This has been in the wind for about a year now, but excellent local label Lost Race has finally released Loomer's debut LP Ceiling on vinyl! I was lucky enough to be walking past Rockinghorse Records on Monday after Lost Race's Danny Venzin dropped off some preliminary copies (the release date isn't until May 30). Originally out on CD in December 2010, Ceiling showcases the burgeoning talents of the dark shoegaze-driven quartet. I got to see them support Swervedriver in 2011 (which I reviewed here), and looked forward to their imminent explosion as the year went on. Unfortunately that was not to be - the band imploded, with members going on to focus on other sonic efforts such as Per Purpose, Spite House, Slug Guts, Eastlink and Lakes. Thank God for Lost Race then, because Ceiling is a minor masterpiece all atonal bluster and feedback wash corralled by Brea Stanbridge's soothing vocals, a hint of menace barely held in check. This kind of music is a rarity in Australian circles, and almost never done this well. The vinyl sounds incredible too, and fittingly displays a band that could have been so much more.
You can pre-order Ceilinghere (there are only 100 copies, which is Lost Race's MO). You can also get it from Permanent Records here.
Back in 2011 I spoke about a band from Chicago called Locrian. I really dug their The Clearing release from 2011 - still do - but haven't really paid them much mind since. The excellent Bathetic Records have put forth some pretty bloody good releases of late (Lee Noble's Ruiner is also ace - more on that soon), and their latest presser is for the debut LP from Kwaidan, which features Locrian's Andre Foisy. Bathetic and Locrian dragged me in - but Make All The Hell Of Dark Metal Bright is darkly, seductively hypnotic by its own standards.
Firstly, check out the cover art - this is such a rad photo, I would be pressured to listen to this on the image alone. Foisy is joined by Mike Weis (Zelienople) and Neil Jendon, underscoring Kwaidan's penchant for insidious drone. Yet these elements still didn't prepare me for the dense atmospherics that Make All The Hell... unleashes. The pervading sense of oppressive anxieties that the percussive undercurrents push to the surface, an undulating presence intermingling with the slight electronics, percolating guitar and ghostly piano lines to create an ominous beauty - the fog rolling over mountain ranges, licking the heels of the forest floor, or linger in backwater streets as the light seeps up over the horizon.
Make All The Hell... contains all the elements that makes drone music an essential element of the musical landscape; underscore why drone is a necessary byproduct of psych musicality; and how the strained tensions of the loud/quiet dynamic can be endlessly utilised for maximum effect without falling into the familiar tropes that mediocre post-rock aficionados flock to. This is an incredible record.
You can pre-order Make All The Hell Of Dark Metal Brighthere - it is quite brilliant.
Ah, Nova Scotia. There is something in the air there that always seems to produce honest musicians. It doesn't matter what genre is being crafted, there is an authenticity grafted into the fibre of the songs that you believe in what is being done, there are no smokescreens or sleights of hand, it is the real deal.
Which leads me to Sam Hill AKA The Everywheres. I haven't heard of him before now, and before last night I only had 'Easy Bells' to riff off - but this track further augments my thoughts on the Canadian region. The heat, speed and vitality that oozes from every pore of 'Easy Bells' further questions the boundaries of psych rock (something that will always appeal to me, psych fiend that I am...), whilst also caressing the elegance and patience that inhabits the best of pastoral pop. It isn't playing games - it just is, and in this line of work that is nigh on impossible to emulate.
Today I have dipped further into The Everywheres' oeuvre - and its impact has filtered everywhere through me. Flickering garage rock segues into sun-blasted waves of sonorous malaise, a warm burst of noise that doesn't come from a moment of nostalgic adulation as it does from a wormhole from the past, undiluted, pristine.
The Everywheres' debut self-titled LP comes out through Father/Daughter Records late June, and you get the feeling that this is the kind of album that will invariably get stuck in the tape player, glued to the turntable, and time will stand still even as it flies on by (especially when it looks this good). It's impossible to truly pinpoint why this resonates as much as it does when there are legions of likeminded acts - but it just does. Honesty, authenticity, simplicity, and an innateness of self - The Everywheres are everywhere, and everything, you could want and/or need. You can pre-order it here.
Those pesky UV Racers don't know how to quit. Nathan gave his view of racism (and Racism) here. They have a 7" coming out soon through No Patience (whose latest releases - 7" singles from Brisbane's Occults and Adelaide's Rule Of Thirds, are commendable purchases also), and if the lurid artwork is anything to go by, it promises to threaten you with physical harm before squeezing your crotch and licking your eyeball. This track off it doesn't play with conventions, nor need it - playing against type is their modus operandi. Look at that title. Ridiculous, right? That's how they lower your guard. Then before you know it your lipstick is smeared, your fishnets are torn, and your hair is askew, bits of straw sticking out like crooked confetti. Yet your mascara stays firmly in place - there will be no tears here, son.
If you are in the US, you can catch The UV Race playing a bunch of shows, the next few under the wing of fellow reprobates Total Control, before they pull up stumps at the Chaos in Tejas festival in Austin.
Losing vowels has been in for a while now. Hamilton, Ontario's WTCHS ensure that you lose your bowels too, scraping metal on metal to create an atonal morass of base emotions and desires that still maintain they are catchy and carefree - the perfect crime. Wet Weapons is a four track EP that thrashes violently in the near darkness, a dark, meticulous dirge that caresses your damaged soul. Merely an acid taster though (Wet Weapons came out in October), as this recent split with fellow Hamilton band Thoughts On Air attests. 'Mr Hands' cuts off your digits, sprinkles PCP in the wounds before cauterising them with a blazing iron, leaving your writhing in pain and harbouring dour, dire demons, both real and imagined. Excellent stuff. Grab the split here.
It's been almost four years since we've heard anything new echo out of the chambers of Perth's Tangled Star. Fair enough, seeing as their front man Craig Hallsworth has been busy over the years with bands like The Bamboos, The Healers and The Slow Beings. Ive never really had a handle on what Tangled Star do - the best I could come up with is through obscure comparisons, so I'm going to avoid that today. Instead, Ill state that 'Head In The Sand' is an elegiac traipse through a sepia-tinged 90s, where indie guitar pop in Australia had a distinct edge (see: Pollyanna, Gaslight Radio, Smudge, Bluebottle Kiss, about 100 others). It's dusty, dreamlike and rustic, loud in the shadows, hushed and sated in the light. Hallsworth's vocals provides that rich timbre that those excellent 90s bands all possessed also, leaving us with a song that sounds pleasantly nostalgic and unabashedly modern also. Perth label Hidden Shoal Recordings have always delved into the hushed, considered echelons of guitar rock (their reissue of San Francisco trio Half Film's two albums last year was a particularly pertinent coup), and have ensured that Tangled Star's new album Let's Adjourn To The Garden (out June 18) is one to monitor closely.
We here at Sonic Masala quite enjoyed New Zealand band Surf City's last album, Kudos. They have another on the way called We Knew It Was Not Going To Be Like This (genesis for title - a snippet of conversation overheard in a crowded South Korean bar - brilliant). The excellent and Antipodal guardian Fire Records (Blank Realm, Scott & Charlene's Wedding, Lower Plenty) are pushing it, which can only be a very good thing. The first track released off it is 'It's A Common Life'. Now, it's pretty grim today here in Brisbane. I work next to an army barracks, and today they have had army choppers going back and forth over my head, probably innocuous, yet still foreboding. Yet the warm fuzz of 'It's A Common Life' helps to shut the shit out, a swirling guitar pop gem that glimmers defiantly amidst the murk and the muck.
Leader Davin Stoddard has been around the traps since Kudos - holed up in a basement in NYC, teaching English in South Korea, lots of isolated moments both without and within. It really sounds like it's paid off in spades - I'm really looking forward to this one... We Knew It Was Not Going To Be Like This is due out in August.
To finish up the week, I'm looking at a 7" compilation that isn't exactly a covers release, although it fits tenuously within the mould.
Hear me out.
Songs In The Key Of Bob is the first official release from Charlottesville, Virginia label Hibernator Gigs Records. It features seven original songs from seven bands (a couple, such as Invisible Hand and Naked Gods, having graced these hallowed halls), all written and recorded in the style of DIY legends Guided By Voices. As you would expect from such an approach, the songs vary in fidelity and ambition, yet all achieve the purpose they set out to reach. Te idea stems from a moment when Adam Brock (Borrowed Beams Of Light/Invisible Hand/Weird Mob) started to re imagine the titles of theses and journals (some included Cream of the Jesters and Popular Dogs) he was sorting in a library warehouse into GBV titles. Brock held onto the best titles he found, circulated them to some of his fave bands to pick one and write their best GBV interpretation, and voila, this bizarre ode to the Dayton, Ohio gods was born.
Rather than pick a favourite, I'll let you dive into the entire thing, see what tickles your fancy. I do like Borrowed Beams...'s 'Stone Cutters Journal' though (couldn't help myself). You can pre-order this (on blue vinyl, no less) here.
It's been a while since I've delved in either Surfer Blood or Weird Wives territory. Well, Surfer Blood have new stuff on the way, so there's that I suppose. Weird Wives on the other hand - fucks me. I stumbled across this today though. Some WW members, slave to double consonants and their own desolate gnashing of teeth, have relocated from Florida to Brooklyn and given birth to Slavve, a quivering mess of twitches, yelps and continual angular pain. Seesawing between ephemeral dissections of post-punk noise, shoegaze acid baths and scalpel cuts to the earbuds, Slavve haven't wasted time stamping their intent with bloody-minded conviction. This is a great start to an increasingly volatile relationship.
Cruel Summer could be a reference to the "excellent" Ace of Base album of the same name, or indeed a reference to the Kanye mixtape album he put out last year. And there is indeed something rather clique-ish about this San Francisco quartet - that of the wistful, morose, yet nevertheless airy kind, the beautiful yet aloof kind. Still, this self-titled EP (out next month on 12" vinyl through Mt St Mtn) is abundant in pendulous emotions, swaying from hot and cold and back again, keep you on edge at all times (see the first of the two sample tracks 'Carquinez' to catch this shadowy drift). Its a nice inversion of the summer jangle pop "gems" that tend to burst forth like seasonal weeds this time of year, and is worthy of further attention. These kids aren't cruel, they just have depth.
Ye olde English, what a blast, eh? Thou, thine, thy, thee. That extra E though tends to imbue an added layer of gritty garage looseness that straight-laced bands starting with "The" simply can't hold a candle to. Here are four examples...
The plastic, debauched, twisted fantasy land that is LA is a petri dish of creativity - spewing forth brilliance whilst also harbouring countless parasitic wasters. Thee Commons is an anomaly in that they don't sound anything like an LA band in almost any respect. Warped, strange, yet almost yesteryear-innocent, the four tunes on this EP plunder from 50s & 60s rock'n'roll - there is some of that hybridised brilliance that Buddy Holly had in spades in 'Dr's Visit' for example; wobbly sunburnt spaghetti surf yet with 21st century seediness bleaching in at the sides. Sunburn At Midnight comes in turquoise vinyl 7" - definitely worth the pennies.
Thee Mighty Fevers come from the land of the rising sun, and we all know that Japan have unearthed some of the most depraved garage rock ever witnessed by the ears of man. These Kobe punks are snotty, bile swilling raconteurs, with endless chasms of nauseating energy, visceral nihilism and saliva. Every track starts with the same screamed 1234 count in. EVERY. SINGLE. SONG. Did I mention this is the perfect cocktail for the loosest night out? Ill probably see you there - won't remember it in the morning though. If you love this straight-up reckless garage punk (and my guess is you do), you need to get ahold of Fuck-in Great RnR this minute - I recommend the red wax.
Indiana's Thee Open Sex is the tangential odd band out, weaving deranged versions of psychedelia and punk in and out of each other in lurid form. Their self-titled record is one of the best and depraved things I have heard this year. It has heady sex with your ears, violates your cerebral vortex and impregnates your soul. Live Dead' is surely the soundtrack to the most hedonistic hallucinogenic orgy imaginable, on repeat, all the time. You won't have time to be spent - this is one aural orgasm that just won't quit. Seriously, get this now.
Finishing off with the E that rules them all (and the instigator of this post, seeing as I received this bone-coloured hottie in the mail yesterday), San Fran's hyperactive Rumpelstiltskins Thee Oh Sees. They released possibly their best album to date in Floating Coffin only last month, yet here is an excellent 12" EP made for Record Store Day that furthers their mythic consistency. Moon Sick harbours four blistering yet rather obtuse tracks that didn't make the Floating Coffin sessions - which is understandable, seeing as these songs would probably suit 2011's quirky Castlemania more. I loved that record though, so Moon Sick is still a killer purchase. 'Sewer Fire' is even sung by A-Frames/Intelligence impresario Lars Finberg - how much more power does a band wanna wield? Well worth innumerable spins, you can buy Moon Sick through the band's Castle Face Records here.
Came across this self-titled album from Boston's Z*L the other day (out now through Midriff Records). it reminds me a little of Mudhoney, a little of Bruce Springsteen, a lot of the resurgent adulation for 90s guitar rock sensibilities (see Parquet Courts, Milk Music, Cloud Nothings...I could very easily go on). It's a very solid album, and has me wondering - why the throwback? And why am I so pleased that such a thing exists? Because for me at least, not only did I grow up on this stuff (You Am I's first album Sound Of Ever, Girls Against Boys, even Nirvana if I must, were the stuff of wasted teenage days), but the discordant noise these guys create touches a nerve, lain dormant due to shifts over time for even more atonal sonic destruction, or the modern world's predilection for clean and pretty guitar lines and "rock". Z*L sound...honest. Its roots is in the working class, in blue-collar Americana, in slaving away. They aren't pretending, experimenting, confounding, conforming - they are just being. For a while there, such an existence was forgotten - I'm glad to see it flooding back.
Let's double dip in Minneapolis for some slight psychedelia kicks, whaddaya say?
First up is Heavy Deeds, whose Light Lunch EP came out on Old Blackberry Way Records yesterday. It's decidedly throwback, delving forty years into the past to rake its fingers through the pastoral dirt of the sun-bleached, hypnotic West Coast of the early 1970s. It's clear that the group owe something of a debt to likeminded wanderers such as Galaxie 500, but seeing as Dean Wareham is content to delve into that band's small oeuvre without adding to the legacy, why not give the acolytes a shot at the title? Its a great calling card, an introduction in a candle-lit room, slightly inebriated on the vice of choice, as the sun dives for the horizon. You can get Light Lunchhere.
We have mentioned Gospel Gossip in the past (here, in fact), yet I wasn't expecting to love their self-titled debut quite as much as I do. Alternating between the pastoral whimsy that permeates Heavy Deeds above, to more jangly pop, to coalescing sheets of distortion and electric squall, all bled through with a warmth and substance that invariably is left behind in favour of stylistic flourishes - I'm surprised Gospel Gossip (also out through Old Blackberry Way) hasn't had more glowing plaudits thrown its way. OK, some songs feel a little open-ended, maybe even undercooked - but as a whole (and in the instance of 'On The Edge' or 'Simpler Times', some bona fide classic pop tunes) this is an incredibly attractive and addictive effort - in the same realm that Rational Academy was in a few years ago before their final, heavier phase (a local reference, I know, but better than the standard "shoegaze Fleetwood Mac" mantras that get used). Listen to two of the tracks below, and buy the vinyl here.
The cover of the latest Quailbones EP is disconcerting. That's a good start. 'Concerting' is too arranged to have any impact. Quailbones have an impact on me. On an initial listen I wrote "gothic Pixies" down on the notepad in front of the computer. Kinda like Bella Lugosi's DEEEEAD but with the reverb somewhere in between the two.
Brendan dug on the first EP and I agree with him on this one. These Kentuckians easily take the mantle from the Colonel on the 'great things outta Kentucky' list.
I have no idea what a love grenade would look like. As far as weapons manufacturing goes, it's probably not the most profitable of items, so I'll probably never find out either. But, if I pulled the pin on one, I would love to think that it might blow up like on television or be dispersed from a B52. And Love Grenade have something of both of those.
They also have an awesome video that is (for some reason) a response to Motorhead's 'Ace of Spades' live. Anything that gets you closer to that can't be bad.
It's woozy rock 'n roll with the ruffed up corners left on, blurring into surf at times and just plain blurry at others. But you're blurry too, so feel yourself connected.
It seems like the port of call nowadays that when a hardcore or post-hardcore act implodes or reaches its final stages, various members branch out into realms totally unbecoming of their past output. Acoustic balladry; obnoxious house; ambient soundscapes - there is no limit to the tangents that have been taken. This is somewhat true for Brisbane act Stress Waves too, seeing as its members converge from the embers of To The North, Quiet Steps and Throes. Yet these bands haven't necessarily been obvious poster children for the hardcore throngs, what with To The North's sonic balleticism and Quiet Steps' evolution from a bile-spitting maelstrom to something more poetic, more refined, yet always potent. Stress Waves feeds off these creative juices, and the three tracks that make up Lost Lustre perfectly frame this. There are elements of coldwave isolation here, as well as more than a bearing resemblance to post punk's melancholic Manchester origins (Errol Hoffman is also in Make More, so that kinda makes sense too). These tracks are almost archaic, however - steeped in Casio simplicity yet awash with ideas, either the product of out-of-time pioneers or a concerted effort to leap into icy waters without reservation. The trio also reference The Cure, Final Fantasy XII and Akira as their influences, and with the blue-tinted urban cover art, the sparsity of the production and the otherworldly textures this approach creates, such disparate touchstones are actually warranted (if a little tongue in cheek).
You can grab Lost Lustre in name-your-price digital here. Hopefully we'll see Stress Waves playing live shows in more regular bursts soon.
Changing names is always difficult. Even when you would do anything to dig yourself out from under the shadow of your former life, it always haunts you, tethers remnants of itself to your being. You are never truly free - you can never not be yourself. Same goes for a band. Toronto's Program are going for a clean slate, and although they still have some semblance of former alter ego Volcano Playground coursing through their veins, there is an iciness in their lifeblood that flushes everything with a anachronistic blue hue, hiding in darkness even whilst standing in the full glare of the light. Produced by David Newfeld (Broken Social Scene), 'Waiting' is the first taste of what is to come.
Their "first" release will be with us soon enough. Until then, listen incessantly to 'Waiting' below, and check out their pretty cool Tumblr which is about music as much as it is about Program.
Long time since we've attempted a good ol-fashioned brainwash, right? Here are four videos that are pretty rad, ranked in order of brutality. Let's get fried.
With a name like Batpiss, who needs enemies? Bursting out of the bowels of Melbourne, this trio have taken visceral annihilation to a new, bilious artform. Their debut record Nuclear Winter is out this week, and it is seriously the best thing I have heard this month. Melbourne has given birth to some killer acts of recent months - White Walls, Deep Heat, The Spinning Rooms. Speaking of, Nuclear Winter was recorded by Tom Lyngcoln - yep, the deranged redneck that spits vitriol and rhetoric when fronting The Nation Blue, gnashes his teeth like a blue-collar choirboy done wrong in Harmony, and recorded The Spinning Rooms. This dude always knows what he's doing, even when he doesn't. Don't trust me? Watch the video for Batpiss single 'Drag Your Body' again. This is indeed this. Listen to a stream of this killer record here.
Over to the UK and Wolverhampton's rakish rockers God Damn. I liked their first single 'I'm A Lazer, You're A Radar', and the video for 'Heavy Money' is just as impressive. A homeless man with telekinetic powers, going all Scanners on the scum of the earth? With a primary school kid in a Batman mask as his willing eyewitness? Gravy Records have unearthed a number of bands in the Midlands region that like to eat their candy with a liberal dose of razorblades - and with God Damn, they've done it again. This will be on an EP of the same name, pre-order it here.
I never thought I'd see the day that a band like FIDLAR would be a drawcard on the festival circuit. They aren't huge yet, by any means, but their name keeps floating closer to the surface with each passing week. And here we are with the band that brought you 'Max Can't Surf' featuring in RIYL's. None of this is derogatory - there is something aesthetically cleansing about a band that is so laconic in their slack-jawed stoner guitar punk that it feels like their tunes are aural hydro. And there is something equally great about a band mirroring such relaxed angular rants. that's where Canadians Fist City are at. Hit me.
Let's tag out with Cool Ghouls. This band from San Fran have been taken under the wing of Tim Cohen (Fresh & Onlys), and you can hear why. Talk about cruisy. But GOOD cruisy. Chilllllllllllllllll.But GOOD chillllllllllllllllllll. The more I listen to 'Natural Life', the more I want this to be my life. Cool ghouls indeed. Can't wait to hear the debut self-titled full-length - out now through Empty Cellar Records. Blow it - let's listen to it together!
Doing an update on Tenzenmen Records is almost a futile effort, so many releases seem to flow out of this excellent DIY distro/label. So I intend to devote as much time as possible on catching you up. Whilst the majority of bands are from the Australasian quadrant of the world, today we travel to Italy - Genoa in fact. CRTVTR (pronounced "Cartavetro") mold Washington DC post punk into a variety of ill fitting forms to create something amorphous and uneasy. They are not alone in their constant search for meaning within the gaps between genres either, as on their latest LP Here It Comes, Tramontane! they are joined by one of the world's truest sonic journeymen, Mike Watt. Such connections make sense, due to much of the musical aspirations coming from ninety-degree about-turns, math spikes transforming into post-rock ebbs and flows,
electronic ambiance melding with effect manipulation. It doesn't always work, but something like this never will, and that isn't the point. The point is taking ownership of the sound, control within the experiment, or at least being at one long enough to allow the loss of control.
A triptych of warped warbles of varying degrees of low fidelity, here are three releases likely to blow your mind and fill your ears with white fuzz and ear-candy.
Danish-born, Berlin-based psych pop wizard Jacob Faurholt has been on Sonic Masala's radar ever since he entered the fray under the moniker Crystal Shipsss. His Yay release made an impression, and now he (along with a band of willing wanderers) is back with not one but two releases slated for 2013. First cab off the ranks is this self-titled EP, available on cassette through Three Ring Records, Mouca and Raw Onion. The 5-track EP are scuzzy to the point of obstructive - this is Demo 101 territory, almost to a fault. Yet whether the band are opening up the throttle or quietening down to a soothing idle, Crystal Shipsss is never an easy proposition - a wayward journey into the counterculture of the backwaters of your mind. Yet in the past year they have traipsed across stages alongside TEEN, The Black Heart Procession and Grizzly Bear, and these three best represent where Faurholt and his acolytes are heading. It's a great taster for Crystal Shipsss's next full-length Dirty Dancer which we will see before the year is out.
Another lo-fi gem that struck a chord here at Sonic Masala was Tweaker In The Park, the debut LP by Indiana's guitar-pop malcontents Hypocrite In A Hippy Crypt. Tweaker Two (out on 12" vinyl through Tree Machine Records) continues the weird themes and tin-cans-and-shoestring budget, yet offers more semblances of spit and polish alongside being anchored in more grounded, maudlin concerns such as fading youth and imploding dreams. Its hooks are surreptitious, then the penny drops - once you are familiar with this world, it becomes a second skin, with all schizophrenic connotations to such a notion held intact. Elliott Smith suspended in formaldehyde, preserved in sepia and seedy chagrin. An addiction worth having.
Finally we have Brooklyn's Hippy. Reminiscent of the nascent garage punk and guitar pop amalgams that the likes of Harlem (seriously, where have these guys gone???) and Black Lips dish out at regular intervals, the trio's new (debut) record Almost Live is in turns buoyant, ridiculous, bilious and carefree - tonguing the power socket whilst outta your gourd kinda fun. Hurts so good (c'mon, baby now...)
