This Endgame Will Make Your Hd Spn

This has been out for a couple months, so I missed the boat a little here, but the new album from NZ rapscallions HDSPNS, the easily decipherable /'EN(D),GĀM/, is a brittle, brutal monster. They have gone from a more calypso math instrumental stance to something more aggressive - like Balloons-era Foals with a more ingenious yet bitter twist, a Battles-esque propensity for hypercolour, for hyper rhythms, for hyperreal aural violence. Really needs attention this record. Get the cassette here. Goodnight.

Hits From The Box #113 - Re-Breaking Bad

Has anyone got a good show I should watch? At the moment I'm in the last four episodes of Breaking Bad after watching it again for the third time. Not complaining, mind, it's a great show. But I need to move on a bit. So hit me up with suggestions, and in exchange, here are six more Hits From The Box...

One of the premier bands in the PNKSLM Records roster is Stockholm's Sudakistan. Normally known for more party-central garage rock, new single 'Mundo Mamon' is a more visceral beast, with the scuzz wall shot with percussive Latin beats and psych phasers. It is a heady precursor to their debut record Caballo Negro, out at the end of October - you can pre-order it here (on transparent/black spattered vinyl, no less).



Olympia traveller Tapes & Tubes has crafted a quiet introspective gem in Man In The Window. The hushed vocals of the title track evokes Iron & Wine or a narcoleptic Pedro The Lion, with stories told in maudlin half-tones, the acoustic strums and echoed effects pushing us further into contemplation. Rustic ruminations sung from the peripherals.

Boston's ugly pop gurus Lady Bones released their LP Dying (out now through Midnight Werewolf Records) and its a corker. Following in the footsteps of Pile and Big Mess and the rest of the brilliant Boston bunch that are bursting into the stratosphere of late, Lady Bones employ a rambunctious and muscular delivery that is both avuncular, louche and rigid, the vocals warbled and rough, the bassline steely and fused to the centre, the constant that the pounding drums and growling guitars stay bound to. It remains somewhat skeletal too - this is sinuous, barebones rock, delivered with lackadaisical verve. Therefore, GET IT.

The second half of this post heads to Australia, starting with Melbourne collective Mallee Songs. Originally a solo project for Michael Skinner, Natural Times is a fully realised band concern, and like Antipodean contemporaries The Middle East it revels in harmonious multilayered instrumentation and a lyrical nous focused on an insular meditation on the world as it winds by - going from the warm amble of 'Since The Kingdom' and swirling jangle of 'A Warm Breeze'. 'Christmas '93' reminds me a lot of Karl Smith and Sodastream - so big win there. The band supported Lehmann B Smith launch his new record last month and are doing a monthly residency at The Old Bar this month, with the likes of Hideous Towns, Zig Zag and Sleep Decade in support - get down there.

To Brisbane now, Paul Donoughue AKA Big Strong Brute. His new release, the EP Good Work, is a fair jump in electricity and verve from 2012's Avalanche Of Truth. Not that doing away with acoustics and plugging in has skewed his songwriting nous in any way. 'Start making sense' are the first words sung on opening track 'Wait', a slight play on Talking Heads, but also has a buoyant drum machine and air-punching lack of inhibition. 'Wedding Pages' holds more gravity and chagrin ('Why throw it up if it just comes down') but the ebullient undercurrent to Donoughue's edgy yet tempered exasperation turns an anthem into a magnetic revelation. And when the electric guitar swaggers through 'Heavy Mountain', you know that Big Strong Brute is more confident than ever - good work indeed.

And I'm going to finish off with some Brisbane rock royalty here. Screamfeeder's frontman Tim Stewart has been plying the trade with his We All Want To project for some years now, and has just released new album The Haze. Steward has always had a enigmatic yet charismatic presence, his lyrics elliptical, poetic and at times acerbic, and his delivery is easily identifiable - so much so that when he launches into opener 'Eileen Afternoon' a sense of welcoming bonhomie, of feeling like 'home', floods through me. We All Want To lacks the buzzsaw edge that Screamfeeder revels in (and with new songs apparently in the can, we might get some latter day 'Feeder treats soon!), but 'Everybody's Damaged' holds more emotional heft while songs like 'Party Girls' and 'Road To Ruin' shows shadows of that rawness. 'Remove The Arrow' on the other hand sees Skye Staniford take the vocal reins and is one of the strongest songs on the record, hands down.



Happy Sunday everyone!

Nought Like Yonatan Gat

Back a few years ago, Paul, the guy I started Sonic Masala with, had a favourite band. That band was Monotonix. The Israeli garage rock unit were a maniacal maelstrom of sound and fury, throwing themselves figuratively and literally under the bus of the rock gods gig after gig. The underground swell of hype that built over their shows grew to the point they were looking at becoming global superstars. But as with all pent up balls of sonic light, it has to burn out, and in 2011 Monotonix called it a day.

And today we have Yonatan Gat, the frontman from that venture, having released a 10" Physical Copy beast on Joyful Noise Recordings (grab it here - it has a blood red smear on the vinyl which is pretty great looking too). It includes the seven minute instrumental fried jam that is '0'. It has received the requisite Steve Albini noise treatment, so it sounds loud and abrasive. The thing this, there is a unhinged yet meticulous approach to '0' that Albini, or any other producer at the top of their game, just cannot harness - it is in the creative DNA. Gat may be more improvisational and rhythm driven, but his confrontational sense of melody and explosive expression is still very much in evidence here.

Lost In King Midas Touch & Fennesz' Waves

I just wanted to lay this down here - the perfect comedown fugue state. King Midas Sound has joined forces with Fennesz and is apparently looking at doing shows in London soon. Let's hope this happens soon, and in an arena that is both intimate yet transformative, where the surroundings complement and augment the ambient bruises. I want to lie down and drown in this

Small Time Sunhoods

Here is something I am pretty excited about (and have been for a few months - sorry about the late post guys!). As you know, one of my favourite releases of last year (and out of the Not Not Fun oeuvre also) was Sunk by UK recluse Blackhoods. Now there isn't new Blackhoods material to get excited about (yet...) but he has joined forces with fellow tantric droner Sun Skeletons to become the slow jam Sunhoods. The duo put out a cassette, Vol 1, through Double Dot Dash. The guys call their collaboration "freewheelin’ shahi baaja meets deep ocean slow jams." Listen and watch 'Small Time' below, and I can't really make a better comment. Grab Vol 1 here - let's hope we get them down to London real soon!

Erased By Fire

Great US label Fire Talk are really stepping up over the next few months. With the imminent release of Media Jeweler's album $99 R/T Hawaii (you can read my thoughts on it here) and an incoming releases from Future Museums and Dreamcrusher (more on these soon), you think they had their bases well and truly covered. Well add to the list Stem Together, the debut release from Australian mantra psychs Erasers. Hailing from Perth, the duo produce a steady swirling rhythm on an ethereal drone dream that isn't far removed from the the more ruminative moments of Pocahaunted (ah I miss those gals!) - it's the vocals of Rebecca Orchard and the lethargic yet insistent, ritualistic motorik rhythms underpinning the organ that really sinks its transcendental teeth in. It unfurls like mystic smoke, intangible yet incorruptible.

Grab Stem Together here.


<

Frida's Coming Up Slowly

Melbourne band Frida is proving to be the perfect end of  the week for me. Eilish Gilligan's vocals remind me of Tyla from Brisbane band Gota Cola (remember them? God I loved this band! They played a show in a church venue that used to be in Brisbane, The Healer (RIP), with Sealife Park (another great band!) and it was pretty transcendental... If you have forgotten, here is an unqualified gem from them you need to check out right now!), and 'Slowly' lurches slowly, an atmospheric groove penetrating the gloom, the backing vocals only lending gravity and timbre to the lingering menace. There is a glimmer of sunlight towards the end, but the echoing guitar line at the end feels more like a metronome, holding everything in a neverending loop. Buy the 7" (out through Wyall Style Records) here.

Placing Perfect Pressure On The Poster Boy

This came through the emails earlier this week - and it's a winner. Poster Boy is a Melbourne subterranean matinee idol who sent me his new album Pressure and Perfection based on my review for Tasmanian weirdniks All The Weathers (if you haven't checked out their great release Going For Gold, see what I thought and have a listen here). Poster Boy is all about experimental, experiential synth waves, basking in the alkaline glow of a cathode ray, gin on the rocks in one hand, cigarette in the other, lounging and leching on the black velvet couch, sunglasses on in the dark. The internal coldness of 'Paused For Thought' wanders into the warped tape warble of 'Raw Nerve'. Once 'In The Wild' hits, you realise you are caught in the dungeon of a 80s Dark Romantic nightmare, putting on the mascara and the lotion in lethargic concentric circles, marking your skin and your soul with the tracks of heavy yet figurative tears. The cavernous narcotic crawl of 'Need Some Feeling' plays both as a seductive reach and a narcotic fall, caught between erotica and unconsciousness. It's an disconcerting yet alluring listen - lather up and slide into the underworld with Poster Boy.

Never Bite Through The Trix

Oneohtrix Point Never has just released the first song from upcoming (and hotly anticipated) album Garden of Delete. What with the many teasers floating about, it has been hard to grasp what is in store. 'I Bite Through It' remains a real headscratcher, in the best kind of way. Starting with stuttering, sonorous synth and hold-pattern beats, it feels like Daniel Lopatin is going for the pop overdose jugular; but as the sounds mount and enter their own grooved paths, something is building. The industrial pounding moments that hit though are cathartic hiccups though - halfway through we hit a Cornelius level of contemplation, a New Age eye of the storm, before all elements meld into each other, guitar adding yet another layer, a flagrant merging of cyber tape manipulations. Preorder Garden Of Delete (out through Warp Records) here.

Vangelising A Space-Age Maserati

Another legendary instrumental band to be releasing an album this year is Maserati, who seem to have melded with Vangelis and Trans Am on new track 'Rehumanizer II', the first taste (and closing track) off Rehumanizer, out next month through Temporary Residence. The artwork itself is pretty spectacular, evoking William Gibson, Dune, Deus Ex and other steampunk/cyberpunk/desertpunk literature. The track itself is a colourful pastiche of krautrock stuck in a big-riff prism and shot into a neon-lit galaxy far, far away. It's atmospheric, it's tense, it's a hell of a lot of fun. You can pre-order Rehumanizer here.

Battles Wake In Fright

Most people know I have a bit of a hard-on for Battles. I think that John Stanier is one of the best drummers around (and one of the best interviewees I've had the pleasure of talking to), while Ian Williams is from the brilliant Don Caballero. I also think that Mirrored is a pure act of musical alchemical genius. So a new album is always going to be high on my list of anticipated records of 2015. So what has me even more rabid than La Di Da Di? The fact that new single is called 'The Yabba'! Why is that important? Because The Yabba is what they call Bundanyabba, the fictional New South Wales country town in the seminal outback horror book by Kenneth Cook and subsequent seminal Ted Kotcheff film, Wake In Fright. I very much doubt this is a coincidence. And it is a Battles song, goddammit! So drop everything, listen to this ad nauseum, and preorder La Di Da Di here!



NOTE: The second track from La Di Da Di, 'FF Bada', has just dropped today! Enjoy kids!

It's Rumoured To Be Pony Time

Continuing on from Childbirth, we have another Seattle band, Pony Time, whose Stacy Peck is in Childbirth. It seems that Peck's penchant for pounding percussion, crunching riffs and ridiculous jokes covers the gamut of her music - Pony Time's upcoming album is called Rumours 2: The Rumours Are True. She is joined here by Luke Beetham, and the duo have a strong, direct approach, not mucking about with time signatures and weird syncopations, instead offering power pop with equal amounts of nonchalance and fuzzed-out confidence. This is their fourth album, so there is no excuse to get on the wagon here. You can pre-order Rumours 2 here.

Making Childbirth Bad

Seattle punk trio Childbirth are doing all they can to skewer gender bias and to kick arse with their upcoming LP Women's Rights (out through Suicide Squeeze Records later this month), all while pissing themselves at everyone else's expense. Their songs are often cheeky and outlandish, from 'Tech Bro' to 'Baby Bump' (about someone who brings cocaine to a baby shower). Even the seemingly dark grunge howl of 'Let's Be Bad' is a tongue-in-cheek look at what's expected of women who "let their hair down". But the violence inherent in the music isn't entirely anachronistic - the girls are here to rock as much as they are to take a stand - consider them Sleater-Kinney's irreverent younger siblings. You can pre-order Women's Rights right here - in Dish Glove Yellow, no less.

Have Confidence In Transistors

New Zealand trio Transistors are back with 'Confidence Man', a blasting garage track about the hollowness of bands trying to be what they're not. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but this is also the most generic song the guys have put together. It still kills, and with new EP Cuppa Jarra Brossa on the way, it's time to get excited.

Charting Unknown Dagger Shores

I know next to nothing about Brooklyn trio Dagger Shores. They sent me four tracks a month ago, and their dark, damaged psych soul is mesmerising. It hinges heavily on the sumptuous tones of the organ and the moaned, whispered and yelped vocals coming imperceptibly out of the smoke and shadows. 'Deep Sleep' keeps a krautrock beat, a seductive pull that allows the amalgamation of devilish sax and maniacal noise into a heaving, ecstatic fury. There are hints of Cave here, although these guys are far more frenetic and feverish. 'Ray Brower' could be early Talking Heads if David Byrne was more interested in Cluster; 'Hive Of Love' is carnivalesque, a Tom Waits freak show without the bourbon-drenched monolith as a frontman, replaced instead with someone more subterranean. The last track is 'The Shallows', a propulsive moody maelstrom, the drumming more insistent, the sax more frantic, the whispers incoherent, the howls anarchic. I'd love to know more about these guys, because this stuff is goddamn killer.

Keeping The Service Industry Circus Lush

I've been playing these two tracks from New York duo Lushes incessantly this week. Their LP Service Industry (with cool cover art of a torn up menu order) comes out next month on Felte Records. 'Circus' has that cool sardonic vocal delivery that Girls Against Boys have pretty much patented, yet with a more disdainful air, and the saxophone-and-feedback drenched breakdown near the end before James Ardery mutters "We're in the circus and I just want you to know/That it's a joke" is a killer expulsion of jittery aggression. The guitarwork here is also brutal, able to swing on a metronome, take a middle distance, before launching forth in a fret-stressing explosion, all without preamble or coercion. And we all know how much I'm loving fucked-up sax in rock songs at the moment...especially when provided by Zs' Sam Hillmer. 'Low Hanging Fruit' follows a similar path, if somewhat more imposing and claustrophobic, and the chaotic drumming and siren guitar is darkly brilliant. Pre-order Service Industry here - it promises to be gargantuan.

It Doubles

It Records has two great new releases to announce (after the excellent 1, the album from Taipan Tiger Girls that I wrote about here). First up is power doom electronic duo Armour Group. Their LP Purge (jointly released by Trait Records) promises to be a punishing listen if the title track is anything to go by. Four minutes of pounding percussion, distorted loudspeaker spittle sermonizing, a looped sample of someone stating that to psychologically advance he must purge himself... Obsessed with the darker proclivities of human desire, Purge is nihilistic, obliterating, devastating.

Secondly there is the announcement that gothic electronic act Mollusc is also joining the fold. The duo have just released this tape as a precursor of a new effort. The six tracks here interlace to create a soundscape of domination, electronic vice and gloss veneer with a seedy underside. In short, it's the kind of gritty goth post-punk that should score a 21st remake of Cherry 2000 directed by Kathryn Bigelow (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, head here and sort out your lack of Melanie Griffiths knowledge stat).

New Housewives Dance

A fortnight ago there was a noisy festival in Dalston called Wyrdout. I heard it was great. I only got to see two bands on the Friday. I finally saw Gnod (they were so loud they made me feel physically ill and I put toilet paper in my ears to stop from being put in an iron lung - so they were great) and local band Housewives. I had heard of them around the traps recently and thought they were the Sydney band of the same name. But these guys are an entirely different beast, as their EP out through Faux Discx last year and new 7" out on new local label Blank Editions attests. An NME review compared them to Pixies or Gang of Four. And while I might say there is a proclivity for Wire-esque militaristic precision, the four-piece are more in line with My Disco in their motorik rhythms and barked vocals, while embracing chaotic auxiliary percussion and atonal drones into what is already a blood-pulsing caterwaul.


'New Dance' represents the more cathartic mayhem the band can procure, while 'Time She Stopped' is a slowburn spiral into madness, starting in an ambient slipstream before tension breaks in a maniacal cataclysm of noise before breaking back into a no wave stutter...then silence. There is an album on the way - I hold high hopes for it. Expect to see Housewives on a Sonic Masala showcase before the year's out. Buy the 7" here, and listen to last year's EP below.

Wasting Nothing On Air Formation

One of the first bands I wrote about when Sonic Masala started way back in 2010 was Brighton shoegazers Air Formation. Not long after they released Nothing To Wish For (Nothing To Lose) though the band called it a day...until last year, when they got back together for some shows. Not much of a hiatus, I think you'd agree. The band are now preparing to release a new EP, Were We Ever Here, and 'The Wasted Days' is the first taste from it. It is as visceral and grandiose as ever, if not a little more energetic, the wall of noise that envelops as much an embrace as it is an affront. Were We Ever Here can be pre-ordered here through Club AC30, while the band launch the EP (with help from Night Flowers and The Enters) at the Old Bath House in Hackney September 30 - buy your tickets for that now.

Playing Outback Golf Calypso With Big Dingo

Back in 2013 I put on a Sonic Masala show that included Sydney scrubber Charles Buddy Daaboul (the other acts - Silver Screens, Multiple Man and Kigo). Formerly of the great No Art, Daaboul's brand of lackadaisical groove was disarming and I have always been interested in what comes next. What came next was Big Dingo, and as the name suggests it's a band steeped in the minutiae of being an Australian, loving the outdoors and the smell of the air, the grass, the sport, the beer, sitting back and realising "you know what? Life ain't half bad ey." Case in point: 'Outback Golf', the first taste off their debut album and a slow-paced cruiser that plays almost like ocker calypso. What's it about? Playing golf in the outback. Not stepping in wombat poo. Eating meat pies in the sun. It's funny, dorky, ridiculous, and a hell of a lot of fun. I cannot stop calling out oooooooooutback, goooooooooolf... I'm sure the neighbours are loving me.