“Birds in Your Garden” by LOU

Here’s another Australian treasure, from a glorious album of guitar instrumentals called “For the Morning” (because that’s the time of day the record is for) by LOU. Hard to pick a favourite tunes to share but “Birds in the Morning” is a good starting point:

LOU is Melbourne-based guitarist/singer Sarah Hardiman (Deaf Wish, Brick Head and Nightclub; as well as, Moon Rituals, a collaboration with Mikey Young, who mixed and mastered the album).

Even though “For the Morning” is music for the morning, it works at all other times of the day as well. The whole album – written and recorded alone over two days in Beechworth, inland northern Victoria – works as a woozy DIY instrumental meditation, in a similar way to the music of Durutti Column, particularly the 1980 classic “The Return of The Durutti Column” which this echoes with its use of drum machine, clean minimal guitar melodies, washed in reverb and delay.

The album has an Australian sense of atmosphere in the same way William Tyler’s instrumentals seem to fit the vastness of the North American landscape. In LOU’s case it’s open space, clean air, sun dappling under trees. Although the album’s recording setting may have been far inland, it also has a coastal feel, thanks to some understated ‘surf’ styling in the lush guitar. There’s something quietly uplifting about this album, and we all need a bit of dappled sunshine relaxation right now.

“For the Morning” had a digital self-release last year in September 2021, but soon came to the attention of Sorcerer Records who reckoned it deserved physical form to ensure its permanence. There’s a pressing of 300 copies on vinyl which you can order from Sorcerer Records Bandcamp.

“Alex” by Caroline No

Here’s a treat from Melbourne which casts a little magic. It’s “Alex”, the opening track from the forthcoming “Swimmers” mini-album by Caroline No:

There’s a gentle tension here, a song sounding like the band is playing it for the second or third time so it hints at stumbling at times as it comes together at the start but never does so. In the process it gives the music a kind of very human vulnerable immediacy which draws in and involves the listener.

Caroline Kennedy’s voice also draws in the listener. There’s perhaps some of the melodic directness of a reflective Dagmar Krause in Slapp Happy (matched by the music here) but also the kind of dreamy warm cadence of Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions) while – just to confuse and confound you further –  sounding like neither really.

Mick Turner (The Dirty Three) is a familiar name on keyboards and guitar here but the rest of the Caroline No back story  is a Melbourne mystery to me, so here’s what they say on their Facebook page:

“Caroline No is a project built around the songs of Caroline Kennedy (guitar and vocals) of Plums / Deadstar fame, with Ian Wadley (Mad Nanna, Bird Blobs, St Helens) on drums, then guitar, then moving to bass a few gigs ago with the arrival of David McMillan (Dag) on drums… Occasional keyboard player Helen Johnstone (Garbage and the Flowers) first appeared during the recording of what became the No Language cassette, which has just been re-released on vinyl by Cincinnati label Students Of Decay. Caroline and Ian first worked together on Don’t Tell The Driver, the most recent LP from Mick Turner (Dirty 3) as well as his ‘big band’ assembled to promote it. Around this Mick started work producing a Caroline No album Swimmers, due for release later this year. Think Velvet Underground, Blake Babies, Young Marble Giants, American Spring…”

“Ain’t no Shame in my Game” by The Know Nothings

OK, buckle in – our 2nd ‘send as a gift’ tip for December is this cracking, snot-caked garage-punk nugget from Community 4 – a compilation of Hobart music – one of the two excellent Hobart music underground compilations featured on PopLib earlier this year.

“Ain’t no Shame in my Game” may be formulaic snotty garage punk but The Know Nothings have clearly discovered the secret ingredient to that formula and this song is perfect enough to grace any Nuggets type compilation from any era. Ever.

The song gets extra attitude points for the twin lead vocals and the honking saxo-cacophony. The Know Nothings are Keith Hinde on vocals and guitar, Bek Binnie on vocals and bass, Sam Harrington on drums and Dave Holmes on even more guitar.  You’ll find it and even more splendid feral garage-punk nuggets on their album “Days of Foolishness, Nights of Idiocy”.

The entire compilation album is recommended as a gift for anyone you know who likes Australian alternative music but thought the plug was pulled on that sound in the 1990s. This particular track is highly recommended as an upgrade gift for annoying little brothers or sisters who listen to cartoon radio-punk like Green Day too loud while curling their lip. Get real.

“Honey Hunter” by Bitumen

Bitumen – photo by Steve FuzzFarm

“Honey Hunter” is a thundering-great slab of hot-cold post-punk from Melbourne band Bitumen.

It’s one of 4 excellent tracks on a recent 4 song split cassette EP from Melbourne underground label Vacant Valley.

Thundering drums set the pace and volume, then a skirl of squealing guitar riffs and rumbling bass comes in and all hell is let loose. This is beautifully crafted post-punk – a hint of the ice-cold pummeling sound of Clan of Xymox and some Gothic touches reminiscent of Skeletal Family but Melbourne has been the home of this kind of industrial futuristic pop music for even longer than Germany or the UK. Top shelf sounds.

Listen to the rest of the EP here too – related entity No Sister are also worth your time. There’s a bit more information on both bands in this interview in This Is Not A Drill.

“Monday” by The Sunday League

This may well be my favourite song from the other* Hobart music compilation called “7000 – The Pick of Hobart Independent bands”. And “Monday” is a perfect song for a Monday naturally. Even though Monday in NZ is still a Sunday in some parts of the world, it’s still a perfect song because it’s by The Sunday League.

The Sunday League take me back to the likes of The Cannanes, The Lucksmiths and The Steinbecks; all chiming perfect hollow-body electric guitars, earnest melodic vocals and lyrics reflecting on the everyday things of existence in suburban Australia. Like rubbish collection day and overgrown Pittosporum trees.

It’s music so familiar you’d think you should have heard enough of it already. And yet, something like this can breeze along, with those ringing guitar notes, quivering Australian voice and honest band-in-a-room recording, and it’s just perfect for dreaming and escaping to imagine watching the bin collectors work their way down a tree-lined street you’ve never been to, in Hobart, Tasmania, postcode 7000.

* check out the “Community 4” Hobart music compilation on bandcamp for more Tasmanian underground pop goodness.

“Among the Reeds” by Free Time

Free Time (NYC line-up)

More magic from favourite Australian label Bedroom Suck Records, now relocated from Brisbane to Brunswick, Melbourne, surely the hot-bed of Aussie independent music right now.

This time it’s a band called Free Time, operating between Melbourne and New York with a different line-up for each country. Anyway, here’s the bouncing guitar pop of “Among the Reeds” to set you on the path of discovery.

Free Time is/are the band/s of Dion Nania. The self-titled first album by Free Time was recorded in New York in 2013 with Free Time’s US line-up. Now the second album “In Search of Free Time” has been recorded by the Australian line-up in Melbourne. Fair enough.

Joining Nania as Free Time in Australia, and on this album, is Martin Frawley (Twerps), Zachary Schneider (Totally Mild) and Joe Alexander (Terrible Truths).

As you can tell from this first song from the album, it contains a familiar Australian gallop, evoking memories of classic Aussie guitar pop through the ages while also offering a giddy combination of some element of the sound of all the bands above, even down to Joe Alexander’s restless rhythmic tumbling drumming.

The album is varied and repays repeated listening. There’s a bit of everything, from rambunctious loose-limbed eager strums to the reflective and delicate weaving of lead guitar and rhythm guitar. Worthwhile seeking out the LP version.

Free Time (Melbourne version)

“Wine Won’t Wash Away” by Summer Flake

When I first came across Summer Flake playing at a Camp A Low Hum music festival in 2013 they struck me as being a perfect Australasian distillation of the kind of emotionally devastating melodic grunge-pop perfected in the late 80s and 90s by Scottish band Teenage Fanclub.

This new album “Hello Friends” confirms that initial diagnosis but develops it further with a darker kind of down-beat melancholy and generally optimistic sense of I’ll-get-through-it hopelessness and resignation stirred through. Which is pretty much what the best pop does and why it makes us care. We’ve all been there, felt that sometime, right? Here’s “Wine Won’t Wash Away” from the album as a perfect example of what I’m on about.

The album is a welcoming mix of that almost jangling kind of post-grunge guitar-pop with a bit of shoegazey tremolo arm note-bending wooze (which I’m a sucker for at the best of times).

Vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Steph Crase uses her voice in lush multi-tracked backing vocal arrangements to give the album its emotional heart, most beautifully set out on the sublime late-Beatle-era pop stylings of “So Long”.

“Hello Friends” by Summer Flake is out now (well, 8 April to be exact) and is available on LP from Rice Is Nice Records. You really ought to get it.

 

 

 

“Everything Changes” by Loose Tooth

More bloody Australian guitar-pop brilliance I’m afraid. As if my record collection isn’t already bursting with enough recent albums from across the ditch, here’s another trio – Loose Tooth – with an upcoming 8 track mini-album working it’s way onto my can’t-live-without-this list.

This is probably the least Australian-sounding Australian thing I’ve heard recently. That ‘slacker’ style people assume is the 2010s “Australian Sound” is a terrible cliche anyway, but Loose Tooth just don’t fit it or anything else you’d think of as quintessentially Australian right now.

The shouty-in-a-good-way vocals displayed in the two pre-release songs streaming here and stratospheric backing vocals just ooze too much in-your-face garage-rock punk attitude and ensure these songs don’t form a background noise but take on more of a rallying call.

If I’d heard this without knowing it’s origins I’d assume it originated somewhere in the UK, probably Scotland. But Loose Tooth are from Melbourne and this is being released on the fab independent Milk! Records. Loose Tooth are childhood friends Etta Curry on drums/vocals and Nellie Jackson on guitar/vocals along with Luc Dawson on bass/ vocals.

Sure there’s a familiar kind of Velvet Underground via The Clean fuzzy chug going on here with an echo of The Shop Assistants and also the reverb-slicked ramalama of Thee Oh Sees. But the bass and vocals also give it a strong post-punk flavour. Or even the kind of art-school pre-post-punk Eno pioneered circa “Here Come the Warm Jets” maybe.

“Everything Changes” is brilliant, quite perfect, and although the component parts contain familiar elements, they are assembled in fresh, exciting and sometimes spectacular ways – like the over-the-top chorus backing vocals which are just crazy wonderful.

Give “Everything Changes” and the equally glorious “Will You” a listen and pre-order a download. Or, if you can bear the cost of the international postage, pre-order yourself one of the 200 copies of the 8-track mini-album “Saturn Returns.” Very tempting indeed.

“Boyfriend” by The Goon Sax

Brisbane teenagers The Goon Sax are three songs into their debut album pre-release roll-out and there’s no let up in the simple perfect brilliance of their wryly-observed and playful pop song-craft – as demonstrated here by “Boyfriend”.

When The Goon Sax name first popped up last year I listened because they were on Chapter Music (The Stevens, Twerps, Dick Diver etc.). They sounded like the perfect and charming combination of a bit of naive pop reminiscent of the earliest Pastels, blended with that peculiarly Australian minimalist strum-pop of label mates Twerps.

But there was also a throw-back to the simple rhythm guitar/ bass/ lead guitar and vocal stylings of The Go-Betweens in their earliest form, circa “Send Me A Lullabye” or the Missing Link/ Postcard Records single.

Turns out there’s more than just a stylistic connection to the aforementioned Go-Betweens, but that genetic link shouldn’t be a factor in determining the worthiness of The Goon Sax or their debut album.

The three tracks so far indicate not just the rare talent for wry observational pop music with simple but memorable arrangements. They also show an unusual confidence in singing about stuff that teenagers would normally avoid sharing publicly and presenting themselves as coolly ‘uncool’ and almost celebrating their awkwardness. That was also one of the features of that early 80’s Glasgow scene with Orange Juice and The Pastels risking ridicule by establishing themselves as outsiders in an otherwise macho culture. Which was also why those bookish Aussies The Go-Betweens fitted in so well in Glasgow back in 1980.

The album “Up To Anything” is released on Friday (11 March) on Chapter Music – a Melbourne label with a 24 year history of releasing music from the fringes of Australian music culture. Here’s the video for the song too.

 

 

“Liminal Zones” by Ray Davies

PopLib usually features songs rather than album reviews. It’s hard enough to write about one song let alone a dozen or so. But an exception will be made for the exceptional “Liminal Zones” – the 2nd album just released by Sydney band Day Ravies.

Day Ravies have been a fixture on the PopLib stereo for the past few months since discovering their early 2015 releases – the “Hickford Whizz/ Taking Your Time” 7” single and the perfect 4 song cassette EP “Under The Lamp”. Both these exploratory releases indicated Day Ravies were moving a little further from their debut album “Tussle” and its generally ‘shoegaze’ daze.

In hindsight though, “Tussle” is a much broader, satisfying album revisiting it now than it was on first impressions. Amongst the gazey guitar effect shimmer there are plenty of hints of the raw guitar/ keyboard pop side developed further on “Liminal Zones”.

If there’s a new sonic template on “Liminal Zones” it’s the ‘co-lead’ role of keyboards – often outrageous squirty synth – duelling with the swooping, restless guitar lines. There’s not much shoegaze influence to be heard now but what’s here instead is a wondrous mix of a distinctly Australian gritty post-punk/ New Wave with something more timeless and European. Amongst an album of standout tracks an early favourite is the precocious New Wave art-pop of “Nettle”.

“Liminal Zones” has a solid foundation provided by Caroline de Dear’s weighty overdriven bass lines and Matt Neville’s inventive drumming (and occasional drum machine programming). Over top Sam Wilkinson’s guitar playing oscillates between scouring fuzz, swooping feedback dive-bombs and chiming chorus pedal effects. Lani Crooks’ keyboards dial in an exuberant mix of 80’s New Wave, European motorik, garage rock and Day Ravies’ own variation on Stereolab via Broadcast. Often all this is swirling around in the same song.

The other essential part of “Liminal Zones” is the more confident mixing of vocals which highlights another of Day Ravies’ strengths. Lani Crooks’ measured and sophisticated cool plays well against Sam Wilkinson’s melodic rasp. The variety and personality from each the two voices is a big part of the album’s appeal for me.

Sometimes (like pre-album single “Hickford Whizz”) those angular lead guitar lines, and Sam Wilkinson’s vocals, may suggest a reminder of the early sounds of Australian post-punk pioneers The Go Betweens . Other times (like the sombre “Skewed”) dark psychedelia of The Church in their early form may come to mind.

But there’s also frequent use of sounds and sensations which bring to mind My Bloody Valentine, Broadcast and Stereolab. However, the way these tracks are crafted, arranged and recorded, together with the character the members of Ray Davies all collectively imprint on their songwriting, adds up to a distinctive and recognisable sound of their own.

“Liminal Zones” is a perfect combination of characterful songs and an eclectic variety of styles and sounds. It’s consistently fresh and engaging and frequently delights and surprises. It’s also a bit rough-hewn and home-made which keeps it real and vital for me. A new Australian classic album.

“Liminal Zones” is released on Day Ravies’ own label Strange Pursuit (CD and DL) and also on Sonic Masala (LP – neon pink & standard black options). Beko Records in France (which released the excellent 7″ single earlier this year) is stocking the album in Europe if you are in that part of the world and want to save on postage.