Bad Tropes are Luke Troynar and Jonny Zoum; two Melbourne expats who’ve been developing their brand of subtle, acoustic pop in Berlin. The 35mm film photos below were taken by the duo (and a patient friend) in the studio and at some of the band’s favourite haunts around the city.
Empty spaces become amplified when you’re wandering through the city between late night and early hours of the morning – and these photographs capture that same quality found in the duo’s minimal sound. Bad Tropes skim from introspective acoustic moments to darker pop sensibilities. There’s hardly a drum fill to be found (sometimes a good thing) and lots of contemplative blank space to mull over. It’s hard to decipher whether the vanity pursuit the guys sing about on ‘Pretty Won’t Rust’ is trying to make a point or just poetic sarcasm, but it’s a chilled tune nonetheless.
Bad Tropes are working on their forthcoming LP, to be released in April on Wait! What? Records.
Sydney trioMaking have been crushing skulls on the Sydney live music scene for a few years now, and after a number of setbacks their full-length debut Highlife was released via Trait Records in September this year.
Following on from their debut EP and a couple of standalone singles, Highlife is a decidedly darker affair full of discordant guitar, razor sharp bass lines and complex rhythms. The album is an uncompromising aural assault, showcasing the band’s evolution both sonically and technically.
Fans of My Disco, Ohana and New York band Extra Life take note; Making are your new favourite band.
For the fifth instalment of the Virtual Mixtape series, the trio reminisce on avant-rap royalty Kool Keith and his somewhat chaotic discography.
Making:
Kool Keith is a pretty hard sell in the current rap climate – most people are into Drake and Rich Gang (so are we), but sometimes you need to go a bit more fringe. This video is probably the best intro – really let yourself become acclimatised to the logic at play here.
Kool Keith – ’98 Year Old Refrigerator’:
About ten years ago I (Pete) became aware of Dr. Octagon. I think I ended up picking up Dr. Dooom next (check out his ongoing obsession with food…) The vibe here is split destroying the rap game (this track, ‘You Live At Home With Your Mom’etc.) and brutal serial killer (‘Apartment 223’etc.). Key line:
“Your fans are mad – your performance was garbage bag,
Look at these videotapes,
Walkin back and forth grabbin’ your nuts like the Planet of the Apes”
Francis Plagne’s last solo album, Tenth Volume of Maps, was released back in 2011. A curious mix of classical abstraction, musique concrete and prog folk, the LP became, in certain circles, a coveted piece of underground pop. Since then, he’s collaborated with local experimental outfits – most recently joining Food Court to record two highly impressionistic versions of a 14th-century choral arrangement by Solage – and convened ensembles to perform works by contemporary avant-garde composers.
Plagne’s now gearing up to release Funeral Mutes, a new collection of deconstructed chamber pop, on his own Mould Museum imprint early next year. First single ‘Hearing Every Drop’ is an uneasy, wheeling thing. It spirals round a central melodic phrase, withholding resolution, unwinding and rebuilding itself as it goes. The video comprises a series of tableaux vivants enacting scenes from the old masters. The contours of light and shade, and the actors’ taut bodies and twisted limbs, match Plagne’s vivid, surrealist lyrics (“the tables on the beach that day/rose ring of paint crumpled pages of the sea/break its chill delay…”).
Don’t be put off by Plagne’s high-brow references; these are pop structures, pretty and playful. He holds your attention, however, by subtly undercutting expectations, leaving his songs teetering on the verge of the uncanny.
Funeral Mutes is out on 9 January. The album launch is from 7 PM that day at Eastmint Studios in Northcote, with support from Oren Ambarchi and Crys Cole, Tim Coster, and Mad Nanna’s Pat O’Brien.
2015 is done, and it’s been an excellent half-decade for tunes from all our MAP friends around the world. Our final submission for the year comes from the delightful Cosima Jaala who’s almost left Mangelwurzel in shadow with the debut record from her solo project, JAALA .
On the subject of solo projects, if you’re wondering where Operator Please fizzled out to since temporarily insulting everyone’s musical memory with that song ten years ago, lead singer Amanda Wilkinson has has relocated to Glasgow and popped up as Scotland’s MAP pick this month – teaming up with Dananananaykroyd drummer John Baillie Jnr for a Christmas cover.
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Click the play button icon to listen to individual songs, right-click on the song title to download an mp3, or grab a zip file of the full 17-track compilation through Dropboxhere.
This year marked Zonaindie’s 10th birthday, so for this last MAP of 2015 we wanted to share a track from Rubin y Los Subtitulados’s first album, Esperando El Fin Del Mundo, which was released during our first year as a music blog. Adios, Torino is a beautiful ballad and one of our favorite songs by this great songwriter from Buenos Aires. We recommend all of his discography, which is avaliable on Bandcamp.
Salt Shaker is the second single from Melbourne art-punk Cosima Jaala’s debut album, Hard Hold. It tracks the troubles Jaala has coming to grips with her upbringing in a far-flung suburb on Brisbane’s coastal fringe. The lyricism of this track is emblematic of the raw earnestness you hear across the entire album, with Jaala seemingly pulling melody out of thin air. The unpredictable spikes and troughs keep you engaged throughout, as if you needed any more reason other than her finely executed vocal gymnastics. The track is a refreshingly honest account of a troubled time that avoids indie tropes and turns complex emotions into a beautiful song.
Como Vês is the opening track of Alice Caymmi’s 2014 album Rainha Dos Raios. Born into a family of famous musicians, Alice is surrounded by some of the most prominent artists in Rio de Janeiro and contributes to Brazilian pop music (known as MPB) with contemporary electronics and experimentation.
This little gem comes from Josh Bush, drummer in Sydney band Low Lux, now going solo under the name Arms Akimbo. ‘Level Completed’ channels elements of 80s pop and Balearic house, Bush’s falsetto gelling seamlessly with the snappy guitar and muted toms. It’s a stylish debut, low key yet cathartic.
Hospital – ‘Daniel’
This track from Melbourne outfit Hospital has really earned the Xiu Xiu comparisons (and supposedly got the nod from Jamie Stewart himself). ‘Daniel’ is all screams and sawing guitar, Al Dodds’ voice quivering in disgust as he addresses an absent father figure. There’s adolescent angst here, but the delivery hits hard. Hospital’s latest record, Describing Bodies, is being reissued through Skydreams on 11 January.
Us the Band – ‘And I Will’
The newest signing to Rice is Nice, Sydney duo Us the Band make up for their lack of manpower with overdrive and manic energy. ‘And I Will’ is the second single from a forthcoming EP. It’s characteristically short and sharp, with shredded vocals and a neat hook.
I’lls – ‘Let Me Have Just One (Planete remix)’
I never understood the hype around I’lls. The songs are pretty, and I admire their minimalist touch, but they’re so derivative of Radiohead (and Thom Yorke more generally), it’s kind of embarrassing. Planete‘s remix of ‘Let Me Have Just One’ – a standout track from their swan song, the awkwardly titled Can I Go with You to Go Back to My Country – elevates the original to real body music: something you can feel in your muscles and bones. Which is what the Melbourne producer excels at – driving delicate samples into a whirlwind, his rattling textures swept along by grinding bass.
Golden Girls – ‘Life of the Party’
Melbourne three-piece Golden Girls make slowcore for the present day, using synths, drum machines and loads of reverb. The Golden Hour EP was recorded under the auspices of Brunswick-based Smooch Records, with mixing from Rat & Co.‘s Joshua Delaney and mastering by Mikey Young. The trip-hop leaning numbers are perhaps slightly undercooked, but the narcotic guitar loop of penultimate track ‘Life of the Party’ works well. Tim McNeill’s disembodied lyrics sum up the mood: “I really think I might be too stoned/I think we should go home”.
OM Collective – ‘I Didn’t Know I was Trouble’
For his first single as OM Collective, Sydneysider Tim Ferson has released a chamber folk reworking of Taylor Swift’s ‘Trouble’. This is a bloke who looks like Father John Misty taking a trip at Earthcore, so it can be hard to disentangle the earnestness from the irony. Nonetheless, Ferson’s orchestral melancholy is a nice counterpoint to Taylor’s focus-grouped mix of spite and nostalgia.
Surrounds, the second EP from Anatole (Jonathan Baker), landed today via Tommy Faith’s impeccable TEEF Records. A graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium, Baker wrangled a bunch of his former classmates to perform on the release, which features strings, piano and clarinet alongside his trumpet and laptop creations. Sophisticated and soft-hued, these organic elements are subtly propelled by light-handed production and gentle beats that skew towards handclaps, woodblocks and jazzy snares. There are vocals from Melbourne-based singers Rosebud Leach and Tash Parker, too, but Anatole’s pristine music is just as compelling without the added human element.
The Surrounds EP is officially out on 18 December. For now you can stream it on Spotify, and preorder here.
Anatole launches the EP this Friday at Sydney’s Red Rattler.
Ben Pearson is an electronic artist, who goes by the moniker espher. Since relocating to Melbourne from Manchester earlier this year to focus on his music pursuits, he has released two EPs, Prism and Flux – both striking explorations into sound.
espher’s new video for ‘Arc’ features an array of multi-hued ink dilations, which shift radically from calm to chaos. Here, a deconstructed sample almost mimics the sound of phone static dissolved over a club beat.
Pearson has experimented with few vocal samples in his earlier work – but even for the absence of lyricism here, there’s a sentimental quality to the way espher reincarnates ordinary sounds. ‘Arc’ sums up the ambit of espher’s sound palette – one end coaxes an introspective’s version of events, while a penchant for upbeat, stark rhythms points at something a bit more bright.
I won’t divulge too much here, but if you like what you hear, would recommend listening/viewing ‘Fragments’, a series of thirty seven audio visual experiments by espher which “hint at the future and borrow from its past”.
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Latest Comments
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Still trying to purchase!!!ANTHONY J LANGFORD
Cool track. Congrats Joshua. Hope the release is a success.Tristan
Man I love these guys. I can't believe they are not releasing any new music. I've been to so many…sophie
^^ I love Grimes! Banoffee is one of my new favorite music artists! :) I love With Her, Reign Down,…Ace
Read your review then listened to the EP. Fantastic ! Different to most hardcore punk I listen to. Somewhat more…