Down Sounds: June 2010

Following last week’s vent/rant about the state of the ‘hype machine’, it’s comforting to get to the end-of-the-month music wrap-up and realise that, over the last four weeks, there have been releases that have naturally found themselves repeatedly on the Breakdown playlist. One in particular arrived in a clump of media quotes and was listened to and put aside, only to keep finding its way back in those moments when you just need an album that knows who you are – equally solace-providing and strut-causing. Wild Nothing’s Gemini came out through Spunk at the tail end of May and is in some ways an ode to the masters of melancholy and in others a very personal and un-self-conscious manifesto by a romantic and a dreamer. There are definite shades of Ride and Smashing Pumpkins and The Cure and even Sonic Youth to Virginia one-man act Jack Tatum’s (pictured) songs, all used in tasteful measures to give a sense of knowing and security. Lines can also be drawn to Ariel Pink’s ‘chillwave’ revolution (the one he hates to talk about, understandably), but the album is essentially made up of naïve, bedroom guitar lullabies; the kind of everlasting sadness and joy. And when Tatum warbles (in lo-fi harmony) “Boys don’t cry, they just want to die… Can I still be your pessimist?” in Pessimist, the moment of intelligent reference and re-imagining is lost to honest emotion. (And that’s enough ‘honest emotion’ on my part, thanks.)

In Melbourne, the younger Reptiles (as opposed to Nick Barker’s re-formed band) finally produced a follow-up to their rough and raw 2008 EP Smell My Skin, which hinted at a band unafraid to step out of their local influences to attempt a melody of their own but also to go all-out with their onstage bravado in a way Australian bands are rarely forgiven for. (Which, in my book, is a very good thing: entertainment and art do not always have to come with a shrug and shy smile.) If that EP was a grimy rock’n’roll beastling, then their newie, Come Get Me!, is that beastling grown into a bucking mutant horse. There are gothic country rhythms added to the swampy and deep-voiced drawls and scowls and some sharp hooks at work – I and others I know have woken up repeatedly with one of the songs stuck in our heads.


Also in Melbourne, Fabulous Diamonds (pictured above) made very good on their promise of a second album, II (out on Chapter Music), as hypnotic as it is deeply, strangely melodic and complexly and masterfully arranged. All that makes it sound like a difficult listen, or at least an overly cerebral one, and they are perhaps the most musically neurotic band in the country, but there’s a wonderful naivety to Nisa Venerosa’s choir-girl voice and some intensely body-feeling synth drones and rhythms made by her bandmate Jarrod Zlatic that pull the album up to being an all-over therapeutic massage. That the album can be listened to intently or stuck on in the background, providing very distinct experiences, says a lot about the way they write, creating sonic ecosystems from laboured detail.

From Perth, the 6s & 7s project from songwriter Josh Fontaine releases its debut album, Choose Sentinel Blooze, on 3 July (through Fuse) and it’s a pretty awesomely warped and schizophrenic (not in an obscene ‘crazy, man’ way; in the sense that disparate and often troubled voices interject the songs at times, the tunes changing tack and shifting melodies in condensed, paranoid movements) pop album. There is, as has been suggested, probably some Xiu Xiu in there, as well as The Magnetic Fields, but who cares about references when the result is a strong, uncompromising new Australian voice.

Even though it’s getting plenty of attention elsewhere, it feels like it’d be remiss of me not to again mention Sleigh Bells, their Treats album now out in Australia (through Liberator) and providing some madcap dirgey beats and cooing cheerleader vocals to getting-ready-for-a-night-out time. On that pile, too, for some easy listening, is the OST to The Runaways (out through Warner), the film fantasy of the creation of the ‘70s glam rock band. It’s a soundtrack for those discovering proto-punk, with Suzi Quatro, MC5, Bowie, The Stooges and the Sex Pistols mixed in with The Runaways and Dakota Fanning singing not-too-terrible (if sweetened up) versions of Cherry Bomb and California Paradise. A pretty base but still excellent selection.