Down Sounds: July 2010

Taking some time out to go sit on a beach for a few days and forget about the mid-year “but I haven’t done anything yet” feeling and that other thing no one’s allowed to talk about because it’s really boring (*cough* winter) means, for me, stocking up on light-hearted music as well as digging up some old favourites. Last week, that meant finally giving Florence & The Machine some time (and, yeah, I get it now, though I think the album hits some pretty rough patches) and, inspired by the recent reissue of Fables Of The Reconstruction, some much later and underrated REM, primarily the nostalgic (and now more so) jangle-pop of 2001’s Reveal. Anyway, the point is, when the call of the mid-year escape lures you away, it’s easy to miss all the new releases, which is also the point of dropping out for a bit.

Rather than scan blogs in an attempt to catch up on what’s been going on, though, I prefer to check up on some of my trusted label sites and see what they’ve been up to instead. It’s a far more calming and generally less gross approach and it can lead to some excellent and more ‘personal’ discoveries. So I’ve been spending some time this week on the True Panther Sounds website, the New York-based label now owned by Matador that includes Delorian, Hunx & His Punx, The Morning Benders and Tanlines on its roster. It’s by no means a big label, but the site is usually good for some remixes and, hopefully, a heads up on a new 7” or track. This week revealed two: a song from excellent Memphis band Magic Kids and one from New York’s Teengirl Fantasy, who I’m pretty sure I’ve written about here a few times now. The Magic Kids track, Summer (hrm), is a little further towards Belle & Sebastian than The Brunettes but with the same unfussed production values, ending in some pretty gorgeous ‘50s high-school-dance crooning. Teengirl Fantasy’s new 7” single, Love Don’t Live Here, samples the 1970s Rose Royce song Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (yes, the same Madonna covered), though it’s hidden cleverly and effectively under saturated ‘orchestral’ keys and trip hop beats. Truly excellent. (Meanwhile, their current touring schedule has them playing Brooklyn with Midnight Juggernauts and Korea with Handsome Furs…?)

Speaking of getting good shit online, if you haven’t yet, head straight to the Bandcamp site of Melbourne production god-thing Crumbs and download (for free!) his new mini-album, Pieces & Portions Vol 2. I haven’t much tried to hide my love of Brain Children previously and this project from the duo’s Max Kohane is progressing crazy fast; this album a hurts-so-good initiation into some kind of underwater dance cult who use joysticks as paddles. Um… yeah.

Talk is definitely getting louder on Queensland’s The Seizures, who’ve recently played shows with Sydney’s most awesome Southern Comfort as well as supporting Violent Soho. Their thing is basically just good, grimy but noodling noise punk. There’s not a whole lot online but you can check out some gig footage at theseizures.blogspot.com.

Perth’s The Bank Holidays have released their devastating second album, Sail Becomes A Kite (Lost & Lonesome), an album still full of the band’s rich, glistening instrumentation but disquieting through lilting melodies and ominous bass and effects happening somewhere in the background. Nat Carson’s voice is the right mix of pretty, distracted, wise and fragile. It’s a blend shared (though in a somewhat more even way) by Melbourne’s Owl Eyes (pictured), the solo project of Brooke Addamo, who has just serviced the track 1+1 from her upcoming Faces EP (which will be out through Wunderkind Music). What starts out as a sweetly sullen lament on a relationship, enlivened by xylophone and girl-group harmonies, becomes more affecting as the instruments fall out and the plodding tempo of the chorus is held up by Addamo’s wary but warm vocal.

And, just quickly because they’re everywhere anyway, Super Wild Horses. Fuck. That’s all.

Turn on Genius (baby, baby, awwhh)

Is the ‘boomer backlash’ coming? Three or four generations of people would probably like to think so, but in reality there are still about two billion Nissan Pathfinders worth of folks over the age of 55 owning the shit out of everything. Still, there are definite signs that the ‘boomer’ stronghold on everything from property to jobs is being evaluated in a way it wasn’t when the boomers were seen in a good light; as ‘free-spirited’ or ‘entrepreneurial’ (because that’s a good thing).

An opinion piece by Francis Beckett (himself of boomer age) in the Guardian this month takes a pretty scathing view of the boomers in power in the UK; one that relates almost directly to our own situation. Beckett views boomers as a generation who were given more freedom than any previous yet have decided to restrict the freedoms of younger generations. One of the major points Beckett makes is that, in the boomers’ younger days, tertiary education was free to even the “penniless”, ensuring a sector of younger people without previous access to university places were able to further their learning. Of course, in Australia, when Whitlam abolished university fees in 1974, a giant percentage of those attending university were already on Commonwealth scholarships.

The point Beckett makes is that, for boomers, education didn’t come with an appendix indicating its value with relation to market forces and job suitability. Now, with an overlording focus on economics and the ‘harsh realities’ of unemployment, Beckett writes, education is seen as the “acquisition of skills required to swell someone else’s pockets”. That sentiment hits home when considering recent polls indicating that one-third of Australians are looking to change jobs. It becomes even more powerful when considering the personal conversations between those of us under boomer age about qualifications, thoughts of further study, universities that are ‘academic’ or ‘prestigious’ as opposed to ‘jobs-based’ and what the difference is between the two when it comes time to apply for work. Learning is, by and large, no longer seen as valuable in itself.

It might sound like grappling for a link, but Beckett’s piece had me thinking about the way views on education relate to music: marketability vs the generation of ideas; the ‘friendliness’ of bands or songs to radio programmers’ ears as opposed to innovation regardless of exposure. All pretty well covered topics, and pretty boring, really, until you consider how often bands are talked about as needing to go ‘back to the practise room’ or ‘work on their songwriting’ – if not explicitly, then in the back of our minds when watching or listening to an act who is new to us. We shrug bands off easily because there’s always another band who’ll have their shit together more; because we’ve learned that, when evaluating music, form and ability and execution (regardless of your angle on any of those) are the things to look for. The learning isn’t celebrated in itself.

Cue Seattle 26-year-old Mike Hadreas, who performs as Perfume Genius and has just released his debut album, Learning (Matador/Remote Control). The title might relate to the lessons Hadreas has been through to get to the point of each song’s output (if the lyrical content is taken as true: the affair with and death of a teacher, dealing with an alcoholic parent of a friend, general disappointment and hope), but it also relates to the form the album comes in. Much of it sounds like a spilling of ideas Hadreas has had about genres and song forms and melodies. Barely any of it sounds complete when held against the criteria often given to ‘successful’ songs or albums. Hadreas is learning to use his voice, his words and his instruments; learning, like any student, to untangle the thoughts of how he wants to use his piano, his graceful warble, how to turn a piece of repeated orchestration into a ‘song’.

Such an observation might often follow with a statement of how stunning the album is regardless. In truth, some of it is (and when it is, it really is) and some ideas don’t really hold up. But it is a celebration of learning in a way learning is very rarely celebrated, without attempting to veil the process or playing it down for looking to what comes next. It’s a simple idea but one worth noting.

Total Slacker (or dopamine fiend)?

6.57am: Awoken by muffled, obnoxious voices coming from radio in bathroom. Housemate has beaten me to shower. Lie for three minutes before soothing phone alarm that sounds like digital Morcheeba goes off. Take that, winter.

7.25am: Listen to Darren Hanlon’s new album for review while eating Sultana Bran and reading paper. Is really good. Something about current song reminds me of Bright Eyes’ We Are Nowhere And It’s Now. Wonder if people still think Bright Eyes is ‘emo’. Decide not to use comparison in review.

8.45am: Leave for work. Remember have not updated old iPod Nano that holds approx six albums. Again. Choice of ‘morning music’ between Fleetwood Mac and Wild Nothing. Again. Aim was to not be mopey when arriving at work today. Maybe tomorrow.

8.49am: Can hear Lady Gaga coming from fancy iPod of guy across from me on bus. Looks happy. Is doing little dance moves with hands behind seat back. Feel mopey in comparison. Turn up iPod. My Nicks will eat his Gaga. Imagine that actually happening. Entertained for rest of bus ride.

9.32am: Work. Scan music blogs and sites. Daily update of when Strokes album is being released accompanied by bored photo of Julian Casablancas. Daily ‘controversial’ MIA quote. Daily something Twilight: Eclipse. Still haven’t seen movie. Will or won’t? Not sure. Decide to take passive route and see what happens. Robert Pattinson needs eyebrow trim. Ooh, new Total Slacker song.

9.50am: Check personal email. All music news subscription emails with same news as just read. No personal emails. Email friend with real-life job about Total Slacker song. Check Facebook. Someone has posted Total Slacker song. Post new Hunx & His Punx cover of The Loco-Motion I found last night.

11am: Short break. Look at Guardian online. More Glastonbury pictures of people in funny hats. Not actually funny. More pictures of Kylie onstage with Scissor Sisters. Wonder if Ana Matronic wants to punch her and Jake Shears. Wonder when Ana Matronic became the less self-obsessed-looking one in Scissor Sisters. Wonder what Jake Shears and Kylie talk about when hanging out. Decide on themselves. Is Kylie sexy? Don’t know anyone who thinks so. Looks like would be lazy in bed.

12.23pm: Facebook break. Watch video of new single by Countess Luann from Real Housewives Of New York City posted by friend. Trannie-speaking verses and AutoTune chorus. Surprisingly good, can’t tell if in ironic way. Read linked New York Times article. Have got name of show wrong and written Real Wives Of New York City. Should email them for second spelling correction this week. Can’t be bothered.

12.26pm: Think about Strokes. If I was publicist I would stop Julian Casablancas from talking to media until album ready. Realise banality of thought. Back to work.

1.19pm: Lunch. Scan NME ‘best ten new songs’ section thing. Listen to husband-wife duo called Kisses from LA. Sounds a bit like Kokomo and Bowie and Ariel Pink and maybe other things that Ariel Pink sounds like and I don’t know. Is good. Who does Ariel Pink sound like? Jonathan Richman? Maybe. Listen to new Semi Precious Weapons. Turn off before first chorus.

3pm: Someone puts new album on work stereo. Sounds a bit ‘slacker’ but more beautiful? Band called Pearly Gate Music. Look at album cover. Are signed to Bella Union. Think of other Bella Union bands I like. Beach House. Wavves. My Latest Novel. Wonder what happened to them. Remember when Howling Bells were signed to Bella Union and thought they would be ‘big in England’. Wonder if Pearly Gate Music hope to be ‘big in Australia’ and ‘get on the Big Day Out’.

5.14pm: On way home. Fleetwood Mac. Less mopey because on way home. Stop into supermarket to buy ‘things for dinner’. Radio is playing ‘roots’ song that sounds like Jack Johnson, but lyrics are, “I want to be a billionaire so frickin bad.” Weird. Not ‘eco’. Make mental note to look up song when get home.

6.44pm: Listen to Bowie while ‘relaxing’. Realise am listening to Bowie because made earlier mental link to Kisses. Feel duped.

9.48pm: Remember to look up song from supermarket. Is by Travie McCoy from Gym Class Heroes. Remember was douche who went out with Katy Perry before she ‘traded up’. Whose name is Travie? Wonder if ‘morally wrong’ for him to play ‘roots’ music. Watch episode of Undeclared before bed. Now have Dandy Warhols theme song in head. Make mental note to update iPod. Set Morcheeba alarm.

Farewell to a friend: let the Storms play out

She let the needle of the record player fall, looked over to me on her bent knee from across the room and smiled through the guard of people lining the kitchen table. I smiled back but, with the first notes of the familiar song, a lump formed, not so much in my throat as in my chest, and I could tell it wasn’t just indigestion from the massive amount of cheese that seems to go with any share-house dinner party – the thing to bring when you want to look like you’ve made an effort and spent some money but can’t be arsed actually making anything. My friend was leaving, going to London to study for however long that would take, and we all knew there was a chance she would never return. Not permanently, anyway, and not for a long time at least. A few hours into her farewell dinner, populated with the friends and ‘lovers’ and exes (some one, some the same, but that’s just the mess of life), it was time to bring out the sentimental symbols of the bonds we’d formed. After all, by that point, we’d knocked back a couple of bottles of champers.

The waggish ones always come out first: the cardigan lent a year ago finally being returned; the stories of long supposed-to-be-studying university days (or, for me, supposed-to-be-finding-work post-university days) spent drinking coffee and smoking rollies before shrugging our shoulders at it all and going to the pub; the song that caused the lounge room riot at that house party we had that time – it was Young Americans, right? Or was it Fame? Someone should write a thesis on Bowie’s continued use as a soundtrack to early-20s liberation.

Then, always at the time that your last sip of champagne is the one that gives you your first real head-spin, someone says something that reminds you of what you’ve really been through together. It doesn’t even have to have been something shared, but you or they were around when it happened; you know how much it meant. A break-up or a crisis or a lonely stretch. A song can be an equally smacking reminder and, on this night, it was Fleetwood Mac’s Storms. The thing was, we’d never even knowingly listened to it together, but she let the needle of the record player fall, looked over to me on her bent knee and we both knew how much of our past and present it encapsulated; the things we’d been through separately but together.

Searching out the song in the pile of records had followed a conversation of my newfound appreciation of Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk or, really, of anything beyond their most famous songs. I was unreasonably late to the game, but I’ve come to realise that you don’t get to choose when some music reveals itself to you. She’d been a Fleetwood fan forever and, even before my revelation, any time they were mentioned I was reminded of her. Maybe that’s how our bond over Storms was begun, as simple as an association given time to ingrain itself into a relationship. But it was more than that. At least it felt like it.

She came and put her arms around me and I could see it in her face. All that shit adults tell you as a teenager about the things you learn after growing up becomes the everyday of the rest of your life. All the little bits that might mean nothing at the time but clump on top of each other and stick to you like gum to become the story of what’s been.

And then there were the words given new meaning by the situation at hand – my friend was going away. And, boy, did Stevie Nicks know it. So we stood there and shared the song while our friends and ‘lovers’ and exes (some one, some the same) picked the blue castello from the salad and talked the pros and cons of Julia Gillard.

“So I try to say goodbye my friend/I'd like to leave you with something warm/But never have I been a blue calm sea/I have always been a storm.”

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.