Every fortnight, we check in with all things heavy on RTRFM’s Critical Mass show.
Corrupted are one of the more unique and interesting and elusive bands around. Since 1994, they’ve wrecked necks and eardrums with a sludge/doom base, with flurries of crust punk, acoustic guitars, harp, elements of post-rock and instrumental ambient pieces.
Though hailing from Japan, the lion’s share of their lyrics are in Spanish; only a few singles and EPs have English lyrics, and 2011’s Garten der Unbewusstheit had track titles in German, English and Japanese. Since day one though the band has adhered to a strict ‘no interviews, no professional photos’ policy, which makes finding out information about them extremely difficult. So bear with me and I’ll try and piece together the details of their new EP Loss.
After Garten der Unbewusstheit, longtime members Talbot and Hevi (guitars and vocalist respectively) left and were replaced by new guitarist Mark Y. and fill-in live vocalist Taiki. Some recent live footage featured Rie Lambdoll (solo artist and part of electronic/noise duo Crossbred) on vocals, arousing speculation that Rie was the new singer. Then more info and an Instagram clip came out, revealing the new vocalist, ‘Mother Sii’, who had previously sung in crust punk bands Nationstate and Lastsentence.
So with a new lineup established, this EP is the perfect teaser to introduce the new collective to the audience, right? Well, kind of, because supposedly this is the last recording to feature Hevi on the vocals. And some are saying that live vocalist Taiki is still in the band but was unable to perform due to illness, hence the fill-ins of Rie Lambdoll and Mother Sii. Or maybe it is Mother Sii? I guess we will have to wait until a new full length to figure it out, but for the moment: Loss.
A 2-track 7?, side 1 of Loss is the clear standout. Starting off with light droney guitars, howling wind and whispered vocals that grow desperate and aggressive before a speedy heavy riff kicks in along with pounding drums. It’s like black metal meets free jazz, sound such is the nature of the chaotic structure. The vocals (whomever is doing them on this release) are excellent and the production perfect. Then, as it all starts to pull itself together and resemble some structure, the restrictions of the 7? format kick in and… it fades out! Talk about a tease. Unbelievable.
On side 2, the band showcase their more ambient and atmospheric sound: clean guitar drones mixed with the distant vocal screams. While it’s interesting, and I do like those bits on previous Corrupted releases, it doesn’t really add much here; the missing half of side one would be a much greater listening experience.
As a fan I really enjoy this and hopefully it appears on a future release in a longer format, but at just about nine minutes length (with half being ambient), I can’t help but feel that some might feel slightly short-changed by Loss.
Critical Mass airs every Wednesday from 9PM (GMT+8) on RTR FM 92.1 in Perth, Australia.
Just over a year ago, an atmospheric funeral doom band lurking in the shadows of Phoenix, Arizona, put out a collection of songs that would be very well received by those able to get their hands on it. Funerary’s Starless Aeons was initially and quietly made available as a free download in digital format with a very limited run of 50 cassettes via the Midnite Collective to go along with it. Now, an “official” release through Sentient Ruin Laboratories is imminent in the coming week, with the album being made available again digitally alongside another very limited hand-made cassette run. If you missed it the first time, now is your chance to dive into the colossal soundscapes of misery that Funerary filled the soul with the first time around.
Whilst the numbers may not be reaching the levels of the blues-based sludge family in American doom, there is definitely an increase in the presence of those gravitating towards the deeply morose and funeral stream of doom metal, and of the highest quality to boot. Funerary are certainly here to bolster those ranks with five works of majestic and meditative coldness, crashing into the vast ocean of heavy music as collapsing glacial slabs heralding the extinction of life with a hypnotizing apocalyptic intent. The despondent tone of Starless Aeons is unyielding in its force, weighing down the listener to the earth with its dramatic atmosphere of hopelessness.
Starless Aeons flows together as though it is one piece with movements, rather than a collection of songs. This perception is intensified by most of the songs linking together with soundscapes and ambient effect, along with the collection as a whole giving the strong impression of a singular narrative stream characterized by ceremonially paced grief. Each detail and progression is purposeful and emotionally genuine, expressed with subtlety and patience, components of an essential foundation for fantastic doom music.
“Coerced Creation” provides initiation through instantaneous high volume and ferocity, with a procession of feedback and heavy demolition pulverizing the spirit below shrieking frostbitten vocals. The assault evolves seamlessly into desolate winds of drone-filled atmosphere, gradually bringing crestfallen melodies into play towards the end of “Atonement”, coursing along the same pulse straight into “Beneath the Black Veil”. This central movement overflows with misery, crystallizing the blood with a stunning dolorous harmonized guitar gliding over frigid and spacious accents of funeral doom. The title track follows with a relatively brief and minimal drone, an uninhabitable frozen plain, full of emptiness. In the end, melody is replaced by discord, quietly building up from foreboding strums and feedback into riffs and screams of pure anguish. There is a brief return to the expansive feeling of “…Veil”, before plummeting from the heights back into overwhelming despondency, fading away into a storm of feedback-driven noise.
Starless Aeons is an album of well-crafted symbiotic contradictions, as is the case with so many of the great doom records, without ever veering from its intoxicating essence of crippling depression. It could be the soundtrack for exploring a lifeless world of eternal winter just as much as it is a vast hymn to being locked callously away within the confines of a state of mind completely bereft of hope. If you love doom at its darkest emotive ebb, be sure you pay this world of Funerary’s a visit. Just make sure you remember the way back.
The Black Captain hosts RTRFM’s Brain Blood Volume on July 26 at 1am (+8GMT). You can restream his last appearance on Behind the Mirror here.
Before they support Yob in Sydney at the Manning Bar on August 22, we spend a couple of minutes with Thorax and find out what’s new.
Describe your music in five words or less.
Dark power from beyond time.
What’s going on in the world of Thorax?
We have just released our debut LP through excellent Sydney label One Brick Today. People seem to dig it, which is gratifying! In other news we are working jobs, looking after children, eating food, drinking drinks, living life… and in between all these things trying to play a bunch of shows! We are playing Adelaide/Melbourne in mid-August, and Byron Bay/Brisbane in late August.
What motivates you to make music?
The Great Old Ones. They speak to us. They speak through us. We bear the joy of their darkness. Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!
What have been the high and low points of your musical experiences so far?
I think the high point is just the continued experience of making something out of nothing with some good friends. The low point is lugging Lachie’s Orange amp to gigs.
What music are you listening to at the moment?
Right at this moment I am listening to the clacking of keyboards and the unsteady thump of my own pulse in my ears. And I’m humming the theme song to “Diff’rent Strokes”. The last record I listened to was Glow by Chris Abrahams.
If you were stranded on a desert island, which member of the band would get eaten first?
Probably Lachie… he has a mouth-watering rump.
Here’s an opportunity to bitch about something, whether music related or not. What really pisses you off?
Forced closure of Indigenous communities is a good start. Violence against women and LGBT persons. Refugee detention centres. The rise of blinkered patriotism in the wake of heavily spun terrorist threats. Lockout laws. Nationalism. The state of the environment under the ceaseless onslaught of capitalism. THE HUMAN SPECIES.
You’re putting together your perfect gig featuring Australian artists. Who would you get to play and where? Feel free to include acts/DJs/bands/venues that no longer exist.
OK, it would be a festival at Midnight Star, headlined by the ghost of Rowland S Howard. The rest of the lineup would be Nunchukka Superfly, Dead, Unit 11:74, X, Brain Resin, Agents of Abhorrence, Us Mob, the Bee Gees, The Drones, Price of Silence, Flycop, Subversion, S.M.U.T., Lawnsmell, Lentil Soup, True Radical Miracle, Navel Graveyard and Scum System Kill. And about a hundred more bands, too many to list here. The festival would run for a whole year with free beer, single malt whiskey and tofu burgers.… And nangs at the bar.
Thorax join Sumeru in support of doom lords Yob on August 22 at the Manning Bar in Sydney. Tickets on sale now through lifeisnoise.com.
The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.
NEWS
NME is set to become a free weekly magazine. In a blog post on Monday, editor Mike Williams outlined the magazine’s plans to rebrand, expanding its focus to cover cinema, politics and technology, and increasing its circulation to 300,000. The new edition launches September 18.
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The entire archive of pioneering punk zine Slash Magazine has been uploaded online at Circulation Zero. The LA-focused punk zine ran from 1977 to 1980 and birthed the punk label Slash, which put out records from Fear, L7 and X in its earlier years. We can thank Austin-based archivist Ryan Reynolds for the upload, who was also responsible for the digitisation of Star Magazine and a number of other prominent early fanzines.
“It was a signal moment in the history of sound that set in motion a years-long work in progress that would culminate in what’s arguably the largest and technologically innovative public address system ever built, and it started not with a bang, but with something of a casual, stoned proposition. This singular work of engineering would come to weigh over 70 tons, comprise dozens and then hundreds of amps, speakers, subwoofers, and tweeters, stand over three-stories tall and stretch nearly 100 feet wide. Its name could only be the Wall of Sound.”
““These services treat you like a criminal,” Steve Jobs said of streaming-music companies, in an Apple keynote address in 2003. “And they are subscription-based, and we think subscriptions are the wrong path. One of the reasons we think this is because people bought their music for as long as we can remember.… When you own your music, it never goes away.” Jobs was introducing the iTunes Store, which updated the old model of the recorded-music library. Purchasing a digital track or album, Jobs said, was now “the hottest way to acquire music.” For some years, it was. Then streaming services began to claim an ever greater share of the market, even as they struggled to turn a profit. Last week, surrendering to the apparently inevitable, Apple introduced Apple Music, its own subscription music bundle. For $9.99 a month, you win unlimited access to a library of more than thirty million tracks, from Michel van der Aa to ZZ Top.”
“Music-focused cinema could provide something radical: a close view of the processes of composing and performing that reveals the work behind what seems, to listeners, like magic. Instead, like almost any other kind of cinema, it tends to focus on human relationships: on the interpersonal, not the inner personal. This understandable tendency has resulted in many great explorations of how musicians get along with each other, cope in the world, affect social change and build legacies. Yet it means that most music films (with a few exceptions) still sidestep what’s unique about music-making: the mix of obsessive practice and spontaneous experimentation; the balance between listening and self-expression; the sensual experience of living through the ears. Making music a character allows us as viewers to relate to these narratives, but it also simplifies something worth keeping complicated.”
LISTEN
Windhand — Two Urns
This week’s doom fix sees Richmond, Virginia outfit Windhand merge shoegaze and hypnotizing fuzz into a rich and dreamy sonic tapestry. “Two Urns” is the first cut from Grief’s Infernal Flower, the quintet’s third record, which is out through Relapse Records on September 18. This radio edit clocks in at a drivetime-unfriendly six minutes, but wouldn’t your daily commute be so much better when with tectonic riffs like these?
Ought — Beautiful Blue Sky
Ought are nervous and Wirey on this oddly catchy preview from the forthcoming Sun Coming Down. Tim Darcy repeats the meaningless platitude of small talk over feverish guitars before uttering the song’s central line: “I’m no longer afraid to die / because that is all that I have left,” before a prolonged wind-down. It’s relieving to know amongst all the post-punk revivalists who sought to dilute the genre with forced hooks and asinine lyrics about dancing to Joy Division, there are still bands like Iceage and Ought using that aesthetic to write off-kilter, moving and vital music. Sun Coming Down is out September 18 through Constellation Records.
WATCH
The View From Here: Scalphunter
Part nine in RTRFM’s 12-part video series moves out of the studio and into the courtyard of The Bird a raucous 15-minute set from Scalphunter.
Making — Come 2 Me
Maybe it’s just the cold front coming in but I got chills watching this kaleidoscopic visual headfuck. While everyone’s talking about the surrealism of Google’s Deep Dream, Making are constructing technopocalyptic visions that Google couldn’t even summon in its nightmares. It’s a long time coming for the Sydney noise rock outfit — on a Facebook status posted yesterday, the band detailed the label woes that delayed the release, the long and short of which is that the album was finished a year ago and pressed by October with a national tour lined up to support it, but radio silence from the label pushed the process back a year. Now, with the support of TRAIT Records, Making next record is going to print again.
Over the course of 19 years of activity, Yob’s star has patiently and steadfastly ascended to the spiritual peak where doom metal’s pantheon resides. Each of their seven studio albums has represented the band evolving progressively into an artistic demiurge, consistently surpassing the boundaries of their fans’ collective imagination. The anticipation preceding their most recent album, 2014’s Clearing the Path to Ascend, was fervent. Upon its release, it resounded as a powerful clarion from the hidden peaks of the underground, converting some of even the staunchest non-believers and ringing across great distances to the ears of explorers of more mainstream tastes, without even the slightest hint of deviation or prostration before such petrified senses of “palatability”.
If anything, Clearing… saw YOB come forth with its most powerful and sincere expression of doom metal yet, wrought from a fraught voyage through personal upheaval experienced by founder, frontman and guitarist Mike Scheidt as the songs came to life. Yob’s most recent album exemplified their combination of stealthily evolving motifs of tremendous heaviness with a reflective, meditative soul. With all of its deserved accolades, the album continues to carry Yob onwards to new opportunities, not least of which being their imminent first headlining tour of Australia. In anticipation of this event that shall no doubt split this southern land asunder, I called Mike to talk about this great band and the spirit that drives it.
THE BLACK CAPTAIN: You must be really pleased with the reception Clearing the Path… has received. In addition to those new fans you gain, something apparent to me about the long-time fans of Yob is “fanaticism”. I’m curious about how that level of devotion and respect makes you feel. It might seem like something obvious to ask, but it’s not something I’ve always found people to be comfortable with, when they are the object of such intense emotional focus.
MIKE SCHEIDT: Oh, we feel really lucky… and grateful. I think any band that’s trying to write music that feels good to them, when somebody hears it and you feel like they appreciate it or dig it, that’s a wonderful thing to be able to share with someone else. Over the years it has grown and more and more people are getting into what we are doing and we feel a lot of different things about it… definitely humbled and excited. We feel very fortunate and don’t take it for granted.
BC: To see that happening with a band, just like Neurosis, who are so committed to their vision and writing from a really pure place, with integrity, is inspiring. And that kind of explains why Neurot Recordings is such a natural place for you guys to be. One aspect of doom metal that some might find strange or contradictory, but that I’ve always been fascinated and obsessed with, is that I personally find something really triumphant and uplifting in it, even those parts that are expressing something really emotionally devastating. There’s something victorious, in the context of the way life is in the world today, to hear creativity expressed with that purity and sincerity I just mentioned. How does writing doom affect your sense of your place in the world, and how does hearing something really powerfully melancholic affect you?
MS: Sometimes it feels like… maybe it’s because of the pace… the emotion of it feels really concentrated. There are not a lot of riffs and things going by every second that you’ll get overwhelmed by. You are lost in this crux of heavy, often pretty evolved moments that take a while to get to their payoff. I think, as a result, there is a certain sense of if it’s powerful, then it’s really powerful, particularly gigantic. If there’s a sense of triumph, it’s that triumph of standing on top of a mountain and really taking it all in, where you’re not really in a hurry to get back down to the bottom. I think with that pace comes something like distance, an extra bit of essence, I guess. It’s kind of hard to put in to words; but, that’s how I feel about it.
BC: There’s that feeling of reflection, taking the time as you say. It’s really quite rare and in contrast to the pace and the “soul” of the world around us today, generally speaking. There’s something quite valuable about that.
MS: Well, you know, I think whatever style a band is playing in the great ones are great. Whether it be death metal, black metal, doom metal, whatever it is, each style has its challenges musically. I think one of the challenges of doom metal is that you don’t have those things blurring by you very quickly. And there are a lot of very good bands, technically good bands in terms of musicianship, they aren’t maybe necessarily the great bands, but their technicality is so good that you can kind of get away with a lot. I think with doom you can sense the falseness of a riff pretty quickly, because there’s not a lot going on around it. Whether it be Neurosis or Wino or Sleep, I think you really have to mean it in order for it to work. If it’s style over substance, it can still be good but it’s not going to have that “grab you by the heart” feeling.
BC: There are a lot of people into music on the fringe that adopt this position of cynicism, perhaps understandably, when the mainstream press start writing about their darlings. One could either say past examples have given them a right to be wary, or that they’re just being precious. What are your feelings when extreme and experimental music starts getting that broader recognition like you guys have received? Does the potentially temporary nature of this kind of attention ever concern you, particularly considering that you could say everything is temporary anyway?
MS: Well… we’ve had an experience on the periphery where very few people knew about us or cared about what we did… upwards to now where a lot more people on the periphery care about what we’re doing. And kind of everything in between. If we’re at the center of our process as an artist and being a band, really as long as we’re intact and stay true to why it is that we create then the stuff that goes on outside of that is not something that we’re dependent on, although definitely grateful for. So, I don’t mean to belittle the fact that more and more people are into it. To me, it’s not surprising, and I’m not really talking about YOB here but just extreme music in general here… but it’s music that has just existed for its own sake and it’s really been its own audience. Its gauge by which most people get into it has been over authenticity, sincerity, musicianship, and talent, also heart.
Is it causing those particular feelings that the style is aiming for? It’s really gauged on how honest and sincere and true it is. And I don’t mean true-with-a-v (trve), because maybe that’s where you get cases where there’s a lot of image and posturing that I think can certainly add something to a band that’s great, but won’t make a mediocre band great. You have to come by it honestly. So, I think there’s a lot of danger sometimes from just looking at things from the outside and then trying to top it or emulate it.
There’s a reason why the great bands are great, and why there’s such thing as a genre-tag. Before the genre-tag there are the originators, these people who just dug into their hearts. Sure, they had their influences but they brought something out that was different and fresh and captured the imagination. As far as these conversations, how deep they are, how people look… are beards in, are beards out… this colour, that colour… blah blah blah… That, to me, it gets a little tedious, you know. It feels a bit like high school and that we’re all missing the point. I’ll say that and I’m sure I’ll attract some quacks who will say that I’m old and tired and paying attention to the wrong stuff. Except, it’s just not important. What’s important is just pouring everything you’ve got into the music. And it’s just pouring from the bands that you love.
BC: Like you said, you can hear it from the great bands. I think, also, that you can sense that they have a more eclectic and open appreciation of music. It’s more about a spirit in which music is written than a particular style.
MS: Yeah, and then from there… I mean, there’s Portal, of course. They’re fucking amazing, Portal! You know, it has everything. Incredible musicians. But their presentation is theatrical and dramatic and dark and sinister. I mean, it’s perfect! It’s perfect from top to bottom. I’m not one to say… you know, I love spikes and leather as much as the next guy. But you’ve got to have substance with it, too. And that’s a clear example that it works.
BC: You’ve been touring pretty solidly since Clearing the Path… came out, with some very interesting and mouthwatering lineups. I saw Enslaved when they played here (in Perth) a couple of years ago and they just absolutely blew my mind with the energy and proficiency that they performed with. I was wondering how that experience was for you, touring the US with them and how the crowd was for you. A lot of people might think you’re two very different bands, but I think looking on a deeper level there’s more of a connection there than is immediately apparent.
MS: We definitely learned a lot from them. They really are elder statesmen and have a level of originality that is beyond question, really. Their internal locus of control, being in charge of what they create, is very strong. Maybe sometimes that has been hard on their fans, as a result, because they change. But they change in a way where I’ve been on the ride since day one to the present. I just love everything that they do. They’re great on stage and off. They have this amazing sense of humour but they’re serious about what they do, this balance that really is something else. It’s wisdom as much as anything. In fact, it reminds me quite a lot of hanging out with the Neurosis guys, to be honest. There’s that level of depth to their beliefs in their spirit as well as in their families and their lifestyles, which are incredible. They genuinely really dig YOB and asked us to support them on their tour. It’s always interesting to go out with a new band for the first time, especially a much bigger band, a legendary band. You always don’t know what it’s going to be like and it was just a pleasure from beginning to end. It was really wonderful.
BC: Awesome. It has been quite inspiring to observe how open, and thoroughly so, you have been about dealing with depression. If you talk about paradigms, it’s even more remarkable for a male in a heavy metal band to be doing that. I’m sure a lot of your fans who deal with the same issues, myself included, would say that it’s a vital contribution to make.
MS: Oh, thank you. It’s not the easiest thing to talk about. You definitely kind of paint a target on your chest, and people do sling their bows and hurl their arrows, as a result. I have definitely had fallouts, as a result. But, you know, you have to walk in your own shoes. And it’s quite a process to be able to do that.
BC: I’d imagine one of the best things about broader recognition is you might start getting touring opportunities that weren’t present before, coming to play in Australia being one of them. Do you know how much time you’re going to be able to spend here outside of touring? Do you get much time when you’re on tour to take a place in and get something from being in a different culture?
MS: No, not as much as we would like. Often, it’s just about being in transit, various rest stops, getting through a town, maybe get a minute to walk around there. But then you’re usually whisked off to the next thing. That could be a bummer because you don’t get to see some of the amazing things that each town might hold. But at the same time, for people who are like… if you’re a regular tourist or maybe you’ll have a couple of friends where you’re going, get to see some of those tourist things or get to savour something more off the grid… they don’t get to have our experience. Our experience is that we get to come into a town and be amongst a culture that we are a part of, part of that global culture of metal, heavy music, of musicianship and of people who love music in general. We’re a part of that community, but not a part of that culture personally in, say, Perth or Adelaide or Melbourne, yet. We get to come into that town and have a very intimate experience with a chunk of people who are cut from the same cloth and get to share something that other people maybe won’t get to experience. To me, it really comes down to being able to connect with these people and share those things that we have in common, that strength. There are so many things that are cool about this that not being able to see or do those other things end up being a very minor bummer.
Yob play Australia for the first time on the following dates:
August 19 — Rosemount Hotel, Perth August 20 — Enigma Bar, Adelaide August 21 — Max Watt’s (formerly The Hi-Fi), Melbourne August 22 — Manning Bar, Sydney August 23 — Crowbar, Brisbane
Tickets on sale now through lifeisnoise.com, Oztix and venue outlets.
Shoegaze is the vodka of musical genres, a clear spirit you can add to almost any other liquid to turn it into some kind of alcoholic drink. It’s the difference between a glass of orange juice and a vodka Screwdriver, or a Bloody Mary and a cold tomato soup. The coolest thing about vodka is it works in almost everything, while still remaining perfect on its own. Shoegaze is about the same. You can mix it up with any other genre, or you can decide to play it straight. Acts like Deafheaven and Dälek use shoegaze to transcend the conventions of their genres, while bands like Nite Fields or French Films use it as a way of filling out their sound. And bands like My Bloody Valentine or Flyying Colours use it differently again: in its pure form, without subservience or dilution, they let it drive their sound. While any of these approaches are enjoyable and equally justifiable, to fans of the genre at least, it’s really the first approach, the introduction of shoegaze to an unfamiliar form, that leads to the most unexpected and memorable musical discoveries. If Everybody is Going to Heaven was a cocktail, it’d be something bizarre but ultimately desirable like a Bloody Mary or a BLT. You might balk at some of its ingredients — alt-rock and emo, mostly, with a dash of noise rock and post-hardcore — but once you try it, you will understand. It’s one of those rare musical combinations that transcends all of its constituent parts, and it’s the shoegaze elements that tie it all together, making this dense, layered, heavy kind of music that ends up sounding different to anything you’ve ever heard before.
‘Cement’ is a bombastic, sludge-infused, post-hardcore opener. It’s loud, riff-driven, and sounds enormous, with sad, melodic vocals over wall-of-noise distorted guitars. The shoegaze elements in the track give the instrumentals a really immediate sense of power, playing off wonderfully against the small, comparatively fragile sounding vocals. The vocals build up during the bridge, which simmers and twists around a repeated guitar riff building into a massive pop-punk chorus. It’s a heavy, moody, and ultimately satisfying structure, which you expect to be repeated in the next track, ‘Dive Into My Sun’. But Citizen keep you guessing, building small vocals over spider-like guitars to a soft crescendo after an unexpectedly short bridge, before deconstructing completely in a single, minimalistic guitar line strung out across a roaring abyss. It transitions seamlessly into ‘Numb Yourself’, which is way more abrasive than the intro would suggest, starting immediately with coarse, impassioned shouting. The bass is heavy, the melodic work is beautiful, and there’s an overwhelming quality to the distortion like something pulled from Heads., or Metz. It’s not noise rock, not exactly, but it’s got that similar sort of power to it. Just layers and layers of guitar chords pulled together under raw-sounding vocals and melodic screaming.
The melodies are nostalgic, reminiscent of 90’s emo but also darker alternative rock bands like Smashing Pumpkins or Placebo. This comparison is only heightened by later tracks like ‘Yellow Love’ or ‘Heaviside’, which sound like they’d fit in amongst the lullabies on Smashing Pumpkins’ Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness, or the softer songs on a early Placebo album. But the energy, the intensity of it all – like a powder keg that threatens to explode at any time, even in the softer tracks – that’s all emotional hardcore. And the combination of these factors – the harmonies, the energy, the troughs, the peaks, and the random, unexpected shows of force – it all comes together into this beautiful, unpredictable and ultimately inspiring package. It’s like the emo equivalent of Ceremony’s recent foray into post-punk revival on their latest album, but the changes in their sound never affect their overall status as an emo band. The shoegaze elements are subservient to the rest of it, used as more of a tool to combine a disparate set of musical influences, to bring them all together into something else. I’ve rarely been a fan of emotional hardcore, but I can’t get enough of this album. It combines the careful melodicism and orchestral layering of 90’s alternative music with the sheer emotional intensity of hardcore, and puts it all together into this devastating aural assault that overwhelms you, then makes you want to sing along to pop-punk-inspired choruses. It’s more than just an emo album, while at the same time sounding like nothing else. Even if you’re not into the genre at all, even if you usually hate it, the album is deserving of your time. And if you are into the genre already, then who knows? It might just be your album of the year.
If you’re a Perth music fan, you’ve probably seen the two men from Alzabo before. Maybe you watched Steve Summerlin holding down the rhythm with Mink Mussel Creek or Whalehammer or Felicity Groomin sometime in the last eight years. Or maybe you watched Nick Odell leave bystanders dumbfounded as he channelled subterranean nightmares with Cease at the Hydey, the Rosemount or atop the DNA Tower in King’s Park. Alzabo lean more towards Cease, carving meditative yet gargantuan slices of droning doom. Before they support Yob at the Rosemount on August 19, we spend a minute with Alzabo and find out what’s new.
Describe your music in five words or less.
Sludge-chunk instrumental dance music.
What’s going on in the world of Alzabo?
We’ve been quite busy lately. Playing a few shows & trying to nail down the set. Hoping to record soon.
What motivates you to make music?
Steve amd I have been friends for years but we’ve never really played together properly and it’s just a really fun time! There is no pressure to do anything other than try to make the loudest and heaviest noise we possibly can. It’s very exciting actually.
What have been the high and low points of your musical experiences so far?
Alzabo is a relatively new project for us. We’ve only being playing together since February this year and it’s been all good. So no low points. The high point… maybe using all of Steve’s ridiculous amount of amps at The Rosemount a couple of months ago! He has a fucking huge set-up and it took a Ford Transit van just to transport his gear. CRUSHING! That and blowing the sound on stage at Mojo’s was pretty funny.
What music are you listening to at the moment?
Heaps of stuff. Listening to Godheadsilo a lot again, amazing fucking band. HTRK, Les Rallizes Denudes. Always YOB. Actually, Rage Against The Machine is in the car at present. The Battle Of Los Angeles! Great album!
If you were stranded on a desert island, which member of the band would get eaten first?
Steve would eat me as soon as he got a chance to. Bastard.
Here’s an opportunity to bitch about something, whether music related or not. What really pisses you off?
That Australia should be leading the world in so many ways, when in fact we seem to be going fucking backwards! I have a young family and there are some INSANE decisions being made at the moment that make me question if I want them to grow up here. That sucks. Perhaps a good first step for Perth would be voting in Mike O’Hanlon for mayor in October!
You’re putting together your perfect gig featuring Australian artists. Who would you get to play and where? Feel free to include acts/DJs/bands/venues that no longer exist.
Let’s go back in time to a house party at Tanya’s place, when the acid is good and the fires are burning. Mink Mussel Creek, Frozen Ocean and Eddy Current Suppression Ring. BOOM. Maybe a CEASE reunion? Good times, good times.
Alzabo join Dirac Sea in support of doom lords YOB at their first ever Australian show at The Rosemount Hotel on Wednesday, August 19. Tickets on sale now through lifeisnoise.com.
One of the brightest young guns the Australian music scene has thrown forward for a long time, beatmaker Japanese Wallpaper, is riding high after releasing his debut EP last month and to continue the good times of 2k15, he is heading into the Music Feeds studio for a live stream this afternoon!
Otherwise known as Gab Strum, JW was first discovered by the eternally on-point triple j Unearthed machine, which selected him as last year’s Unearthed High competition winner, taking his divinely sculpted soundscapes nation-wide.
His self-titled EP, which our reviewer described as “a layered and glassy piece of art”, was also followed by news of an east coast tour alongside another frustratingly talented youngster, Montaigne, which the pair are currently in the midst of (see dates below).
To send some spine-tingly electronic tunes your way and chat all about the current tour and more, Japanese Wallpaper will be in LIVE from 2.40pm today AEST, right here! Get ready for bliss.
Watch: Japanese Wallpaper – Forces
Japanese Wallpaper East Coast Tour With Montaigne
Monday, 6th July
Newtown Social Club, Sydney (U18 matinee)
Tickets: Ticketscout
Tuesday, 7th July
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (18+)
Tickets: Ticketscout
Wednesday, 8th July *SOLD OUT*
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (18+)
Tickets: Ticketscout
Saturday, 11th July *SOLD OUT*
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (18+)
Tickets: Ticketscout
Sunday, 12th July
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (U18 matinee)
Tickets: Ticketscout
Sunday, 12th July *SOLD OUT*
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne
Tickets: Ticketscout
One of the brightest young guns the Australian music scene has thrown forward for a long time, beatmaker Japanese Wallpaper, is riding high after releasing his debut EP last month and to continue the good times of 2k15, he is heading into the Music Feeds studio for a live stream this afternoon!
Otherwise known as Gab Strum, JW was first discovered by the eternally on-point triple j Unearthed machine, which selected him as last year’s Unearthed High competition winner, taking his divinely sculpted soundscapes nation-wide.
His self-titled EP, which our reviewer described as “a layered and glassy piece of art”, was also followed by news of an east coast tour alongside another frustratingly talented youngster, Montaigne, which the pair are currently in the midst of (see dates below).
To send some spine-tingly electronic tunes your way and chat all about the current tour and more, Japanese Wallpaper will be in LIVE from 2.40pm today AEST, right here! Get ready for bliss.
Watch: Japanese Wallpaper – Forces
Japanese Wallpaper East Coast Tour With Montaigne
Monday, 6th July
Newtown Social Club, Sydney (U18 matinee)
Tickets: Ticketscout
Tuesday, 7th July
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (18+)
Tickets: Ticketscout
Wednesday, 8th July *SOLD OUT*
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (18+)
Tickets: Ticketscout
Saturday, 11th July *SOLD OUT*
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (18+)
Tickets: Ticketscout
Sunday, 12th July
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (U18 matinee)
Tickets: Ticketscout
Sunday, 12th July *SOLD OUT*
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne
Tickets: Ticketscout
The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.
NEWS
X-Press and The Music Perth have merged. The July 1 issue from this last Wednesday was the last print edition of The Music’s Perth arm, and will now be fully digital going forward while becoming X-Press’ print portal. X-Press will continue to be published fortnightly. The Music Perth’s editor Dan Cribb penned a farewell to the publication speaking with past editors and eulogizing its nine-year run which you can read here.
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Headline acts are getting old. Or at least so says the data assembled by The Economist amidst the deluge of Glastonbury talk over the last week. The average age of a festival headliner (using the age of the solo artist or the lead of a band) was just over 30 in 1996; now, it’s over 40. Glastonbury’s three headliners ran the spectrum of generations; Florence Welch is only 28, Kanye West is 38 and Roger Daltery of The Who is 71. It comes as no surprise seeing as fewer artists capture the zeitgeist in their salad days, and the demand for headliners to top the bills of the absurd number of festivals, combined with dwindling royalty figures and the lucrative allure of the touring market has brought about the reunion culture of legacy acts that dominates today.
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Speaking of reunion culture, English comedian / writer Stewart Lee has been announced to curate next year’s ATP 2.0 Festival in North Wales next April. The event will follow ATP Festival’s return to the UK — and the first under this nebulous 2.0 banner — Nightmare Before Christmas, which takes place at the end of November. Though given that line-up is largely free of the usual reunion types — Courtney Barnett, Built to Spill, The Album Leaf and Lightning Bolt are all towards the top — perhaps ATP’s all about the salad days.
“Mess+Noise, “A Local Music Magazine dedicated to showing Australian music in a different and evocative light,” hasn’t updated for a month, but its messageboard, nicknamed the Shame Cauldron for its boarders’ uncompromising attitudes, is still simmering. It’s the most visible example in Australia of the decline of music messageboards. Anybody could tell you why they’re dying — the people entering the music industry now came up on Tumblr and Twitter, reblogging and retweeting each other endlessly with additions to the discourse, or on Facebook with private groups sharing bangers and turning over festival lineups, or on subreddits like /r/music, listentothis, hiphopheads etc., upvoting quips about Kanye West – but why does it matter?”
“Is it fair to poke fun at Murphy for cashing in on his cred? As an indie-label impresario, you never go Full Brand, right? Or do we just accept that this is the music industry and culture we live in now? “This is an industry that makes zero sense. It made zero sense ten years ago and somehow we’re [DFA Records] still chugging along, doing the weird thing that we do,” Murphy said in a 2013 interview with Billboard. “As long as we just hang out and don’t do terrible things that seem gross I’m happy.””
“It’s hard to listen to some of these decades-old sounds and not feel a sense of giddy nostalgia. This fall, Data Discs will reissue the soundtrack for 1992’s beat-’em-up classic Streets of Rage 2 as a deluxe vinyl edition. It’s a spellbinding document of its time, full of the composer Yuzo Koshiro’s chirpy interpretations of the era’s bleeding-edge sounds: scaled-down club tracks, a nod to Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without a Pause,” an almost note-perfect interpolation of Inner City’s “Good Life.” It’s the sound of a familiar, age-old musical story: cherished genres translated into new idioms, young visionaries butting up against someone else’s constraints. It was the first time some heard techno, and it was the music they had been waiting for all along.”
“All four original Ramones are dead. But the drummer for most of their records, Marky Ramone, who replaced Tommy from 1978–1983, was booted for alcohol abuse and band dysfunction for a few years and then rejoined in 1987 and remained until the end, including induction into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Marc Bell was also a founding member of Dust, played with Wayne County and was an original Voidoid while Richard Hell invented the punk rock look. Born in Brooklyn, lord of the East Village, King of New York. We ate at DBGB’s.”
LISTEN
Caspian — Sad Heart of Mine
Caspian have always played the kind of post-rock that requires patience. Yes, there are build-ups and crescendoes and tremolo picking and pretty pianos, but where your standard fare Mogwai emulator would throw those elements around willy nilly, Caspian experts at moderation. When those tools are wielded well as on Sad Heart of Mine, the result is an exalting moment of serenity. This is the way great music is supposed to feel.
Hope Drone — The Chords That Thrum Beneath The Earth
The latest cut from Cloak of Ash certainly doesn’t feel ten minutes long, which is a credit to the maturation of Hope Drone’s songwriting between their last record and their upcoming Relapse debut. The opening three minutes of brooding guitars make for some of the most ominous music released this year, and the explosion of blackened fury that follows is so compelling and nuanced it both embody and transcend that genre’s tropes. I’ve got a feeling Cloak of Ash is going to be one of the best albums of the year.
In a culture where effort is uncool, Dumbsaint’s ambition is admirable. Cold Call is the first track from from the Sydney outfit’s forthcoming long-player, Panorama, in ten pieces, and with the song’s debut comes an accompanying short film, a small portion of the 60 minute film that will accompany the full record. It’s beautifully shot, albeit a little student-feeling, and the song itself is a nervous and frenetic whirlwind of clashing guitars. Remarkably, the effort was self-funded; it’s reassuring to know that in a culture as small, insular and unprofitable as Australia, there are artists like Dumbsaint dreaming big ideas and following through. Panorama, in ten pieces. out August 7 and available for pre-order now through Bandcamp.
Corrupted are one of the more unique and interesting and elusive bands around. Since 1994, they’ve wrecked necks and eardrums with a sludge/doom base, with flurries of crust punk, acoustic guitars, harp, elements of post-rock and instrumental ambient pieces. 
