Posts Tagged ‘Aussie Indie’

Popular Posts Tagged ‘Aussie Indie’

Premiere: Milk Teddy – “Rock n’ Roll Cretin”
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Ciggie Witch – “Shadow”
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School Damage – “Scump Damage 1”
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Mikey Young – “Socks”
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David West with Teardrops – “Swan’s Beat”
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Wireheads
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Total Control
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Wireheads – “Indian Pacific Express’
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The Babe Rainbow – “Supermoon”

by on ·Bits & Pieces, Tracks

Aussie’s own sunset psych purveyors The Babe Rainbow return with a new album and another track that’s dipping into the narcotic beach vibes that have propped them up. “Supermoon” swings on a placid groove that’s buttered and balmy, just right for the onslaught of heat waves (well up in our hemisphere at least). They succeed in melting the track right into the floor, pooling with an ease that’s admirable in its resolve to relax. The track is the first salvo off of a new Flightless / 30th Century Records album, Double Rainbow out in July.

The band accompany the single with a hazy, psychedelic video that’s chock fulla, well, fruit. It’s got a ’70s Sesame Street educational segment quality to it that fits the breezy vibes quite well. Check it out below.




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Loose Tooth – “Keep On”

by on ·Bits & Pieces, Tracks

Excited to hear that Melbourne’s Loose Tooth finally have an LP on the way. The trio’s last EP Saturn Returns was a taut indie popper built on the back of post-punk bass lines and a tangle of jangles. Good to hear from the first drops of Keep Up that the LP looks to be more of the same. “Keep On” unrolls with a stately grace, slow and creeping like the best widescreen ‘80s cuts. It maintains the build for the majority of its run until the song boils over with a rush of background vocals and colorful splash of keys, exploding like a shaken soda all over the speakers. The record is out on Milk! Records in August, so stay sharp and keep a lookout when it hits.



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Good Morning

by on ·New Albums, Reviews

Aussie duo Good Morning graduates from the EP to the LP but shows no signs of ditching the band’s ramshackle, disjointed style with a larger overarching container. Good on ‘em too, because their “life stuffed in a knapsack” aesthetic is largely the engine driving their charms. The band is of and beholden to the new wave of Aussie indie that embraces substance over sheen, often recorded in fits and starts in kitchens and basements around the country. It is music by and for friends that just happens to trickle out when the right label gets an ear on it. So, it is that Stefan Blair and Liam Parsons birthed this album alone, with the hum of tape as constant companion and the image of a lone bare bulb swinging above a Tascam as mascot to its creation. The record is sparse, as are their previous EPs, but without so much as a coat of paint the record is primed for its revelry in anxiety’s ouroboros, melancholy’s sway and sighed choruses that don’t rely on hooks so much as commiseration.

Despite a decidedly laid-back veneer the record doesn’t leave itself open to easy entry points. Guitars find themselves whittled down to second-tier status on Prize // Reward, replaced by a rec room piano that sounds like it might have two generations worth of drink rings to buff out. The pair swoons and shuffles through their songs with a brilliant disheveled approach, the very aural image of Nilsson’s robe-clad cover of Schmilsson – blank-eyed, bleary and perhaps privately destroyed by tiny catastrophes like running out of milk. They encapsulate a detached cool that’s almost a private joke between the songwriters, scoff if you must but they’re not out to win you over.

They hint at aspirations of elevating the record from its dehumidifier din – flutes peck at opener “Plant Matta” and a gang of vocal interlopers can be heard before they’re melted by the easy bake warble that takes the track to its resting place. There’s a running thread of sax that finds its way through the record, provided by Blair’s dad, though his debauched skronk colors the songs with a lounge-light hangover that’s not pulling the curtains any time soon. Now, despite the milieu that all of this isolation brings to mind, the record is actually a stunner of slack, feeling unfussed with the preening rabble outside of their creative bubble. Good Morning has slyly slipped out the best dip into the pill cabinet dressed up like a ‘70s private press depression session you’re likely to hear this year.



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Alex MacFarlane – “Planetarium Nights”

by on ·Reviews, Singles (7", 10", 12")

While there are plenty of great Aussie indies to keep on radar Hobbies Galore seems to be kicking up the dust quite nicely this year. With releases by Stroppies, Blank Realm and a tape issue of the debut Green Child album, there’s quite a bit of talent to be had. A cornerstone of the label, however, has been solo releases from Alex MacFarlane a fixture in Twerps, The Stevens and Teen Archer. The latest 7″ sees MacFarlane working through jangle-pop structures with prog-blocked overtones. There’s a slight dissonance that doesn’t always pop up in his other works, but at the core this is still prime Aussie jangle that’s a testament to MacFarlane’s prowess.

Standouts “Good With Little Numbers” and “Starter People” push this way beyond solo sketchbook fodder, proving that MacFarlane has plenty of hooks in his back pocket and a warped sense of pop that burrows under the skin. He fleshed it out with instrumentals that writhe and twist with synths and curls of noise. While I’d never balk and new Twerps or Stevens material, this release in particular begs for more from the artist solo. This one’s slipping out quietly but that’s no excuse to let it slip by completely.

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Good Morning – “For A Little While”

by on ·Bits & Pieces, Tracks

Aussie duo Good Morning have been steadily teasing the pieces of their upcoming LP for Bedroom Suck – a short but shambolic run of tracks that speaks well to the reputation they received in the wake of their domestically celebrated EPs. One of the best peeks behind the curtain on the new album is “For A Little While.’ The song ambles along with a smoke ring saunter before blossoming forth into the rainy day cool of Glenn Blair’s sax stabs. The cut is unhurried, a feeling that hangs over most of Good Morning’s work, but more so it’s oddly lush and comfortable. That quality’s hard won in a song largely built on skittering drums, tape hiss and piano, but there’s something enticing about their execution. The song’s got a hungover haze that sucks the listener into the couch like quicksand. The hiss coupled with the detached delivery give the song a narcotic effect that lends itself well to multiple listens. While Good Morning’s sound isn’t all in this pocket, “For A Little While” sands as a prime cut from their growing catalog.




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The Goon Sax – “She Knows”

by on ·Bits & Pieces, Tracks

Great to see The Goon Sax back on a list of upcoming releases. The band leaped out with a stunner of a debut that bundled self-deprecating introspection with bare and honest songwriting. They continue unabated on their first single from We’re Not Talking, thickening the aural pudding just a touch, but retaining the intimacy that made them such stalwarts of the turntable back in 2016. They make a jump to Witchita worldwide and keep things classy on the label that broke ’em at home (Chapter) growing their music to fit their widening view of early adulthood. “She Knows” catapults them from up and comers to serious threats, warbling woe with an insistent hook and an ear to classic South-Hemi jangles from the AUS/NZ music box. Can’t wait to see how this full LP shapes up if this is only the entry point.




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The Stroppies – “Maddest Moments”

by on ·Videos

Melbourne’s Stroppies have been hashing things out in the short format following their debut cassette (and subsequent vinyl reissue on Tough Love). The a-side to their latest single “Maddest Moments” solidifies their rough-edged, smoke-ring sound but ekes in a promise of something more to come. It’s a no-frills jangler that chews on social anxieties, brimming with a subtle sweetness. This, along with their “It’s A Hit” platter from Hobbies Galore show the band working through the kitchen studio recording process and off the cuff riffs, but heading back towards the softer blows of their deubt. The video riffs on the live band clips that stack the channels, but with a pinprick of malaise that shows the band being bored by their own process. Looking to see where these guy are headed, but enjoying the journey just the same.



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School Damage – “Scump Damage 1”

by on ·Bits & Pieces, Tracks

One of last year’s favorite albums around here came from Aussie upstarts School Damage. Featuring members of Ausmuteants and Chook Race, the band captured a kind of woozy, wobbly pop that drew comparisons to The Vaselines and Young Marble Giants. Their simple, yet potent brand of post-punk was full of charms that only get deeper on their new 7” for Upset The Rhythm. The new single works under the concept of four songs about one cat – which on paper sound like it could get real twee, real fast. However, the band maintains their usual off-kilter sensibility pinning Jake Robertson’s tale of Lumpy (aka Scump) to a headrush synth line and enough jangles to stuff your socks. They continue to be top shelf Aussie exports, and this little taste only makes me want more from the band. The single is out on UTR on May 25th.



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Mod Con

by on ·New Albums, Reviews

After being charmed and invigorated last week by Mod Con’s “Kidney Auction Blues” its nice to put the song in context alongside the rest of their debut long player for Poison City. Mod Con actually boasts the same lineup of players that grace songwriter Erica Dunn’s previous work as Palm Springs, but they leave their previous shell’s dusty Americana far behind in the rearview. Scratching at a discontented form of post-punk, Dunn and her compatriots use their platform on Modern Convenience to pick at the scars of consumerism, complacency and disillusionment. In the tangles of twine-bound guitar that pump this record along, the band spends their energy wrestling twang into muscular, yet rubbery explosions of tension. Almost every song is hanging on the edge and waiting to tip.

Then there’s Dunn’s voice. Unlike the sonic shock precision of some of her post-punk contemporaries, she seems to be reaching her wit’s end at some point in most every track. She breaks and strains against the mounting pressures she sings about like a hammer on glass. It feels like one more push might just break her, but the heroic act of throttling out one more bone crunching number is worth her pain. The band is taught and at times even tender (“Bad Time At The Hilton”), but whatever the tempo the Dunn’s urgency remains the catalyst that drives Mod Con far past lesser contenders. It’s a crackling debut that puts them forward as key players in not only the Aussie scene, but post-punk at large.




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RVG – “Eggshell World”

by on ·Videos

If you missed out on the excellent debut from the Romy Vager Group (more commonly RVG) last year, then there’s still time to catch up. Apparently, the Aussies tore up SXSW, so hopes are on that at least a few ears were perked. On the eve of their entry to the Split Singles Series mentioned yesterday they release a great video not for the new track (sadly) but for standout LP track “Eggshell World.” The accompanying video is just Vager alone, clad in a silver dress in the darkness – it’s a great compliment to the track’s sweeping emotional pull. Vager is doing her best to channel the demons left to wander in the wake of Echo and The Bunnymen, The Church and Love & Rockets. For those missing the mascara stain of tears along with your pop, meet your new favorites.

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