The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.
NEWS
After the overwhelming response to the Perth Needs More Music and Arts Venues Facebook group and the subsequent meeting in light of the impending closure of The Bakery, The West Australian is reporting that Culture and Arts Minister John Day has expressed his support for a new government-backed venue. The tentative frontrunner is Rechabites Hall, a former theatre on Williams Street. People power!
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LIN favourites Tangled Thoughts of Leaving are edging closer to their Pozible goal of raising $5,000 to fund the pressing of their forthcoming second album, Yield to Despair. They’re over 80% of the way there with 10 days to go, so if you’ve got a few dollars to spare and you like vinyl copies of post-psychosis-prog-jazz-beardcore, help them out. They’ve also just announced a European tour — including an appearance at the jealousy-inducing dunk! festival in Belgium — alongside Bird’s Robe labelmates Solkyri in May. They’re also touring the country with 65daysofstatic starting Saturday at Adelaide Festival.
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Speaking of jealousy-inducing festival lineups, All Tomorrow’s Parties have announced the next wave of acts for their Iceland festival this July, adding Public Enemy, Swans, Lightning Bolt, Bardo Pond and more to a bill that already includes Iggy Pop, Drive Like Jehu, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Froth.
READ
Henry Rollins: Confessions of a Tape Trader | LA Weekly
“Almost as soon as I began gathering paper evidence of this emerging scene, I became aware of cassette recordings that bands and fans were making. The mere existence of these tapes — music you could play over and over again, which could not be found in a record store — was in itself a small miracle. That someone had the wherewithal to wrench these moments from the ether was like beating the odds and defying the bastards who would have been happy for us to go the way of the proverbial tree that falls in the forest, unheard and unwitnessed.“
Kid Millions Talks The Importance of Mentors | The Talkhouse
“A mentor is your trusted guide and companion. Some mentors have no idea they are providing this kind of service. Maybe they show you how not to represent yourself. Maybe they show up to a gig completely drunk and cancel the gig. Perhaps they are assholes to everyone they deem unworthy of their attention. But in the best scenario the mentor sees your truth before you can grasp it yourself. She holds up a mirror that reveals your pure, undistorted truth.“
United Blood: How Hardcore Conquered New York | The New Yorker
“The New York scene was never monolithic. Shows drew skinheads, punks, and plenty of average-looking young people in T-shirts; many of the fans who followed Agnostic Front also turned out for False Prophets, a sarcastic and theatrical punk-inspired band. Even so, many scene participants nursed an inferiority complex. The Manhattanites disdained the guys from Queens; the Long Islanders hated being thought of as “interlopers”; virtually everyone resented the scenes in other cities, where the band members seemed to have enough spare time and cash to tour and promote themselves. “The kids from New York, we were like these crazy fucking street rats,” Todd Youth, who played guitar for a band called Murphy’s Law, says. “The kids from Boston and D.C. were really well off.” While most other early-eighties scenes gave rise to influential independent record labels, New York’s generated war stories. “You were getting chased down the street by gangs of Puerto Ricans that wanted to fucking kill you,” Youth remembers; Avenue A was contested turf. Alex Kinon, who played with Agnostic Front, says that he was once shot at in Tompkins Square Park, and that Vinnie Stigma responded by rushing toward the gunfire, armed with only an improvised shield in the form of a garbage-can lid.“
LISTEN
Sannhet — The Revisionist
Boutique San Fran label The Frenser are off to an excellent start to 2015, first with the earthshaking King Woman EP and now The Revisionist, the pummeling sophomore album from the similarly quake-inducing trio Sannhet. Better watch that faultline.
And So I Watch You From Afar — Wasps
Is there a modern heavy label as forward-thinking as Sargent House? From post-rock to doom to shoegaze to noise, the LA-based management outfit covers every base of exciting guitar music. Belfast quartet ASIWYFA settle into a groove on this preview of their fourth LP Heirs, balancing the frenetic guitar work with some rare vocal harmonization before the absurd double bass drumming kicks in. And for once they finish a song under the five-minute mark. Set guitars to kill.
Elder — Lore
Not to be mistaken with Jimmy McGill’s latest attempt at legal specialisation, Lore is a ball-tearingly heavy offering from a Rhode Island power trio with just the right amount of moxie mixed with the obligatory Kyuss/Sabbath worship to satisfy all your stoner/desert/metal/psych cravings. Is it insecurity that drives all these power trios to write songs that sound fucking gargantuan? Whatever it is, don’t stop.
Flowers & Fire — Demo
Raw riffage energetic melancholy abound in this first offering from a Vancouver post-punk outfit with virtually zero web presence. There’s a distinct Siouxsie/Banshee vibe throughout but the notes ring with a panic immediacy. Uneasy listening, but it’s not supposed to be easy.
The nice folks at National Public Radio have gone to the trouble of rounding up 100 tracks from 100 artists appearing at this month’s SXSW so you can better navigate the veritable shit-show that is trying to decipher if a band name is real or made-up for a hipster-baiting Jimmy Kimmel bit. There are a few familiar names, though — including Slanted & Enchanted guests METZ and Melbourne weirdos Twerps.
WATCH
THAW — Last Day
The Black Captain has written extensively about THAW, the Instant Classic label and the doom/black developments in Poland, but it’s a scene so far away, us Southern hemisphere residents are unlikely to ever witness it in the flesh lest you make the costly journey to the old world yourself. In lieu of such a pilgramage, here’s some HD footage of the sonic tyranny in action.
The Last Song Before The War
Tinariwen’s origin story might be the most rock ‘n’ roll in music history, but its members are merely one part of the Tuareg music tradition of Mali. In this hour-long documentary, director Kiley Kraskouskas documents the 2011 iteration of the three-day Festival in the Desert amongst political turmoil and sectarian conflict.
