from yours truly). The first names that jumped out at me was obviously Steve Reich and Scanner. The second though was A Winged Victory For The Sullen, which was more of a surprise as I had only heard of them twenty four hours beforehand. Coincidence? I think not...or probably.

Anyway, A Winged Victory For The Sullen is a duo who make incredibly haunting and uplifting ambient tapestries. It isn't surprising these guys are so adept at crafting intricate aural infinities - Adam Wiltzie is Stars Of The Lid and played in Sparklehorse whilst Dustin O'Halloran is a composer. They have just released second album Atomos and it is breathtaking. Made as a score for a dance piece performed at Sadlers Well in London, the suite of songs hang together like gossamer in twilight, an effervescent mirage of texture, grandiose in the most primal sense, strings, piano and electronica melding together to melt the hardest of hearts.



You can buy Atomos in beautiful clear double vinyl through Erased Tapes here, and tickets to Minimalism Unwrapped here. Both are/will be amazing.

Unknown Broken Shards

Just a quickfire post about a release I wish more people knew about (including myself). Shards are a Melbourne band - and that's about all I know. Except that this cathartic, cacophonous mess that is their debut album is a guitar maelstrom of tension. Even when the noise is unleashed - which is quite often - there is no relent, no release. Ratcheted up to the nth degree, Shards splinters and fractures and reforms as before, coiled for another attack. 'Morning Song' hits you in a subtler way - a broken whimsy that seems windswept and breezy but is just as desperate as the assaults of  'Play' and the brooding storm of 'Hanging Around'. There is lyrical abasement and navel-gazing, all delivered in a drawled strangle. It's great. More please.

Hits From The Box #87 - The Cricketers' Devil's Number

We have hit the 87th edition of Hits From The Box. There should have been heaps more to be honest, but these are unwieldy buggers and it's quite amazing that we have gotten this far - come on, I have only done three drone columns since the start of the year on what was supposed to be a weekly sojourn into the noisy unknown! Anyway, I also love cricket, and they are a stupidly superstitious lot. One thing that at least the Australian contingent get hot under the collar about is the unlucky number 87, which is 13 runs away from hitting an illustrious century. Really? It doesn't even have 13 in the number; it's a ridiculous innings to be scared of! 87 is a good score - and if you blame luck when getting out then, when you are seeing the ball like it's as big as the Sun, you are a worse human being than your Twitter feed says you are. So in lieu of all of this, I present you six bands that have dropped in the box that are filled with expletives, uncomfortable nuances, and abject hedonism - I'd rather lose my shit to this than a dodgy astrology reading on my batting average at least...

Who else should kick off proceedings other than a band calling themselves Chugga and The Fuckheads? This is not an ironic name either - don't expect knowing lyrics and cool clothes. This is a Melbourne band of fuckwits tearing the place apart, barely keeping time in between sculling beers and slugging women. It's awful. And that is why they are my new favourite band.

Let's head over to the more cheery yet still stupid New Swears. The Canadian four-piece are a garage party machine of the sloppiest kind, filled with vim, vigour, vinegar and vodka. New album Junkfood Forever, Bedtime Whenever is a great name for this album, but also undermines it a bit - there are infinitely more hooks and cool times to be had that such a cheeky title leads you to believe. It is sugary jangle and acid-tinged hypercolour, the kind of music that gives you a killer euphoric and energetic high and leaves you with cigarettes and cat piss in your mouth the morning after. And like all awful comedowns - you will be back on the rollercoaster just as soon as you work out how to uncross your eyes.

Are you ready for some basement scumbag punk from Michigan? No Bails are equal parts rough as guts, dumb as shit and awesome as fuck. Their new album Epyx Shredder (out through newish awesome label Pelican Pow Wow and includes the ridiculous Mad Max cover art above) is simplistic, breakneck rock with song titles like 'Yor So Shitty', 'Your NES Is Fucking With Me', 'Nubber #10' and 'Who's A Punk, Your Mother' - it's a winner. The boys played a show with SM faves Deaf Wish as they travelled through the US on their way to GonerFest so that piqued the interest - but this acidic Ramones on rancid Es slab of punk is its own blasted, wasted beast.

Now for something totally different we have Beep!, the Oakland jazz synth weirdniks that features Tune-Yards' Nate Brenner. Too Physical is a weird walk on the slanted and enchanted side, with beeps, squelches, glacial hip-hop appropriations and glitches real and imagined all melding to create the soundtrack for the future when the world is overrun by the aliens from the filmclip to that song 'Blue', all trying to act like hipster humans. I'm not even being disparaging - some of these songs hurt my inner Self, but others were beguiling and - dare I say it - groovy. There is Tortoise and Deerhoof links in there, then there are real outlier stuff that not even free jazz can encompass... Its the kind of giddy experiment that shouldn't work, almost doesn't, but is so ebullient and gleeful that you can't help but be sucked into the 8-bit vortex. How warped is Beep!? Well their album is available on an art card that is plantable. For real. Plant it and the little daisies get pushed out. Whoa...

After that mind melt, it's fair to say our brains are fried, so no wonder we wanna get our Sex Hands on... The Manchester four-piece has actually been mentioned on Sonic Masala before, but seeing as I'm going for mildly offensive references today (New Swears, No Bails' lyrics, Beep!'s song 'Shit Pony' and 'That Shit In The Sky Is Stars'), I thought I'll do what I want. LIKE ALWAYS. Anyway, they finally released their excellent debut album Pleh the other month (through ever excellent Faux Discx) and yeah, you should totally lose your shit over it. NOW.

Let's finish with Blood Of The Bull, the side project for Scottish noiseniks Divorce's Hillary Van Scoy. It's that tightwire mix of holy innocence and scuzzy sneer that really drags you in. Soft Power Records put out her Bend Over EP earlier this year and it's pretty good - you can grab it here. Until then, hold your head up high and go fuck yourself (what? It's the title of the song!)



Happy weekend everyone!

Eyeing Off Living With Guilty Pleasures

Geelong's greatest exponents of slacker punk The Living Eyes have upped the ante tenfold on their new single 'Guilty Pleasures', the first taste of their new LP Living Large to come out on Anti-Fade Records. The rough, nigh-on-brutal pace and tone of this song evokes dirty dingy 70s neck brace pace punk, which those who loved their self-titled debut (and I am definitely one of those) might find a shocking twist to the band's sound. But seriously, I haven't heard something this energised and authentic (although I'm sure the boys would scoff at that term) for a long time - we are used to laconicism, whimsy, cynicism and abject amorality, yet straight up floored serration and spit like this has been missing from the garage for aeons. A friend of mine compared this 7" (coupled with equally destructive 'Lowlife') to The Intelligence - who I really like - but 'Guilty Pleasures' is - dare I say it? - better. Get the 7" here and hyperventilate until Living Large finally hits us in the face.

FORGING BITS AND PIECES OR EARL

(Article by Fred Savage Beasts)

I am digging this new Earl Boykins record. What at first seemed like it was going to be a pretty straightforward deal took a nice turn for the strangely personal. Part confession, part airy feeling, and all in all pretty damn interesting, it feels really comfortable (but not too comfortable). And it’s growing on me big time. There are little licks in here worth going back for; scraps and bits to really pay attention to. It’s kinda like visiting some place you used to go on school holidays only to find out your parents used to score cheap weed there. And then finding out that you can get a family discount cause the guy remembers your mum or you have the same moustache as your dad, or something like that.


Get your hands on the record (out on tape through Forged Artifacts) now. And check out the rest of the roster while you’re there. The Los Angeles Police Department track is damn rad.

TOM CRUISE AND KATIE HOLMES BACK TOGETHER

(Article by Fred Savage Beasts)

Don't expect a casual Internet search for a band called Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes to bear much fruit people - but that is why we are here, to help solve your problems. The Chinese duo ponder the desolation of what goes wrong when such a match made in heaven falls apart... *cough* ...

What TCAKH’s ‘Ni Bu Ai Wo’ really is is the soundtrack to a post video game violence wasteland. What should be played as you traverse the mass graves of the digitally dead looking for lost traces of humanity amongst the rubble. There are strange noises out there, some that sound like people calling to you, others like great bone-collecting ships clearing the landscape for future hopeless victims.
 
But the very fact that Tenzenmen continue to put out such amazing songs keeps the hope alive in my heart. (And the remix by drone artiste Huashan is golden).

Beast Singing, Flood Dancing

Wollongong rabble rousers Beast & Flood came across my radar late last year, their ramshackle and angular take on indie rock striking a chord. They supported Roku Music when they played at Blackwire Records on their national tour (also joined by the legendary Sounds Like Sunset) and really impressed. They are more akin to another of the Sonic Masala stable, Tape/Off, in their propensity to infuse sunshine and stupidity into serrated off-kilter guitar pop shenanigans, a noisy melange of desperation and elation. Other bands such as Adelaide's Sincerely, Grizzly mine these Pavement-via-woodchipper depths, and I wish there were plenty more.

'All Singing, All Dancing' is the most atonal yet sonorous I've heard the trio on record, and to balance such a disparate act is a hard task. OK, so there were some bands in the late 90s/early 00s in Australia that did similar tricks - but if you are mentioning names such as Gaslight Radio or Bluebottle Kiss, that is an inherently great comparison to make. The toy-effect underlay reminds me of the former; the unhinged march through the early stages of the latter. All up, 'All Singing, All Dancing' makes me happy to yell out the window of my south London flat in the waning hours of oncoming winter at bewildered pedestrians who aren't accustomed to any outside interaction other than jostling, dog-eat-dog arseholery (and the more-than-occasional eccentric) - so all boxes have been ticked in bold red.



The trio support the excellent Yes I'm Leaving on their Slow Release tour at the Imperial Hotel in Sydney 24th October - get yourselves along to that.

FEED THE CITY POISON WITH MEANIES SCREAMS

(Article by Fred Savage Beasts)

One of the first times I ever remember being excited about music – really, dead-set stoked, actually - was when I went to Melbourne to visit family from down that way. Growing up in Brisbane in a home where you were more likely to hear Simply Red or Wendy Matthews when the stereo was even on, I had no idea what I was in for. My cousin had just reached driving age, and statistics about teen drivers obviously hadn’t scared my parents off letting him ‘take me for a spin’ in his gold VK Commodore.

  

We drove through Melbourne city. Fast. It was huge. There were lights and buildings everywhere. And he was playing the Meanies and Screamfeeder at way too loud a volume. It was like some kind of baptism. Like one of those times you look back on afterwards and think about how if it never happened your life would have panned out completely differently. That night was like a gateway drug to a ‘90s Australian goldmine. It was a whole new sound. It was rough and raw and had heart and it was made by people who had something to say about their own lives. And, as I found out, mine. 

And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks to Poison City, I can stack my record collection with some of this gold. After re-issuing the first four Screamfeeder records earlier this year, they’re doing it again for the Meanies. If you have young children, not playing them this should probably be illegal.

Trust These Punks To Get Us In Gordian Knots

Auckland tetchy malcontents Trust Punks are preparing to launch their debut LP Discipline (through Spunk Records)on a widely unsuspecting world later this year, and 'Gordian Knot' leads me to believe that they intend to hypnotise and paralyse in equal measure. Offering up an off-kilter pop stagger in the first third, the five-piece laugh and howl in our faces, the guitars interweaving with that piano-wire precision that Canadian band Women mastered so well (yes, I STILL am harping on about them), all making for a mesmerising yet disconcerting listen. Then there is the crunch of the vocal less middle, that marches forward with hooded intent, before bringing us full circle, an agitated ouroboros eating its own tail. Like geographical brethren Popstrangers, Trust Punks are taking melodies from a skewed angle, something I am incredibly happy with.

Tempura Rots Your Brain(roof)

Just a quick night trip of slightly brooding jangle from new(ish) Brisbane band Tempura Nights. Rising from the ashes of Go Violets and featuring members from Major Leagues and The Good Sports, Tempura Nights bring us 'Brainroof' which follows the current penchant for moody 90s guitar indie rock (one I have been very partial towards I must admit), and the Speedy Ortiz parallels are present and accounted for. The feedback about 2:15 in really hammers that home - its a wonderful sound. The song is a simple pleasure, but sometimes they are the best. I still haven't decided what a brainroof really is though.



Having played alongside the likes of Tomorrows Tulips, Palms, Bad//Dreems, Snowy Nasdaq and Emma Russack this year, with a gig alongside Richard In Your Mind in the near future, expect to hear from these guys.

Metronomic Time Keeping

One of Australia's newest and most intriguing labels is it Records, mining the experimental outliers of electronic pop excess (see: White Hex, A Kenny For Your Thoughts). Now they bring to our attention a newer label, Nice:NOISE (curated by it's Kate Reid, Dual Planet and Jenny Branagan from NUN), which aims to go even further in mining the depths of, to quote the crew, "the best in electronic squelches, squeals, analogue hums and various fodder." This could mean a hodgepodge of avant-garde alchemists, but with the first release it feels like there is a educated stab at bringing missed opportunities into the refracted spotlight. Time Keeping 1979-1985 is a compilation from Melbourne minimal wave trio The Metronomes, and it's an album that showcases both a hazed approach to synth malaise, the end result a languid, vaguely sinister unravelling of synthetic minds and spirits. My pick - 'A Living Person'. Pre-order it here.

Michael's Gone Gold Class

Here is yet another "new" Australian band to take in and be excited about. I remember seeing the name Gold Class on a poster for a Sunday School show at the Public Bar in Melbourne, I think in April or May? But never really cottoned on to them - and it seems I've really been missing out. Listening to the Michael/Gone release, I have this weird conflicted notion that I've somehow wedged The Smiths' Meat Is Murder and Wire's 154 into the same piece of 7" wax. Adam Curley's baritone does hold some of that Morrissey moan, but the cutting guitar and insistent rhythms does recall his cohorts; whilst the tapered aggression that simmers under the surface evokes Colin Newman et al at the more measured. It is all decidedly dark hued and downer (Brit)pop, which alone lends it an unique place on the current Australian music milieu, but Gold Class exude a sense of literate sensibility that is also very exciting. I can't wait to hear more from the four-piece.



Gold Class release the 7" next month. You can catch them in Brisbane on Fri 24 October at The Bearded Lady (supported by Dag) and the following night at Trainspotters (with Multiple Man and Per Purpose serving props). These will be excellent shows - get along.

A Civil Civic Marriage With Moore

Let's turn the lights down low this evening - reeeeal low. That crazy hybrid instrumental duo Civil Civic now how to grind out a groove, and have upped the ante by including perennial DIY  R Stevie Moore into the mix for new track 'When You Gonna Find Me A Wife?'. It's definitely a Civil Civic song, but with Moore's demanding lyrics for marriage and the whole nine yards, albeit at a breakneck, lurid pace. What more could you want or need? Nothing. Well, I do declare...



Civil Civic have a new album out soon - cannot WAIT.

Video Vacuum - Yes I'm Leaving, Mesa Cosa, Cobwebbs, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, USA Nails

I don't know about you, but today is a drag. Let's punch through the walls with some raucous noise coupled with stupid visuals!

Yes I'm Leaving have inexplicably built up a true head of steam with the incumbent launch of 3rd LP Slow Release. I'm not saying it is unwarranted - far from it; I have maintained everywhere, including this here blog, that the Sydney trio are one of the best live acts in Australia and have been for the past couple years. But just seeing these guys in reviews and post on US music sites has been a bit of a weird notion - I mean, they still are lucky to pull ten punters to shows in their hometown! Well people better start taking notice, because they are brilliant. Aren't sold? If the nightmare/hilarity of 'Fear' doesn't hook you, you are probably dead (at least to me).

Mesa Cosa is another band that are slaying the stages across Australia, although their brand of rock is certainly more party friendly. The Melbourne garage wild boys have launched into the zombie zeitgeist with latest track 'Creepy' - well, hordes of pantyhose-wearing acolytes anyway. It's stupid and awesome in equal measure, and the bulk of noise that comes out of  the backend of this band is truly felt here. 

It always feels like self-promotion nowadays when I talk about a band that has released material through Sonic Masala Records - but things need to be seen (and heard) to be believed with Brisbane's Cobwebbs. Having just released their second album WORLD WIDE WEBBS through our label (on 12" orange vinyl no less, and now at much more affordable digital prices), the dudes have just come away from a support slot with Iceage and a Sydney show alongside another group that should be on everyone's radar at the moment, Exek. Here is the decidedly batshit crazy video for second single 'Easy', filled with everything that makes Cobwebbs tick - airplane interiors, fast cars, Dubai, models, and bad CGI, amongst other snatch grabs of brain-frying ephemera. The world we live in, eh?

Who wants some 60s B-movie 3D? King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have you covered. The latest clip for new track 'Cellophane' has a bored night in front of the idiot box transformed by psychedelic robed hippy red-blue-yellow madness - there's fuzzy lines! There's gold chains! There's flying! The last couple of seconds are amazing too. A great all round trip.

I'm  finishing with USA Nails because, well, this band just slipped into my slipstream this morning. 'Sometimes I'd Rather See It All' has a clip that feeds into its title, which is always an added bonus. The strobes, the sliding blood, the interfered-with facial close-ups - it's all disconcerting. The London band (really) play out like a more crystallised A Place To Bury Strangers - something I am extremely excited about. Hopefully you are too.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!!