Idle Cranes – ‘Two Horse Race’

November 3, 2009 New Music Posted by: Matt Hickey 1 Comment

Idle Cranes – ‘Two Horse Race’ (mp3)

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“…I’m relieved to be moving on again. Every time we play the horizon moves, and I realise how far we’ve come, and how much further we have to go. We drag old songs like fallen comrades, bury them in live-to-tape mass graves.”

That’s Idle Cranes guitarist Jakeb Smith on a recording session held over weekend just passed. And It conjures up just the right images for the band – violent yet almost poetic, bold but considered. Featured above is ‘Two Horses,’ a track not borne from that recent session but pulled from their still-fresh debut EP-cum-whatever. At nine tracks and forty-plus minutes long, Fur Release was vying for perhaps the most substantial Australian EP of recent memory. Apparently it’s no longer considered an EP though, it just is.

Idle Cranes have been a respected force on the Brisbane music scene for a while, with regular live appearances showcasing their uncompromising love of volume and their knack for turning border-line drones into hooks. Some have mumbled that Fur Release is less intense than their live show. And that it is, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Their live shows are, and probably always will be, loud and intense, with the prettier parts of songs washed out by sheets of reverb and fuzz. The studio version of ‘Two Horse Race’ shows a more nuanced Idle Cranes, where multi-tracked vocals are given greater attention, and the different tones of the guitar are heard with greater clarity. It’s still aggressive, but it’s less thunderous and more (for lack of a better word) psychedelic.

I shouldn’t be surprised that the recorded versions offer something a bit different but no less exciting. I always had this image of Idle Cranes as mad scientists endlessly toiling away at demos. Their efforts have not been wasted. Revel in the joy of the above track, and check them out before their rumoured relocation OS.