“SHOUTING IN CAPS” by The Pits

Couldn’t find a picture of The Pits so here is a couple of Bettong (L) and an Eastern Quoll (R) via http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/

“SHOUTING IN CAPS” by The Pits is another track from the excellent “Community 4” compilation album of Hobart Underground music. The song has the kind of Bored-Young-Dylan appeal of early releases by The Clean – and their Great Unwashed alter ego.

The song is about the minutiae and anxiety-inducing hyper-connected  (anti-)social-media world:

“Refresh the page again, refresh the page again, what’s happening?”

The  deadpan observational lyrics are simultaneously funny and heartbreaking:

 “SHOUTING IN CAPS again, SHOUTING IN CAPS again, to my 29 friends” 

To use the vernacular of the song, in my humble opinion The Pits are hashtag “Dunedin Sound” except they are trending from Hobart, Tasmania, in Australia so it’s probably called something else there.

They fit in the everyday story-telling-with-rambunctious-guitar-strum style of fellow Australians like The Twerps and Scott & Charlene’s Wedding, but hopefully Tasmania has it’s own descriptive labels for what The Pits do, rather than relying on those mainland Australian put-down genre names of ‘slacker indie’ slash ‘dole wave’.

Check out the rest of the “Community 4 – a compilation of Hobart music” album, and find out more about Bettongs and Eastern Quolls at the Tasmanian Parks & Wildlife website.

“Feelings” by Peak Body

Peak Body – photo by Claire Jansen (w/ drawing by Alyssa Bermudez)

Peak Body are a duo from Hobart, Tasmania describing themselves as minimalist electronic post-punk and “Feeling” is one of many fine songs on the “Community 4” compilation of Hobart underground music recently released on Rough Skies Records.

Tasmania doesn’t feature much (or maybe even ever?) on PopLib despite regular posting of Australian underground pop. This compilation ought to rectify that omission – there’s a heap of treasure to be discovered here.

Peak Body is Emma Marson (vocals/guitar) and Jordan Marson (bass/keys/beats) and “Feelings” has all the fuzzy reverb-drenched pop charm you could ask for, equal parts melancholy & mystery and simple understated perfection.

Being conveniently ignorant about any aspect of the Hobart underground music scene I’ll just steal this brief explanation from the compilation Bandcamp page:

“…every song was written and recorded at the Hobart Underground Community Centre. The facility, true to its name, is located underground at a point in Glenorchy precisely between MONA and Mount Wellington (Hobart’s two great looming shadows) and was built for the sole purpose of allowing Hobart’s most vital musicians to hone their craft and reach their full potential, away from the distractions of their jobs, their families, and the daily violent fallout from Hobart City Council infighting. There is one set of doors leading into or out of the Community Centre tunnel, located behind a decoy trash pile at the Jackson Street Waste Management Centre, and they only open twice a year (at the June Solstice, and on the 29th of December, David Boon’s birthday).”

I get a feeling from the music and the further comments in the compilation info that Hobart may be a bit like Dunedin – out of the way, ignored by the rest of the country and the Australian music industry, a place musicians usually leave, whether to pursue their dreams/ ambitions or simply escape the small-city scene (the population is twice as big as Dunedin and about the same size as Christchurch).

Also the weather is similar because the Tasmania is on the whip-end of the Great Australian Bight’s intensification of the Roaring 40s. But on the plus side, they have strange mammals –  not just Echidna and Platypus, but creatures I’d never heard of such as Quolls and Bettongs.