“Peach” by Burning House

“Peach” is tucked away at the end of a 2019 album called “Anthropocene” by Southampton band Burning House. It’s the first song of theirs I have heard and it wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Teenage Fanclub’s “Bandwagonesque” .

Having started at the end of the 15 track double album it’s only right and proper to start at the beginning and see what’s on offer. Turns out there’s a lot of rather gloriously noisy and melodic grungy atmospheric shoegaze and nothing else sounds much like Teenage Fanclub at all.

Sometimes the songs pack the dense visceral sonic punch of My Bloody Valentine (“Mirror Song” and “Forever”), but there’s also a gentler, lighter swirling woozy dreamy element at play (“Langour”). Frequently here multiple sonic elements are incorporated into the same song to disorienting effect.

The band are Aaron (Vocals/Guitar), Ruby (Guitar/ Vocals), Dominic (Drums) and Patrick (Bass).  The sounds on “Anthropocene” may take some influences from the past but there’s a sense of adventure and originality here showing their influences won’t define them or limit them.

 

 

 

“Hen’s Teeth” by Bad Sav

Hope Robertson (guitar, vocals) and Lucinda King (bass, vocals) of Bad Sav. (Absent is drummer Mike McLeod) – photo by Chris Schmelz.

“Hen’s Teeth” by Birdation will be familiar to regular followers of PopLib. Birdation is the solo experimental noise workshop of Port Chalmers musician Hope Robertson. Robertson is guitarist in electronic+post-punk dark dream-pop trio Death And The Maiden and the long-running, slow-moving noise rock trio Bad Sav. Next week, Bad Sav finally release that long-awaited first album. The first track shared ahead of the release is “Hen’s Teeth”

The slow trance-like lo-fi churn of Birdation’s “Hen’s Teeth” has been turbo-charged by Bad Sav into an uptempo slice of chiming guitar rock. The first second is arresting in unexpected ways with the intake of breath before the song starts.

I love the way Robertson’s stabbing sparkling guitar chords dance from side to side in the mix, like a delay echo in a huge cathedral. Then there’s that euphoric chorus and the crunch of additional guitar horsepower to seal the effective assault on the senses. There’s still a thrill and a power to be found in a trio playing guitar, bass and drums, loud and with distortion and Bad Sav’s album delivers that tonic in 10 measured doses.

With Bad Sav less is more. Whereas My Bloody Valentine would have spent years burying the song in sonic molasses, Bad Sav achieve the same dizzying chord-bending melodic blaze with a recording as immediate and monstrous as their live performances.  Their churning guitar-heavy sonic distillation of melodic post-rock, noise-rock and shoegaze is a thing of sonic beauty to experience live, the guitar sound building patterns of glorious saturated noise that fill every corner of the venue and your head.

Bad Sav have been around for 10 years – long enough to have started out with a MySpace page, the internet equivalent of carbon-dating a band’s vintage. They had an early song on a Radio One sampler CD, then a long wait until 2014 when they self released 4 songs on their Bandcamp. These 4 songs make for an essential pre-quel EP-length introduction to the band.

Here’s the original Birdation formation of “Hen’s Teeth”. The Bad Sav and Birdation versions on a split 7″ single would be a lovely thing indeed. That won’t be happening, so best you download the Birdation version below and keep it safe.

 

 

“Destroy Yrself” by Kindling

Kindling by Reid Haithcock Photography https://www.facebook.com/ReidHaithcockphotography/

Kindling are from Easthampton Massachusetts and “Destroy Yrself” is from their album “Hush” released in November 2017.

Discovered via a reference on the Norman Records mini-review of Bad Sav’s forthcoming album, Kindling are more in the My Bloody Valentine/ Lush/ early Slowdive zone of heavy shoegaze rock than the aforementioned Dunedin trio. But this song – and in fact the whole album – is top shelf immersive noise, with an agreeably dense atmosphere of reverb-bonded layered guitars and bass surrounding its molten core.

Despite – or perhaps because of – the relatively short-lived initial period of so-called ‘shoegaze’ rock from the late 1980s to early 1990s, it is a genre than has inspired a substantial ‘New Wave’ of bands in the 2010s, to continue the exploration of noise+melody.

“Autumn” by The Golden Awesome

The Golden Awesome is a ‘shoegaze’ guitar & keyboards band predominantly from Wellington, NZ. They released an album called “Autumn” in 2011 on the US M’Lady’s Records label which is a bit hard to find round these parts now. Here’s the title track which opens the album:

Although ‘shoegaze’ tends to be the genre most often used in relation to The Golden Awesome there is a healthy a dose of The Jesus and Mary Chain about the crushing bass guitar and swarming feedback guitar drones here as well as the kind of swooping sonic overload and sweet melody associated with heavy shoegaze favourites My Bloody Valentine.

That mix of crushing saturated walls of glorious noise and breath-taking dream-pop melody is a feature of the album. The keyboards and the distinctive harmoniser processed vocals are from Dunedin musician Stef Animal and you can find out more about who else is in this low-key band in this rare UTR interview.

Here’s the wonderful trippy video for “Autumn” too:

“Fractures and Cacophony” by Young Hellions

Young Hellions songs appear like ghosts sporadically, when you least expect them, and most need them. Here’s the splendidly fuzzed up, woozy new “Fractures And Cacophony” for your listening pleasure.

It’s a fine distillation of the most compelling elements of heavy shoegaze, gothic synth-pop and melodic grunge, weaving melodic pop hooks – and another great song title/ chorus phrase – through the sonic mass of abrasive and swooping guitar interplay.

Young Hellions is Auckland musician Maeve Munro (Bengal Lights, Cat Venom) currently based in Leeds, UK. If you’ve missed the back-catalogue check the first single “Best Witchcraft is Geometry” and  the self-titled 4 song EP it was subsequently included on.

According to Muzai Records “Fractures and Cacophony” was to be released on 22 July. I’ll update this post with a link to any purchase options once they appear. Hopefully it will also be available via Muzai Records’ bandcamp page.

“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.

‘Hail’ by Shunkan

The weather is nasty here right now. Heavy rain, threat of hail. So ‘Hail’ by Shunkan is the song for Day 29 of the song-a-day-May NZ Music month madness.

I’m also posting this today because Shunkan will debut as a 4 piece band at Chick’s Hotel tonight (Thursday 29 May) on their way north to shows in Auckland at the weekend. By now the story of Marina Sakimoto relocating from Los Angeles to Invercargill, where she recorded this EP and then had it released via adventurous UK label Art Is Hard Records is probably well known… I’m intrigued how a band will handle these songs.

This song ‘Hail’, with it’s dark fuzzed out swooping guitar and soaring vocal, evokes the spirit of early My Bloody Valentine and also Sigur Ros at times. It’s glorious. I bought a copy of m.b.v., the 20-years-in-the-making My Bloody Valentine album on release day last year. I have now played Shunkan’s cassette EP more times than I have played that m.b.v. album. There’s a freshness, lightness, and excitement here lacking from My Bloody Valentine’s over-thought and mixed-into-submission recent album.

‘Wash You Away’ by Shunkan

Invercargill is the home of Shunkan – my latest favourite local lo-fi bedroom pop magician. That is no real surprise to me. Invercargill has produced much musical talent over the years and promptly exported it to the nearest centres of civilisation. I say that as someone brought up there who forged my own musical identity as a teenager in the front room of a pale-blue weatherboard villa on a windswept cabbage tree lined street and played in a band to no-one in an empty hall over the road from the prison.

I first heard Shunkan (there’s a whole EP of glorious and extraordinary bedroom fuzzy lo fi pop like this) via Art Is Hard Records in the UK. Inexplicably they’d received a demo from Shunkan and liked it enough to release it (limited edition cassette).

‘Wash You Away’ is just one aspect of what’s on the EP. I heard enough reference points in all the songs to wonder how Marina Sakimoto (who is Shunkan) could absorb such a range of diverse possible influences and then turn them into something so distinctive and original. There is some great sonic experimentation going on in the other tracks which reminded me in places of the wooziness of early My Bloody Valentine and the rapture of Sigur Ros but also the quiet reflective spaces and dreamy wonder of our own Dear Time’s Waste. But that’s what can happen when an imagination is left in relative isolation with a guitar and a microphone and something to record the results on.

Rush hour Friday in Invercargill