The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.
NEWS
The Bakery’s final show is tomorrow. It’s shitty that we’re losing another fundamental venue that’s hosted a wealth of life is noise shows — Russian Circles, Sleep, Clark, My Disco, Barn Owl, Slanted & Enchanted and a buttload of others — not to mention some amazing other locals and internationals. But at least we get to celebrate in style, with the return of The Wednesday Society, Sex Panther and The Sabretooth Tigers, along with Injured Ninja presenting The Epic of Gilgamesh, plus Fait, French Rockets, DJs Craig Hollywood & Wil Bixler, Rachel Dease, Mudlark and more. Head over to the Facebook event for more details.
*
Beat is reporting The Espy in St Kilda is also closing its doors soon, but only for a little while. From May 17, the venue will cease its live music operations to allow for renovations with an aim to reopen by the summer.
*
Some good venue news! Wick Studios in Brunswick is set to open its doors on May 17 — just as the Espy begins its hiatus, funnily enough. As Beat reports, the former 13-room rehearsal studio/warehouse now boasts a recording studio, 15 rehearsal rooms, two live music spaces and a photo/video studio. The space will also be home to in-house industry services, including A&R, marketing, legal and graphic design personnel. They’re celebrating with a launch party which you can check out on Facebook.
READ
Swinging the Chain: A Conversation with Bill Ward | Steel for Brains
“It was very profound when I realized it, and I couldn’t deny the affection that I had for drums and drummers and just the look of a drum. Everything about drumming I was fascinated with. Not only drum patterns but the way that the drums looked; the way they shined in the sunshine in marching bands. Just everything about drums for me as a child was something that was very attractive, and I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew that I just got a good feeling when I listened to Gene Krupa. It was Krupa when I was a child and then later it was Louie Bellson, but when I listened to Gene or I listened to a lot of the big swing bands, or then later when I listened to the more rock and roll bands from the United States and people like Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and of course Buddy Holly – when I listened to these people I was just completely involved in what they were playing. ”
Godspeed You! Black Emperor — There’s Only Hope | Exclaim
“Twenty years on, very little is really known about GY!BE beyond the fact that they are one of Montreal’s most cherished and powerful instrumental bands, with a virtually flawless and majestic discography. They incorporate film abstractions in their music and, with its textual ruminations, diagrams and photographs, their album artwork has made bolder and more provocative political statements than some songwriters’ hard-laboured lyrics. In simply going about their business, the band have been accused of terrorism by both the FBI and the Canadian music industry. And, while they’re often perceived as gloomy and self-serious, they battle through all of that noise, stubbornly brandishing hope as their unshakeable emblem.”
Art-Rock Adventurism: The Complete 4AD Story | The Vinyl Factory
“Independent labels with proven longevity are, almost without exception, reflections of their patrons. So it goes with the four cornerstones of Britain’s post-punk apocalypse – Rough Trade, Factory, Mute and 4AD, and three of them (Factory being retired years before Antony Wilson’s death from cancer) still survive today. Out of that trio, 4AD’s current success is more on a par with its original incarnation than its peers. Compare 4AD ‘Past’, which embraced the likes of Bauhaus, The The, The Birthday Party, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance, Throwing Muses, Pixies, The Breeders, Lush, Red House Painters, Belly and Mojave 3 to 4AD ‘Present’, which currently includes Grimes, Bon Iver, Deerhunter, The National, Ariel Pink, Future Islands, tUnE-yArDs, Scott Walker, Daughter and Purity Ring. But with Rough Trade and Mute still manned by their original founders (Geoff Travis and Daniel Miller respectively), 4AD is the only one of the original quartet to have survived with a new label head replacing its original spearhead Ivo Watts-Russell.”
LISTEN
Steve Von Till — A Life Unto Itself
Even when it’s stripped of the crushing weight of pounding drums and punishing, gargantuan guitar riffs in Neurosis, Steve Von Till’s intonations demand attention. It’s one of those voices — powerful, foreboding, authoritative, and almsot prophetic in its seriousness — that stops you in your tracks and compels the listener to focus on every utterance, every syllable, every breathy whisper. With an acoustic guitar and occasional flurries of percussion atmospherics for backing, the Neurosis co-vocalist’s meditations on this, his fourth solo record, are well worth a listen.
Null — I
The strength of 65daysofstatic lies in their masterful marriage of the electronic and the amplified, where dancehall synthetics and artillery-strength guitar riff intertwine in a beautiful, chaotic mess. But they’ve always been a rock band with electronica tendencies; not the other way around. Late last year, guitarist Paul Wolinski released his new solo foray into experimental electronica with Full Bleed before following up with Midiflood the next month. Now Simon Wright has ventured out with his own solo project under the moniker of Null, an ambient, glitch-heavy and machinic experiment that sounds perfect for a neo-noir technological dystopia. Unlike the exploits with 65daysofstatic, this is not comfortable or uplifting music; it’s moody and unsettling — peculiar enough to maintain interest and confounding enough to keep you on your toes.
WATCH
The View From Here: Peter Bibby and his Bottles of Confidence
The Perth hills’ crown troubadour checks into the RTRFM studios with a few familiar faces for a 20+ minute live session. It’s an unusual setting for the now Melbourne-based songwriter — Bibby and offices don’t seem like they’d go together — but it makes for an oddly relaxing afternoon listen.
METZ — The Swimmer
METZ continue their love affair with uncomfortable viewing in the video for The Swimmer, a jerky, frenetic and enraged piece of forward-reverse cinema.
