Posts By Madeleine Laing

LISTEN: Clever – ‘Your Eyesore’s Sweet’

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clever kewdi udi

When you’re kinda into punk music you get to hear a lot of bands that sort of play at being aggressive – in a posey rock’n’roll way – but it’s rare to hear something that legitimately shakes you up. Brisbane’s Clever have got me shook right up. Once I saw them play at a bowls club in the middle of the day next to bain maries full of make-your-own taco ingredients and it put me on edge for hours before I even touched one drug.

You can hear that charged-up brutality on the band’s first ‘single’, ‘Your Eyesore’s Sweet’, from their debut record Kewdi Udi, out 11 March on Homeless Records. It’s in the jumpy drums and bass, and Mitch Perkins’ relentlessly menacing vocals – I’ve listened to this song 10+ times (it only goes for 2 minutes) and can’t hold on to a word he’s saying. Fred Gooch from the Wrong Man holding this whole aural tyre-fire together with that sawing, immovable guitar.

If you’re a certain kind of person, hearing that Clever is made up of members and ex-members of Sewers, the Wrong Man (as mentioned), Psy Ants and Per Purpose is gonna be enough. For everyone else, this is powerfully – purely – sick stuff.

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LISTEN: Velcro – ‘Velcro’ LP

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velcro velcro

This Velcro record was recorded in 2013 and released just last week. I’d say ‘finally’ released, except I thought this came out ages ago and I’d already listened to it – so for me it was more of a pleasantly confusing surprise (REAL FANS may feel differently).

I guess because of that it reads as a testament to the things that never change. You still know what it’s like to not wanna go outside, to float around, to think about moving interstate – even though you know ‘green grass won’t last forever’, as singer & songwriter (but not singer/songwriter) Curtis Wakeling of the Ocean Party reminds himself on the lush ‘Sydney’. All I remember about 2013 was a feeling of profound boredom and restlessness –you know, like every early/mid/late-20s middle-class Australian. This is the ultimately relatable territory that this record claims.

The whole things is super matter-of-fact. Even when Wakeling sings about being hard to be around, or ruining things and watching people leave, it never feels like he’s trying particularly hard to make you feel one way or another – it is what it is. Comparatively, that nice’n’easy pop guitar skips along underneath (and sometimes on top of) the low-key, downbeat words. Ashley Bundang from Totally Mild backs Wakeling up for a few tracks, sounding like she was recorded while walking around the house singing to herself – intimate and unaffected.

Are there standout hits? Nah, it’s all pretty good – I like ‘Victoria’ for the chanty vocals and that plinky keyboard, which sounds so sunny against lines like, ‘it’s not easy to make friends / when everybody judges me / and I’m hard to be around’. The back-to-back combo of ‘Stranger’ and ‘Whine’ works well; both romantic tracks in an anxious, doomed kind of way.  Maybe your fave will be the slinky and gently-paced ‘Neglect’, or the almost-hopeful closer ‘12 Hours’. It’d be cool if this release meant Velcro were clearing the way for more recording. If so, see ya in 2019. If not, still pretty cool.

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LISTEN: California Girls – Desire LP

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california girls

Sometimes, driven by yet another going-away drinks for a Brisbane mate leaving for ‘better opportunities’ down south, I’ve declared (unprompted) ‘I’d move to fucking CANBERRA before I’d move to Melbourne’ (cue: no one cares). But that statement is starting to lose its weight, as more and more weird and cool music is released down there – especially through the exceptional Moontown Records. Our great nation’s capital is starting to seem pretty happening.

Desire, from California Girls (not actually girls, not actually plural – actually Canberra dude Gus McGrath), is the city’s newest prime cut – hectic desperate dance music that perfectly captures those nights when you party hard not necessarily cause you feel like it, but because what else can you do?

If you’re looking for something to fill the Workshop/Multiple Man shaped hole in your synth-starved heart, this might do the trick. McGrath’s music, though, is without the moody, middle-distance detachment of those two bands. The vocals are a focus point almost as much as the beats, with lyrics that are personal (‘cherub-faced boy/ tears run down my cheeks’) but in a kind of throwaway way – like an accidental drunken overshare followed by a ‘nah, not really’.

Ambition and need and disappointment and resignation all pulse through this record. It’s called Desire maybe cause some of it’s about sex, sure; some tracks, like opener ‘Skin on Skin’, are grimy with suggestion. But there’s also a kind of generalised want, a dissatisfaction that drives so many of our biggest nights. This is obvious on ‘Holiday’, where McGrath lays out his plans to forget someone who’s gone on to bigger and better things: ‘I’ll put out an album/ I’ll go on a tour/ maybe I’ll go to Tasmania… You’ll see the wonders of the world/ I’ll probably get drunk’.

This is dance music before anything else, so obviously keep an eye out for a live show. I saw California Girls in a shit ‘rock & roll’ venue where the sound was way too low, and it still Went Off. Desire really hits its post-2am stride smack bang in the middle, with the Crystal Castles, X-tinnies vibe of ‘Euphoria’ and the slow-build trop-pop of ‘Hidden’ – but the whole thing is packed with opportunities for a bit of reckless abandonment and throwing your body around. This record is up there with the best local underground dance music around at the moment, in a scene that’s only getting more and more interesting and exciting.

Desire has already sold out on cassette but you might be able to snag a copy at a show, and a vinyl release is forecast for the near future.

Catch California Girls at the Moontown Records Melbourne showcase on 23 February. He’s also supporting Naked, alongside fellow Canberrans Wives, at the Phoenix on the 20th.

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LISTEN: Chook Race – ‘At Your Door’

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chook race

Brisbane record label Tenth Court is a pretty safe bet for good shit that’s worth your time. Melbourne three-piece Chook Race know how to make writing jangly hits look both easy and breezy. It’s a match made in SBS-game-show heaven. Keep your eyes peeled for Chook Race’s second LP, Around the House, coming out in a couple of months. For now we’ve got a taste with ‘At Your Door’, a scrappy treat that dreams about escaping it all in some deserted town, in a house you built yourself. At least until you remember that the shops close at 4 and you’re all out of papers. Or someone comes along and reminds you of what you’ve left behind.

Maybe I wish it went a bit harder – if they pushed that downbeat Boomgates guitar thing a bit further and made it feel like they actually had something to run away from. But they still do a pretty great job of making a single that’s immediately listenable but not immediately forgettable once its three minutes are up.

The whole album was apparently recorded in a day, which is a good sign – this isn’t fussy music to agonise over: it’s meant to be heard live or thrown on the record player on hungover afternoons. ‘At Your Door’ is a pretty good indication that Around the House is gonna be some solid blunt-edged guitar pop stuff that we (and I really mean I) can’t fucken get enough of.

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LISTEN: Good Morning – ‘To Be Won’

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good morning glory

‘To Be Won’, the latest single from Melbourne two-piece Good Morning, is largely a song of pauses and sighs. It’s like looking out the window of a train when you forgot where you’re going for a second. Or sitting at home watching nothing happen. It’s kinda like thinking about stuff but not doing a thing.

Previous single ‘Cab Deg’ had that same insistent guitar thing (maybe borrowing a little more than necessary from Deerhunter? Who could say.), pushing it into territory where words like ‘catchy’ and ‘immediate’ are called for. ‘To Be Won’ makes you want to listen by just sounding really nice, with plenty of warm room noise, the rise and fall of the guitar melody breathing steadily. The line ‘I tried, but it’s yours to be won’ has the same sweet relief that comes from cancelling plans, giving yourself a break and giving up on something you didn’t care much about anyway.

I like how it ends loose too – if they’d put one big finishing note in there it might have ruined everything, but they pull back before reaching outright sentimentality. Even when that old piano sound (used so often to beat you into nostalgia) appears, the song remains restrained, nudging towards a kinda wistful end. They know they might have to try again in the future, but right now chilling out is pretty chill.

Good Morning’s second EP, Glory, is out Thursday, 28 January.

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LISTEN: You Beauty – ‘Illywhacka’

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Illywhacka

“I’ll be damned if this perfect fruit is left to rot on the tree,” You Beauty singer Will Farrier proclaimed just after recording wrapped up on Illywhacka, the band’s second record after last year’s footy saga Jersey Flegg. It’s another pub-rock opera, about a Love Rat online scammer who falls in love with his target – and now it’s been let loose on the world, Farrier’s confidence is absolutely justified.

You know how boring and lame it is when the media try to talk about online dating or Tinder or hookup culture or whatever? This record has done something kinda genius, bypassing all that shit to make a love story between middle-aged people in (what seems like) the late 90s absolutely relatable. You know all the way through this record that the protagonist is a scammer, but you’re kinda tricked by him in the same way as Dee, the woman he’s scamming. He’s a conman and a fuck up but a charmer all the same.

Songs like ‘Strong Connection’ and ‘Romeo and Julie’ are, fuck it, genuinely sexy. They’re intentionally cheesy and over the top, and you know this is just a liar trying to buy time with platitudes so he can string his prey along – but try and stop yourself doing the tucked elbows, swinging hips, clicking fingers dance to the groovy rhythm section that pulses all the way through the first half of this record. That just magnifies the brutality of ‘Pin Drop’, a disjointed, off-kilter crisis for our confidence man, which leads into the dark, spiralling ‘Same Damn Thing’. With its rapid spoken-word verses and poppy chorus, I’ll admit this didn’t make much sense to me as a single. But in the context of the record, it absolutely works to transition from sleazy grooves, shining with sweat, to dark, grinding emotional rock’n’roll ballads – when our conman realises his terrible mistake and ends up on TV being berated by Tracy Grimshaw, then in court, then prison.

I didn’t think anything was gonna top ‘Illywhacka’ (which I went on about when it was released in July) for my favourite song of the year, but every time I listen to this record I find something else to love. You Beauty have given us an epic story, rich in lyrical detail, but never at the expense of a hook or a sing-along moment.

It doesn’t hurt that Farrier can absolutely belt it out. In ‘Fast and Scrappy’ he alternates between a fast-talking crim, dishing out advice, and a man totally redeemed by love, singing in euphoric, passionate verses – while Dee waits outside (but for how long?). His voice and character and confidence at the centre of this record are the secret to why it works. He’s also not afraid to get a little real, singing in a moment of reflection on ‘Flake and Chips’ that “all these books and things / they make you think you’re sick if you’re alone”. So under the fake surface of this love story there’s some real shit – or maybe I’ve been conned too. Either way, what an album.

You can buy Illywhacka right now via Rice is Nice or iTunes.

You Beauty are celebrating the launch of the record in Sydney at the Union Hotel Newtown on 31 October with Flowertruck and Marky Vaw, with more shows for the rest of us early next year.

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LISTEN: The Ocean Party – ‘Light Weight’

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ocean party light weight

Not to too get personal, but this Ocean Party record came at exactly the right time for me. I’ve been in one of those drawn-out phases where everything you do seems shit and interacting with the world seems excruciating. Whenever I wrote anything positive about a band I sounded like a drooling fan, and anytime I wrote anything negative it sounded petty and pathetic, and I was like why the hell do anything at all? And then this goddamn band releases their fifth record in as many years – and it’s not Guided By Voices, Ryan Adams-style prolific-ness where you wade through shit for scant gems. Nah, every song is really good and together they make something more than really good. And suddenly stuff’s worth doing again, because there’s a chance one day you might do something that’s almost as good as this record.

There’s self-doubt here, sure, and defensive cynicism, but then moments of clarity and honesty that knock you over – like on subtle and delicate mid-record highlight ‘Anything’. This record is a balancing act that never falters. Whoever thought to follow the coldness of lines like ‘Every drag smells like a butcher’s knife’ and ‘you said can I stay with you/ I said I didn’t care’ with that jaunty little ‘do do do do’ guitar in the title track should get an automatic ARIA. And then to follow that up with the snarly groove of ‘Phone Sex’ – a song full of spit and regret – and then single ‘Guess Work’, with a chorus that comes readymade for mouthing along to at shows and verses political and pointed… I’m gonna stop just describing it song by song now, but you get the idea; there’s a lot going on and it all just works.

The most impressive thing about the Ocean Party for me is their refusal to be any one thing. With so many singers and songwriters, you get some songs that have almost no chorus and some that are all chorus, some that hit on lofty world themes and some that focus on day-to-day minutiae and interrogate tiny moments. A lot of the songs on Light Weight look back on mistakes, missed opportunities, the good that’s gone (‘here it comes… there it went’), but musically they’re always moving forward, pushing the boundaries of what a band has to be, what everyone keeps telling them they are, and making better and better songs for it.

Buy the record now HERE through Spunk.

Mouth along at one of the Ocean Party’s remaining shows on what’s been an EXTENSIVE album tour.

22nd October – Finbox, Wollongong
23rd October – Thyme To Taste, Yass
24th October – The Tote, Melbourne
25th October – Birdhouse, Wagga Wagga
30th October – The Eastern, Ballarat
31st October – The Metro, Adelaide
6th November – The Bird, Perth
8th November – The Newport, Fremantle
14th November – The Brisbane Hotel, Hobart
15th November – Fresh Cafe, Launceston

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