“I like to think about society as being a flock of birds: There seems to be a common consciousness in different time periods, and the new common consciousness reacts to the old standards. Punk rock was tearing down traditional rock’n’roll and totally pissing on disco, then heavy metal came in and squashed the punk rock, and then grunge came in and squashed the heavy metal. It’s an organic way of making our musical society evolve.”
“The screen I’m watching is only four inches across and part of an upright turntable and cassette recorder hi-fi combo. The technology that is allowing today to occur is blowing my fucking mind. Stu’s Mum comes into his room carrying a tray of roast chicken legs. Adam Ant walks on stage. “Yes!” says Stu. “Yes!” I say. He isn’t dressed as a pirate or a highwayman wearing makeup but as some kind of rockabilly duffer but it doesn’t matter because nothing can ruin this moment of righteousness and vindication. What is he going to play? ‘Kings Of The Wild Frontier’? ‘Prince Charming’? ‘Mohok’? Two billion people are waiting. They play ‘Vive Le Rock’. “What?” I say but by the time he does a scissor kick I know the 80s and my childhood are over.”
LISTEN
Black Wing — If I Let Him In
Black Wing is a sonic typhoon, and on this preview from …Is Doomed, Dan Barrett is at once gentle, devastating and heart-breaking. Barrett is the man behind Connecticut post-punk outfit Have A Nice Life, as well as Giles Corey and a slew of other acts. Black Wing is his digital-only moniker
If I Let Him In is awash in a digital haze as a cacophony of metallic synths envelope Barrett’s disembodied intonations and a simplistic beat. This is one of the most moving pieces of music you’ll hear all year. …Is Doomed is out September 25 through The Flenser.
Protomartyr — Why Does It Shake?
Joe Casey oozes sarcasm in the newest slow-burner from Detroit’s Protomartyr taken from the quartet’s upcoming third album, The Agent Intellect. Why Does It Shake? is post-punk at its most essential: low-key and brimming with nuance, frustrated yet reserved, intellectual and visceral all at once. The Agent Intellect is out October 9 through Hardly Art.
WATCH
REW — Swan’s Melody
There’s nothing kinetic about the low-key piano refrain of Swan’s Melody, yet it’s a beautiful accompaniment for the mirrored footage of the New York Trapeze School, which sees its acrobats disembodied and reformed in a monochrome kaleidoscope. Swan’s Melody is taken from Olive Skinned, Silver Tongued Siren Sings Swan Songs, available now on Bandcamp.
“It was also almost inevitable that at some point the band would reach a creative crossroads. Iommi wanted to keep experimenting in the studio and investigate new directions, while Ozzy hankered after the early years of knocking it out in a few days and then hitting the road. The spectre of the emerging American FM radio sound also looms over Sabotage as the band’s popularity in the US continued to mushroom (my favourite example of the apparent disconnect between Sabbath’s proto-doom metal and the stadium rock culture they were increasingly living inside is their performance at the California Jam show in 1974 – Ozzy implores the audience, “C’mon, let’s have a party!!” while Iommi stands in front of a giant rainbow grinding out the opening chords to ‘Children of the Grave’). All of which makes for an album that’s reaching out to more mainstream rock tastes (without fatally over-balancing yet) while also trying to pull new rabbits out of the hat – the fact that it’s as enjoyable, and at times genre-defining, as it is shows how imaginative and resilient Sabbath were even under considerable duress.”
“In spite of being raised in a household financed by a struggling actor, I didn’t learn anything useful in my young life about the challenges of living on an artist’s unreliable income. In my adolescence, punk rock taught me that you never sell out. Ever. Of course, things like selling out were entirely theoretical at that point. No one was trying to pay me a salary to make music — I couldn’t even yet imagine it. Just a few years later, though, I was able to leave my last day job selling Dr. Martens boots at a small store called NaNa’s. The surprising popularity of my band, Jane’s Addiction, and the money we made in spite of the fuck-all attitude of our decision-making, enabled my youthful, uncompromising artistic worldview to extend far beyond my adolescence. I hadn’t yet found a replacement that incorporated both the creative life and its newly acquired dimension of regular employment. Artist, not yet artisan.”
“We tend to believe that art is—or at least should be—an all-encompassing thing: If you’re doing it right, you aren’t doing anything else, and your identity can’t help but be consumed in the process. But Mogwai’s longevity suggests that good art isn’t synonymous with self-destruction or self-delusion; nor is it endangered by normalcy or decency—in fact, it can be built on those things.”
LISTEN
Spirit Level — Wanderer
There’s an intoxicating quality to Spirit Level’s simple repetition. The jangly acoustics almost recall the tinny treble of old video game soundtracks, and I can’t tell if the images of landscapes conjured on my head are of real meadows or waves of pixel green. In any case, this latest taste from Lyndon Blue and Rupert Thomas is perfect zone-out music for lazy Sunday afternoons.
Facemeat — Compliments To Your Band
Like some kind of Mr. Bungle-soundtracked Lynchian nightmare, the first track on Questions for Men induces furrowed brows, indigestion and inexplicable feelings of arousal. Facemeat are the antidote to easy listening. Questions for Men is out August 25 through Art as Catharsis.
WATCH
Lanark — Mojave (Live at Foxhole Studios)
Judging by their recent live shows, Lanark’s new material has taken a sinister shift, forgoing Damian Diggs’ celestial vocal melodies for an alternating synth/guitar assault that moves from comfortably sublime to nervous and unsettling several times a song. Last month, the quintet debuted another new cut at the recently-opened Foxhole Studios, forwhich the pro-shot video has just emerged. There’s a welcome heaviness to the track, and though it’s likely a good half-year before anything’s put to wax, exciting things are ahead for one of Perth’s best-kept secrets.
“It was also almost inevitable that at some point the band would reach a creative crossroads. Iommi wanted to keep experimenting in the studio and investigate new directions, while Ozzy hankered after the early years of knocking it out in a few days and then hitting the road. The spectre of the emerging American FM radio sound also looms over Sabotage as the band’s popularity in the US continued to mushroom (my favourite example of the apparent disconnect between Sabbath’s proto-doom metal and the stadium rock culture they were increasingly living inside is their performance at the California Jam show in 1974 – Ozzy implores the audience, “C’mon, let’s have a party!!” while Iommi stands in front of a giant rainbow grinding out the opening chords to ‘Children of the Grave’). All of which makes for an album that’s reaching out to more mainstream rock tastes (without fatally over-balancing yet) while also trying to pull new rabbits out of the hat – the fact that it’s as enjoyable, and at times genre-defining, as it is shows how imaginative and resilient Sabbath were even under considerable duress.”
“In spite of being raised in a household financed by a struggling actor, I didn’t learn anything useful in my young life about the challenges of living on an artist’s unreliable income. In my adolescence, punk rock taught me that you never sell out. Ever. Of course, things like selling out were entirely theoretical at that point. No one was trying to pay me a salary to make music — I couldn’t even yet imagine it. Just a few years later, though, I was able to leave my last day job selling Dr. Martens boots at a small store called NaNa’s. The surprising popularity of my band, Jane’s Addiction, and the money we made in spite of the fuck-all attitude of our decision-making, enabled my youthful, uncompromising artistic worldview to extend far beyond my adolescence. I hadn’t yet found a replacement that incorporated both the creative life and its newly acquired dimension of regular employment. Artist, not yet artisan.”
“We tend to believe that art is—or at least should be—an all-encompassing thing: If you’re doing it right, you aren’t doing anything else, and your identity can’t help but be consumed in the process. But Mogwai’s longevity suggests that good art isn’t synonymous with self-destruction or self-delusion; nor is it endangered by normalcy or decency—in fact, it can be built on those things.”
LISTEN
Spirit Level — Wanderer
There’s an intoxicating quality to Spirit Level’s simple repetition. The jangly acoustics almost recall the tinny treble of old video game soundtracks, and I can’t tell if the images of landscapes conjured on my head are of real meadows or waves of pixel green. In any case, this latest taste from Lyndon Blue and Rupert Thomas is perfect zone-out music for lazy Sunday afternoons.
Facemeat — Compliments To Your Band
Like some kind of Mr. Bungle-soundtracked Lynchian nightmare, the first track on Questions for Men induces furrowed brows, indigestion and inexplicable feelings of arousal. Facemeat are the antidote to easy listening. Questions for Men is out August 25 through Art as Catharsis.
WATCH
Lanark — Mojave (Live at Foxhole Studios)
Judging by their recent live shows, Lanark’s new material has taken a sinister shift, forgoing Damian Diggs’ celestial vocal melodies for an alternating synth/guitar assault that moves from comfortably sublime to nervous and unsettling several times a song. Last month, the quintet debuted another new cut at the recently-opened Foxhole Studios, forwhich the pro-shot video has just emerged. There’s a welcome heaviness to the track, and though it’s likely a good half-year before anything’s put to wax, exciting things are ahead for one of Perth’s best-kept secrets.
The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.
NEWS
Sunn O)) have launched a new Bandcamp page to document their live recordings. The collection spans from 2002 up to their most recent UK run last month, with each show going for $5 a pop.
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Buzz Osborne tore into the latest contribution to the Kurt Cobain mythos at The Talkhouse last week, calling Montage of Heck “90%” bullshit. Now Osborne has elaborated on his critique in an interview with Riff You, questioning why people would ever believe Courtney Love and claiming people’s incredulity towards his position stems from his lack of wealth: “One of the biggest problems I’ve had with this scenario is that I am not really rich. If I was really rich, the respect with that would come…people would believe me more. Because I’m not, they don’t believe me. So be it. That’s 100% the truth. If people think I am gaining something from this, they’re out of their minds.”
“I read a David Icke book, and it kind of woke me up a little bit. It doesn’t mean that I believe everything David Icke has to say, but I definitely don’t disagree with the guy when it comes to certain esoteric aspects of how I perceive the world. There’s too many credible people who have been abducted by aliens. There’s too many things that have been written in ancient scrolls and ancient tablets, things that Zecharia Sitchin brought to light. I’ve been to Peru, I’ve been to Egypt… a civilization builds ziggurats and pyramids that we couldn’t build today, and you’re going to tell me that they used stone-age building materials? It doesn’t make any sense. There’s a lost history of mankind; I find it fascinating, and I tend to sing about it.”
“So, what do I do now that Kozelek has directed his infamous ire at a peer? Am I supposed to be surprised? I’m not. I didn’t need a chauvinistic email to reveal it. But are the events of the last week — year, even — supposed to make me cut ties with Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon indefinitely? Is it my duty to embargo his music as a woman?”
“St. Vincent opens her show with an announcement read by a Siri-like computer voice stating, “Please refrain from capturing your digital experience.”
Twenty-year-old me thinks, “Boo! How am I supposed to enjoy this show if I can’t hold up my phone to record it, thereby blocking everyone’s view, and then never watch it again?!”
Thirty-year-old me thinks, “Sensible and pragmatic. I approve.””
LISTEN
We Lost the Sea — A Gallant Gentleman
The first track from We Lost the Sea’s third album opens like the beginning of a eulogy — somber, reflective and reverent, with gentle guitars that ripple like breaks in still water. But what emerges as the track unfurls is triumphant, as choral harmonies breathe vitality into the song’s earnest tones, and before long this is not a eulogy but a celebration of life and triumph and, quite simply, one of the most moving pieces of post-rock I’ve ever heard. A naive reading would suggest this is a tribute to the band’s late frontman, Chris Torpy — in any case, it’s a remarkable deployment of post-rock’s sensibilities and an exciting preview of what’s to come. Departure Songs is out July 23 through Art as Catharsis.
Goatsound Studios cover Black Flag’s Damaged
Last month, Jason PC Fuller of Melbourne’s Goatsound Studios / The Ruiner gathered together 15 artists to reinterpret Black Flag’s Damaged to benefit Sea Shepherd. That collection is now available on Bandcamp under pay-what-you-want pricing, though aficionados are encouraged to donate as all proceeds go to Sea Shepherd. The collection includes a rare vocal performance from Hotel Wrecking City Traders on “Thirsty and Miserable,” a plodding sludge cover of “Police Story” from The Ruiner, a ball-busting rendition of “Gimmie Gimme Gimmie” thanks to Acid Vain and contributions from The Kill, The Sure Fire Midnights, Watchtower and more.
WATCH
Jerusalem In My Heart — If He Dies, If If If If If If
The next release from Constellation Records is the second record from Jerusalem In My Heart, a transcontinental, multi-lingual collaboration between Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and Charles-André Coderre. Much of the Constellation Records catalogue remains mysterious to me, owing to the diversity and multi-disciplinarian tendencies of its various artists, but there’s a beauty in that mystery in this age of knowledge. The above teaser is unsettling but fascinating and ties into Coddere’s visual art practise, which involves re-photographing images and chemically treating them. If He Dies… is out through Constellation on September 4.
FÓRN — Suffering in the Eternal Void
In an act of ultimate doom, funeral sludge outfit FÓRN played a show in a cave, and yesterday, they released their entombed performance as the official video for Suffering in the Eternal Void. Unsurprisingly, the acoustics in a cave are awful, but the visual document is compelling — how many people can say they’ve played in a fucking cave?
Before they support doom metal giants Pallbearer at their first Melbourne show later this month, we spend a couple of minutes with ambient duo Warpigs and find out what’s new…
Describe your music in five words or less.
Angelic, divine, cut throat blues.
What’s going on in the world of Warpigs?
We’ve just released our first full length, Natural Philosophy, on vinyl. It’s been a long time dream for us to have our music on wax and it feels great to finally have a product we’re not only proud of, but also feel represents so much of what we’re about.
What motivates you to make music?
Each other. A duo is much different from larger bands where there is always some element of compromise in music making. In Warpigs, we’re able to completely be ourselves, to completely create and play from our hearts. It’s a unique experience that allows us to draw from every and any influence.
What have been the high and low points of your musical experiences so far?
Playing live to air on PBS’s Pojama People was a great experience and one we’re truly grateful for. Playing live in general is always a high, the way we write our music allows us to embrace the moment and expand our songs to suit the setting. In this group I don’t think there really have been any low points, though that time Poly broke his foot was pretty shit.
What music are you listening to at the moment?
All sorts of stuff, it’s kind of hard to name anything in particular. Lots of local stuff, lots of bands we’re playing with. Melbourne/Australia has some awesome music.
If you were stranded on a desert island, which member of the band would get eaten first?
Probably Poly, he’s a vegan so he couldn’t eat me anyway.
Here’s an opportunity to bitch about something, whether music related or not. What really pisses you off?
Scenes, seriously wtf?! My 21st was at the Arthouse, the bands playing were Dreadnought, Fuck I’m Dead, Running With Scissors and Alarum. It was awesome. That lineup would never happen these days, and that is shit. There is nothing ‘punk’ about dressing the same as everyone else in the room.
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.
We already did this at our recent vinyl launch at the Gasometer Hotel, just wish it was a warmer night so we could open the ceiling.
The line up was, Magic Mountain Band, Warpigs, Goodbye Enemy Airship and Bonnie Mercer. We would’ve added The Boy Who Spoke Clouds, but we got him to mix the night instead.
There are so many great bands in Australia and we’d be happy playing alongside any of them.
Warpigs join Child in support of Pallbearer on June 17 at the Ding Dong Lounge in Melbourne. Tickets on sale now through lifeisnoise.com.
The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.
NEWS
Every Tuesday is now Record Store Day, sort of, thanks to the American Association of Independent Music. Participating retailers will now devote the second day of the working week to specialty vinyl releases, new vinyl pre-releases ahead of other formats, reissues and special pressings.
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Alex Griffin — who you might know as a life is noise contributor, Tiny Mix Tapes writer, Ermine Coat player or just a general top bloke — has launched his own zine talking about all things musical over at Bonzerzine. He’s kicked it off with a review of Perth outfit Verge Collection and an interview with the fine folk of Shit Narnia. Dig it.
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In jealousy-inducing festival news, Riot Fest has revealed the bulk of the line-up for the 2015 iteration which takes place in Chicago, Denver and Toronto over three weekends in August and September. Iggy Pop and Motorhead get top billing at multiple stops, while the festival’s biggest leg in Chicago appearances from Faith No More, Drive Like Jehu, L7, Echo & The Bunnymen, Death, Indian Handcrafts and a slew of yet-to-be-announced acts. You can check the full line-up at riotfest.org.
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Seoul is now host to a tremendous public vinyl library with over 10,000 records. The venture is the latest in a series of library projects by credit company HyundaiCard and follows on from their Design and Travel Libraries. The Music Library also carries over 3,000 books and every issue of Rolling Stone from the last half-century. You can check out the website here. [via FACT]
“Although the band’s initial release, 1982’s Swans EP, built off of the city’s dying no-wave scene, the ensemble came into its own with its debut full-length, Filth, the following year. Full of lumbering rhythms created by two bassists, two drummers, one guitar, a whipped metal table and some suffocating tape loops, the record is primal art rock at its most vitriolic, anticipating industrial, sludge and noise-rock in one fell thump. More threatening, Gira intermittently snarls imperatives about power – “Flex your muscles!” “Take control and keep it!” “Don’t talk until you’re spoken to!” – in a way that made Henry Rollins sound like Olivia Newton-John at the time, as the band dismantled rock to its most threadbare essentials.”
“There are many legendary bands who name is a shibboleth for a certain kind of taste or knowing insiderism, but whose recorded output is less adequately attended to than it deserves to be. High on that list of bands are avant-noise German collective Einstürzende Neubauten, a band from West Berlin born from the apocalyptic Cold War paranoia that gripped that city for decades, whose music is famous for the explosive din produced its unusual and repurposed instrumentation. Over their three and a half decades of operation this has included jackhammers, sheet metal and fire, an instrumentation perfectly suited to the broken terrain of a city smashed into submission and never properly rebuilt.”
LISTEN
KU?KA — Flux 98
Is Laura Jane Lowther synesthetic? The intensely lush textures that fill every space of Lowther and company’s songs are so rich in sensory detail that it feels like she’s almost translating the taste of colour into soundwaves. Flux 98 is the third single from her forthcoming EP, Unconditional, and channels sounds from above the clouds and below the ocean’s surface, awash in high-end synths and Lowther’s distinctive heightened falsetto. Unconditional is out August 14 through Midnight Feature.
Hope Drone — Every End Is Fated In Its Beginning
Australia’s Hope Drone — who you may have heard are now signed to Relapse fucking Records — have released the first taste of their forthcoming long-player, Cloak of Ash, which is due out July 14. The 9-and-a-half minute track is brimming with the ecstatic dread, marrying ferocious black metal intensity with hazy ambience over a daunting two-chord refrain. Expect big things.
WATCH
Neurosis — Times of Grace at Maryland Death Fest
MDF is consistently one of the strongest heavy festivals of the year. If you’ve been following the LIN Facebook, you probably saw our commander-in-chief’s live updates from the front lines with YOB, Conan, Ufomammut, Melt Banana, Full of Hell, Inter Arma and a metric fuckton of metal’s finest. Professional live footage has been hard to come by, but this crowd clip from Neurosis’ set is nothing to sneeze at. Even from 100 feet back on video, Neurosis is a stunning and exhausting behemoth of a band.
Sam Prekop — A Geometric
Like a degraded VHS tape playing old Windows Media Player visualisations, the video from Sam Prekop’s A Geometric is an analog-to-digital mindfuck of colours and shapes. There’s something vital lost in our HD aesthetic, and the lo-fi strobing geometry from video artist Nick Ciontea is a perfect match for Prekop’s pulsating and oscillating synths. A Geometric is taken from The Republic which is out now on Thrill Jockey.
The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.
NEWS
The Bakery held its final show on Saturday, celebrating its last day with a ridiculously stacked 14-hour extravaganza. (How fucking good were The Wednesday Society? My god.) It’s a huge loss for Perth music and it’ll be a long time before another space emerges to fill the void, but there’s some good venue news on the Western front (for once). Plans are in motion for a new music space in Wolf Lane in a room that formerly housed a manufacturing base for fashion retailer Pierucci. You can follow updates on The Sewing Room — which has just lodged its plans with the City of Perth — on Facebook.
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Pitchfork and others are reporting that prolific D.C. noise rock duo Royal Trux are set to return for LA festival Berserkertown in August. So far it’s the only date for the two-piece who broke up in 2001
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In yet more reunion news, Blabbermouth is reporting that Phil Anselmo’s Superjoint Ritual are set to tour the US, according to a recent interview from drummer José Manuel Gonzales. The thrash outfit broke up in 2004 before reuniting for a one-off performance at Housecore Horror Film Festival in October last year. Anselmo had previously insisted that the show would be the band’s only time sharing the stage together — despite insisting years prior that a reunion was an impossibility — adding further proof that every single goddamn band in the world members who are breathing and at least half a dozen fans will reunite at some point. Superjoint Ritual are set to play Hellfest in June.
“The traditional modern concept of success — being the measurement of monetary income as the primary indicator of effort and mastery in a certain field — is essentially a scam, a con, and a lie. To equate success with an amount of money earned, or an amount of fame achieved, is at best an unfortunate miscomprehension of the very nature of success. At worst, it’s a malicious distortion.”
“The album that finally resulted from the lineup turmoil—Butler also left during the sessions, though he returned before recording finished—was Heaven & Hell. Dio’s presence as a lyricist and driving songwriting force revitalized the rest of Black Sabbath. Iommi’s riffs and solos, previously rooted almost entirely in the blues, began to incorporate the neoclassicism that Dio learned from Blackmore in Rainbow. The songs began to shift between high-tempo (for Sabbath) blasts and moody, atmospheric passages. And, of course, Dio’s fantasy lyrics were a departure from Butler’s tales of war, women, and drugs. Despite the album’s commercial success, the change in direction led to an exodus of old fans. The Dio era is still a point of contention among Sabbath fans, though a string of successful reunion tours from 2007 to 2009 under the name Heaven & Hell renewed interest in his records with the band.”
“Back in the pre-Instagram days, folks were in it for the love (not the likes). Iconic music photographers such as Glen E Friedman, Henry Diltz, and London DJ/punk documentarian Don Letts — whose 1978 The Punk Rock Movie shot on Super 8 footage featured all the key players in the UK punk movement (The Clash, The Slits, The Sex Pistols) — were capturing a piece of history. In LA, the show From Pop to the Pit is currently showing electric, rarely seen archival portraits of the bands that shaped the city’s music scene from 1978–1989 shot for the now defunct Herald-Examiner. These camera-wielding renegades were in pursuit of those vulnerable and fuck-all moments that happen backstage, in the pit, and in an infested alley behind a venue. From hazy-days with Diltz, Woodstock’s official photographer who spent the 60s with Joni Mitchell and the Laurel Canyon Folk Scene, to stage-diving with Edward Colver, the gritty punk photog who chronicled the birth of American hardcore and snapped early portraits of Bad Religion and Minor Threat, nostalgic images have shaped our understanding of a formative time.”
LISTEN
High on Fire — The Black Plot
The new High on Fire sounds just like High on Fire, which is just fine, because High on Fire sounding like High on Fire is better than most other things. Pike makes his guitar sound like an actual screaming banshee at the beginning of the bridge. Honestly, listen to that moment around 3:53 and tell me that doesn’t sound like the horrid scream of some harbinger. The cut is from their forthcoming 7th LP, Luminiferous, a concept record about the social engineering of the nebulous Elite, which is out June 23.
Methyl Ethyl — Twilight Driving
On every song, Methyl Ethyl exist on some kind of utopian celestial plane where the sun never sets and the the whole world is a coastline. Twilight Driving harbours an ever-so-slight sinister undercurrent in its verses, as if the whole veneer could shatter at any moment.
Todd Tobias — Suvarnabhumi
Something lurks beneath the lush melancholia of this first track from Todd Tobias’ forthcoming Tristes Tropiques. The imagery in my head is organic yet machinic, like a Vangelis-scored nature documentary. Tristes Tropiques is out June 9.
WATCH
The 13th Floor Elevators — You’re Gonna Miss Me (Live at Austin Psych Fest Levitation)
The last time this band played together, LBJ was president, the Stooges had existed for only a year and Matt Pike wasn’t even born. The psychadelic stalwarts’ first show since 1968 closed Austin Psych Fest Levitation marked 50 years since their formation in the Texas capitol and closed the proceedings of the ridiculously stacked festival that boasted Earth, Lightning Bolt, Primal Scream, Thee Oh Sees, Nothing, A Place to Bury Strangers and Chelsea Wolfe. 47 years between shows. Think about that.
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.
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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.
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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.
“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. ”
“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.”
“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.
The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.
NEWS
If you’re over 33 and can’t stand all the racket the kids call music these days, turns out you might be statistically average. Writing at Skynet & Ebert, Ajay Kalia — who works at Spotify to create users’ Taste Profiles — analyzed the demographic data and listening habits and concluded that users’ tastes, on average, “mature” by their mid-30s — which is to say new music is no longer a part of their listening diet. Of course, Kalia’s conclusion concerns popular music (whatever that means), and what many of the discussions around his findings have ignored is that older Spotify users (whatever that means) discover less familiar genres that they weren’t exposed to as teens, and users also re-visit music that’s fallen out of popular favour since their teenage years.
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Explosions in the Sky’s discography is now available on Bandcamp.
“Rock music tends to reward the inspired accident: fans have become trained to respond to sounds that may be calibrated to micron-thin tolerances but which give the aural appearance of the intuitive and the inspired. That isn’t what seems to be happening here. Nor is this the product of a jazz sensibility, where technical excellence and deep understanding of chords, tone and rhythm combine to permit improvisation, in tune and on time, to provide the hypnotic focus. On these sessions Fugazi sound like they found a new path, somewhere between the two — where you can hear the deliberation behind every note yet never for a second feel that this makes the music anything less than tremendously exciting.”
“Being isolated spatially and culturally – us from the city, Perth from Australia and Australia from the world – arms one with an Atlas-strong sense of identity. Both actively and passively, originality seems to flourish in Perth’s artistic community. Without the wider community’s acceptance, creative pursuits lack the potential for commodification. There’s no point in preening yourself for success because it’s just not real. It’s a fairytale, so you may as well just do it in whatever way you like, good or bad, in your room or on the top of the Telstra building, which – as anyone with any common sense will attest – was built for that one potential badass to drop in on a skateboard and parachute off.”
“Live music is, by nature, impermanent and ephemeral, but the places that show are staged can be either transitory or stable. All that’s needed is a power supply, a space for artists to play, and a place for the audience—meaning live music can happen most anywhere. I’ve seen bands play in a cemetery, in a botanical garden, a library, an industrial hallway, on a bridge, and in a skate bowl. I’ve been to huge festivals, clubs, and seen sets in churches, community centers, and many basements, kitchens, and living rooms. Despite all these options or spaces for opportunity, it’s harder than ever to get a show space off the ground, and keep it running. It’s no wonder so many spaces throughout the U.S. are illegal and temporary at best.”
LISTEN
The Leap Year — Knesting / Dental Work
In an alternate universe, The Leap Year are one of the biggest bands to ever come out of Perth. I fucking love this band, and I wish everyone else did too, and I can’t pinpoint what makes them so compelling yet so under-appreciated. Their new 7-inch — the follow-up to their tremendous 2013 album, The Narrowing — is bombastic and subtle and brittle and powerful and morose and uplifting all at once. Without being obtuse or even that groundbreaking, The Leap Year defy genres — call it slowcore, indie rock, shoegaze or gloom — all I’m settled on is that they just write really fucking good songs.
Chelsea Wolfe — Iron Moon
There’s a menace lurking beneath every note in this first taste from Chelsea Wolfe’s forthcoming Abyss, which is out August 7. But the song’s not without its moments of beauty; she matches the storm-brewing moments of intense discomfort with purgative, uplifting vocal melodies. This is Wolfe at her heaviest and most invigorating.
WATCH
Under the Influence: New York Hardcore
Rancid’s Tim Armstrong narrates this VICE documentary on the punk scene that flourished amongst New York’s 1970s and 80s squalor in the Village, documenting the abuse, addiction and poverty surrounding the rise of Agnostic Front, Title Fight and more.
Death From Above 1979 — Virgins
The amish go wild in this second video from the Toronto duo’s The Physical World.
The Japanese noise icons last visited Australia in 2012, where they their third record, the droning opus that is 2000’s Flood, in full. But such is the prolific nature of Boris recording career that they’ve released three new records since then, starting with their 18th record, Präparat, in 2013, followed by their latest record, Noise, in June of 2014, as well as the fourth and final instalment in The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked cycle.
Though Boris have built much of their legacy on an aesthetic rooted in noise rock, the trio have a Bowie-like tendency for reinvention, flirting with doom, shoegaze, sludge metal and drone in their near-two decade career. Yet Noise might be their most diverse — and, perhaps surprisingly, accessible — release to date. In spite of what the record’s title may suggest, Noise shows Boris at their most melodic, embracing the harmonious along with the dissonance that runs throughout their discography. More than anything, Boris are about adaptation, change and progress.
Here, guitarist and vocalist Takeshi discusses over email the creative process, the live show and the future of Boris.
You’ve been releasing records through Sargent House since 2011 – how has your experience with them as a label compared to your time with Southern Lord?
Takeshi: Whenever Boris work on new music we have always been conscious of its freshness. Since the day one we worked with Sargent House we could find another output, direction, connection with new people as well as unknown music. It has been great and healthy to be working with them.
Last time you played Australia, you were playing one of your most well-regarded albums, Flood, in full – are there any plans to revisit Pink as it turns 10 this year, or are you purely focused on new Boris music?
10 years have passed since the Pink release? I totally forgot about that. Well it may be hard for us to play an old album in its entirety for the show unless we have particular reason or concept to do. Nothing is more than great to play new songs and sound which is being updated day by day, and we’d prefer that.
The compelling thing about Boris is the diversity in your body of work, from the Earth-inspired doom of your early work to your fascinations with sludge, psych, shoegaze and doom to Noise, probably your most melodic and varied work to date. What is it that drives that evolution of sound from album to album?
Simply we have just enjoyed our music. ‘Good music is good’ and as far as it still means ‘heavy’ for us it doesn’t really a matter whatever genre or category has. We have our own signature sound that only three of us can make and it will never end.
You’ve collaborated with some highly influential artists in the world of drone, noise and rock – from Sunn O)) to Ian Astbury to Merzbow and Keiji Haino. Who are some other dream collaborators you’d like to work with?
Collaboration will not happen unless there is significance or necessity. It all depends on an encounter or certain opportunity, if there is no mutual communication each other on musical lever then that is going to be one-way and ‘everyone is acceptable’ for us, which doesn’t mean fruitful. Luckily enough Boris have met lots of great artists like a destiny, we have respected collaborators each other before we worked together. Our latest collaboration is with ENDON, who is one of the most updated extreme bands in Tokyo. If there is significance and necessity then that will lead us to another opportunity for collaboration.
In an interview with The Quietus last year, you talked about the Tokyo soundscape and the vitality of noise as a part of the Japanese psyche, saying that “noise is Japanese blues.” Was that something you realized when Boris was forming, or did it become apparent later on?
That was recognized me when Boris toured outside Japan for the first time. The more I encounter other cultures and customs and with seeing Japanese culture objectively from outside of Japan, the more I realize that is crucial. Of course it is so loud in downtown of every city, though so many massive noise and unnecessary voice information are flooded everywhere in Japan and no one says it is noisy and makes any complaint against it. On the other hand authorities are very strict with low frequencies inside of clubs or db-limit at open-air show here. It seems to be more comfortable for me when I have been in western countries, cities have more quiet spot everywhere. In general it tends to be considered that Japan or Japanese people respect and prefer silence or calm but I think they are just patient, or try to be, with whatever it sounds so loud or noisily.
With such a vast discography, how will you approach your live show on this tour in terms of designing a setlist and ensuring there’s a satisfactory representation of new and old material?
Basically Boris play the latest songs for the show though it is pretty hard to decide setlist, in order to have both new and long-term fans enjoy shows at once. For our own headline show we can play longer set with various sides of our musical aspect and direction, and for residency show like 2 days in each city which is enabling us to show totally different set both days. Boris have always tried to play enjoyable set not only for our audience but also for us.
Noise will be almost a year old by the time you come to Australia, and you have a reputation as a highly prolific band when it comes to recording – is there another Boris album coming soon?
Yes, we are currently focusing on recording and studio work. During the Live Noise Alive world tour to support Noise, we have found new and particular vision and concept for the next album. It is pretty exciting to devote ourselves to working on it. I hope this one is worth for you to wait for.
Boris “Live Noise Alive” Australia Tour
Brisbane — Crowbar — Wednesday May 27
Sydney — Newtown Social — Thursday May 28
Sydney — Newtown Social — Friday May 29
Melbourne — Corner Hotel — Saturday May 30
Adelaide — Fowler’s Live — Sunday May 31 (all ages and licensed)
