“Instant Coffee” by Dumb Things

Aussie battlers Dumb Things are back with a sweet and dark song about coffee. None of that fancy single origin bean hand ground in a ceramic burr grinder for a pour-over coffee stuff. It’s Dumb Things, so this is “Instant Coffee” with a dollop of existential crisis.

Dunno what it is about this Brisbane, Queensland band but they just have a knack of crafting seemingly simple songs about ordinary everyday things and turning them into heart-stopping pop classics.

The Go-Betweens were also from Brisbane 4 decades ago. Like Dumb Things they crafted clever pop songs from comparatively simple ingredients of a voice and two guitars, bass and drums. But their lyrics often had the gravitas of aspiring novelists.

Dumb Things lyrics, for all their quotidian subject matter, are sometimes just as profound. Except here it is instant coffee which is considered with the same existential intensity as a Go-Betweens relationship break-up, and the process and rituals around drinking instant coffee alone doing some heavy metaphorical lifting in the process. Coffee & Cane (sugar) anyone?

Musically “Instant Coffee” develops and blooms as it goes, displaying an increasing musical confidence and ambition in its structure, arrangement of instruments (check those glorious counterpoint guitar melodies) and the under-stated vocal delivery.

Dumb Things are probably sick of being compared to other bands here. But, if it helps sell you on them, there’s also a little bit of the beguiling simplicity of NZ stalwarts The Bats about Dumb Things approach, and even at times Robert Scott’s magical Bats-offshoot Magick Heads.

Anyway, it’s just another bloody lovely song from them. Looking forward to the new album down the line.

“Head In The Clouds” by Renovator’s Delight

If you love Dumb Things as much as I do you’ll adore Renovator’s Delight, the solo+friends band of Dumb Things guitarist/ vocalist Madeleine Keinonen, who has just released a first album “Bark All Night”. It’s delightfully melodic and jangling guitar pop, and “Head In The Clouds” here could be a long lost Magick Heads song. It’s a beauty. The whole album is.

The phrase “renovator’s delight” is a real estate agent’s euphemism for an old ‘character house’ that has seen better days, requiring re-piling, re-plumbing, new electrics and replacement windows, bathroom kitchen etc. In other words, a money pit. However your commitment of $11 AUD for the digital album or $32 AUD plus postage for the LP of “Bark All Night” is a sound investment. No hard work required here, but many hours of rewarding listening guaranteed.

As with Dumb Things, Renovator’s Delight does the simple stuff exceptionally well. Guitar & bass, drums, Keinonen’s unaffected vocals, and some additional texture from clarinet, violin, and, well, bowed saw of course. As with Dumb Things, Keinonen’s lyrics are observational, slice-of-life stuff, and work with the homespun music and arrangements.

“Bark All Night” seems to display as much of a strong stylistic link to southern New Zealand jangle pop past (Robert Scott and his bands Magick Heads, and The Bats) and present (check the forthcoming album by Jim Nothing if you like your laconic jangling guitar pop served with violin), as there is to the legions of Australian jangling guitar pop icons past and present. Quietly essential.

As bonus content, here’s the video for the opening track “Bucket of Water”: