Posts By Ryan Saar

LISTEN: Richard In Your Mind – ‘Hammered’

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It’s Sunday afternoon. The scent of roasting bacon flesh is streaming into your nostrils, and the bright sun leaking into your bedroom is way too bright. There’s only one solution. Bottom’s up, right?

That’s the logic behind Richard In Your Mind’s newest track, ‘Hammered’. The Sydney pysch-pop maestros are finally back after a short absence, ready to follow up their 2012 EP, Mozzarella. As always, their songs sound bright and sparkly, almost dumb-foundingly so. I mean, in this time of financial terror, with Tony Abbott raining his fiery injustices upon a country stupid enough to elect him in the first place, how can a band be as sweet as cordial without the water?

Richard In Your Mind, like contemporaries Tropical Strength, have defied the constructed negativity of our times and released a song about getting hammered with your baby in the daytime, accompanied by a dinky little flute melody. When all hope seems lost, Richard In Your Mind are here to remind you that sometimes all you need is a goon sack, some sunshine and a little bit of magic psych-pop.

Richard In Your Mind’s new album Ponderosa will be coming out 29 August on Rice Is Nice.

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INTRODUCING: Lusinth

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Lusinth are two Sydney boys just out of high school. Obviously, their passions include shotgunning beers, hitting the club scene, and coward punching anything with a face. Or so the NSW government would have us believe.

Luckily, Lusinth would rather make lush instrumental tunes to fall asleep to. Instead of breaking noses, they’re blowing minds wide open. Their newest track ‘Blue’ manages to hit all of the feels, incorporating a plethora of sounds, from trickling guitar and splashing synths to crashing cymbals. The overall effect is more calming than being read a bedtime story by Morgan Freeman yet engaging enough to keep you on edge throughout the whole five minutes.

These guys have just released their first lot of material, but if they continue down this track, sounding like Oliver Tank making a cinematic soundtrack, I think they’ll be just fine.

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WATCH: Straight Arrows – ‘Petrified’

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It’s been a long time since Straight Arrows released an LP. Wait, let me rephrase that. It’s been a torturous, stupefyingly long time since Straight Arrows released an LP. We posted their psych-swamp rocker ‘Never Enough’ last August, and now – a band that needs no introduction, Sydney’s favourite rock ‘n’ roll group, the very incarnation of danger and an inspiration to scrappy guitar punks everywhere – Straight Arrows are back again with *a whole album* of new material.

The band has also released what is, for them, a rare treat: a video for latest single, ‘Petrified’. Sounding like modern Australia’s answer to The Soft Boys, ‘Petrified’ features paranoid guitar notes that ring out after the titular line, ‘I’m petrified’, signalling the kind of relationship horror that hasn’t been felt since Norman Bates’ mummy issues.

The video is typical of Straight Arrows’ penchant for the old school, frontman Owen Penglis having compiled some trippy and glazed footage depicting a story of band practice and casual murder.

Rising was released last Friday (the thirteenth) on Rice Is Nice. To celebrate, Straight Arrows are currently on tour, with Canberra legends TV Colours supporting at all shows. You can still catch them on these dates:

Friday, 20 June – The Brightside, Brisbane (tickets available here)

Saturday, 28 June – The Fishbowl, Newcastle (tickets on the door)

Saturday, 12 July – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (tickets here)

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INTRODUCING: The Infants

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The Infants

The Infants are a post-punk group formed in Geelong in 2012. They put out a self-titled album mid-last year – complete with creepy, cephalopod-based art work – that sounds tightly wound in comparison to the new, creeping single, ‘Halves’.

The track was recorded in the basement of the band’s current home in Brunswick, and the result is the sort of ghoulish, lurching stuff that wouldn’t sound out of place on the score of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s a kind of gothic pop, or macabre cabaret – like Bushwalking getting a carnivale makeover.

‘Halves’ is the first release from the Infants’ forthcoming EP, due out later this year.

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INTRODUCING: Doom Mountain

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Doom Mountain

Surf rock has been well represented over last few years in Australia. Bleeding Knees Club, Dune Rats and Step-Panther are all bands that are representative of the success felt when a couple o’ guys can get together and bust out a killer riff.

Right now, there’s another band that is gunning to similar heights. A band with the enthusiasm of a grommet on his first Al Merrick, the reckless endangerment of an average day at Shipsterns. That’s what Brisbane’s Doom Mountain are going for.

Previous singles ‘Thrill Seeker’ and ‘(I’m So) Wiped Out’ point towards the laid back vibes of Melbourne bands that have been infected by a rabid 6-foot swell, like Bachelor Pad and Ross De Chene Hurricanes. However, their new track ‘Lonely Child’ shows a more, brooding post-punk side to the band, with a looming guitar line that I’m sure The Murlocs are kicking themselves for not thinking up first.

 

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INTRODUCING: The Night Terrors

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Alongside contemporaries like NO ZU and Zanzibar Chanel, The Night Terrors incorporate all the elements of shlock horror, trance and kraut experimentalism into a weird chemical reaction of awesome. All of that is explored in The Night Terrors new record Spinal Vortex, out on Homeless Records (Bits of Shit, Sex Tape, Cuntz). 

The Night Terrors rocket through sonic territory at a break-neck pace – like the Batwing if it was piloted by Kraftwerk. Careening through walls of electronic-tinged instrumental post-punk, Spinal Vortex does this all in just under 40 minutes.

Spooky malevolence and violent synth uprisings stalking palettes of sheer theremin…this band has it all.

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LISTEN: Hawaii94 – Nightvision EP

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I think something got lost in translation in the presser from Hawaii94‘s Paris and Bordeaux-based record label: “Inside his room in Melbourne, Hawaii94 produces a fruity and intoxicating music”. Maybe ‘fruité’ has heaps of sexy connotations for a native French speaker. Whatever; I’m going to go with it.

Have a listen to the Nightvision EP from the Melbourne producer and try to see yourself anywhere other than a Malibu paradise with Toro Y Moi and Twin Shadow taking turns to serve you tropical fruit cocktails. Hawaii94 makes the ‘fruity chillwave’ genre so much his own that anyone attempting to snare that title would be kicked to the gutter as an imposter.

Hawaii94 is the pseudonym of Lee Nania, who subscribes to the bedroom ethic of artists like Flume and Bored Nothing. He takes that ethic and folds it through a soft lens, creating a dreamy haze not unlike local acts Kilter and RÜFÜS. The result is an EP packed with delicious, sunny tunes to dance the night away to. Instead of being a made-up fad, Hawaii94’s fruity chillwave could be one of the most selfless examples of bedroom pop going round.


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