New Music

TRACK BY TRACK: Brendan Welch – The Gleaner reissue

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In 2009 Brendan Welch released The Gleaner, his Paul Dempsey-produced debut album, to critical acclaim. He won some high profile fans and went on to play shows alongside Paul Kelly, Tim Rogers, Jen Cloher and more. Then, after a dispute with management, things ground to a halt. The LP became tangled up in legal troubles, and Welch disappeared from the public eye for more than five years.

The Gleaner is now getting a deserving reissue through Ballarat label Heart of the Rat Records, on digital and vinyl. Meanwhile Welch has sprung right back into action and is preparing a new record with production from Two Bright Lakes co-founder Nick Huggins.

Below he shares with us some of the inspiration behind his gorgeous first album, including time spent in the doldrums, the “uselessness of over-moralising, the un-clarity of guilt and the attractiveness of brutality”.

Welch is launching the reissue on Sunday, 25 October, at the Gasometer, with support from Rolling Blackouts and Mark with the Sea.

 

I Think I Always Thought (I’d Fall in Love With You)

I wrote the song many years ago trying express the frustration of not falling in love with who I thought I should. It does have a positive melody though, and all major chords, so it manages to be hopeful at the same time! Sometimes regardless of my intention the music has a way of expressing its own will. It has since been sung at a few weddings.

Oh No! I’m Wasting Away

I was in a bad place physically and mentally. I weighed about 62kg – my normal weight is about 75 – and I was choosing bottles of cheap wine over bread at the supermarket with the little bit of money I had. I couldn’t keep down a day job at that stage. I was actually worried that I might literally “waste away!” Hence the main lyric.

Halls of Men

Dead tired of all the complete bullshit that often falls out of mouths and radio waves and television screens – this is a hopeful song about the end of modern life as we know it!

I Made It to Sail

Another story set in an unknown time and place, about being on the run. I imagined a version of myself being rejected after trying and failing to entertain the king and subsequently being hunted by an ancient dynasty.

With a Steady Hand

Based on the feeling that without the status and protection of a middle-class, 21st-century, privileged, western life, I would be the first to be pushed out or put down by the ‘real men’ of my imagined ‘real world’.

Run While You Still Can

The horror and anger of finding out what someone close to you is capable of. A sung version of what you’d wished you’d said had your mind and heart been quick enough in that moment of realisation.

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PREMIERE: Milkk – ‘ADSL Blues’

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milkk

Three words – a band name and a song title – and you’re hooked. What kind of freak can suppress their joy over seeing misspelt milk and a song that seems to bemoan the plight of those who just want high-speed broadband at a decent price?

The perceived product and what’s actually delivered, however, are totally different beasts. Instead of some slacker rock moping about the Internet, Milkk provide a beautiful instrumental piece, cold and subdued. Spreadeagled over nearly five minutes, ‘ADSL Blues’ has almost nothing in common with the buffering signal that comes when setting up your wireless network. There’s no pain, no stress – you can just sit there, suspended by Milkk’s slowly intertwining noise.

The newest signing to Wollongong-based record label No Safe Place, Milkk prove that the label is entirely impossible to pin down. The instrumental trio join noise-poppers Solid Effort, earnest rockers Beast & Flood and ambient folk artist Obscura Hail, to name but a few. However, the difference between Milkk and the label’s other bands is that these guys are doing something that feels relatively untouched – in Sydney, at least. Solid Effort, Beast & Flood, and Obscura Hail are all unique in their own distinctive and incredible ways, but Milkk sounds like nothing else out there at the moment. ‘ADSL Blues’ takes you on a slow, meandering journey that all good Internet providers should aim to supply.

Milkk will be launching their EP, Open Signals Cast, on 31 October at Black Wire Records in Sydney. They’ll be joining Cull, who are launching their own debut album. In the meantime, Milkk will play a set at Lots of Bands V at the Croat in Newcastle this Friday, 2 October, and are supporting Miners at their EP launch on Saturday the 3rd at the Record Crate in Glebe.

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MAP – September 2015

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For this month’s edition of the Music Alliance Pact, we’ve selected a grand track from Jack Colwell – because the world needs to see and hear more sauna based choreo . You can grab a September’s full 18-track compilation through Dropbox here.

Our new MAPCAST podcast is out too. Robbie’s a riff-nerd, so he’s selected the best new tracks from guitar-based bands from around the world. Check it out below:

ARGENTINA: Zonaindie
Argonautas – Perfecto

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With a career that spans more than 20 years, this independent prog-rock band from Ramos Mejia, a Buenos Aires suburb, performed a couple of shows last month after being inactive for quite some time. So we thought it was a great opportunity to share this fine track from Argonautas’ third album, also called Perfecto.

AUSTRALIA: Who The Bloody Hell Are They?
Jack Colwell – Don’t Cry Those Tears

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On his latest EP, Only When Flooded Could I Let Go, classically trained musician Jack Colwell blends the popular and the arcane to stunning effect. He has a grand vision and the chops to pull it off, creating compositions that dabble in everything from chamber-pop to doo-wop. Don’t Cry Those Tears, a tribute to 60s pop, brings together strings, organ and a small choir with the seamlessness of a jigsaw puzzle. As a vocalist Colwell is often compared to Nick Cave and Patrick Wolf, and his performance on Don’t Cry Those Tears is an expert balance of melodrama and levity. He is undoubtedly an artist to keep your eye on.

BRAZIL: Meio Desligado
Emicida – Mandume

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Brazil’s most famous rapper, Emicida, has just released a new album in which he explores themes about urban life in his homeland, mixing it with African rhythms. In Mandume, he’s surrounded by a group of new Brazilian MCs: Drik Barbosa, Amiri, Rico Dalasam, Muzzike and Raphao Alaafin.

 
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PREMIERE: Zone Out – ‘Inside’

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Zone Out - Press Shot - Matthew Cribb

Melbournites Zone Out are back – albeit in a slimmed down and re-imagined form since their 2013 debut, with Ashley Bundang (Totally Mild, Ciggie Witch) and Dove Bailey (ScotDrakula) at the helm. Where they once relied on jangly riffs and Bundang’s soft vocals, their new track ‘Inside’ transposes the latter over plush, clean synths and dreamy guitars. It’s bright and sharp, like they’ve scrubbed up their earlier lo fi sound and found some melodic gems hidden underneath.

Zone Out’s new direction is a nice time capsule of how indie-pop has changed over the last few years, with Bailey and Bundang moving from the garage-centric sounds of their other aliases to sunny synths and programmed drum beats.

Prior to today, the lone track on Zone Out’s Soundcloud was a cover of ‘7 years’ by mid-noughties post-hardcore band Saosin. In addition to being my favourite song ages 14-present, it is also the last track I would have imagined Zone Out wrapping their understated synth pop around – but they bloody nailed it. Those beautiful French admirers of everything Australian at Beko Disques were pretty keen on it too, chucking it on their blush-worthy oz do it better vol2 compilation earlier this year.

As for the future, Zone Out are ploughing ahead with a full-length release slated for early next year. They’re also playing a string of support dates with The Ocean Party in October and with Sui Zhen in November.

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LISTEN: Arthur Wimble – ‘I Love My Love’

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arthurwimble

There are two things we know about Arthur Wimble for sure: he is from Brisbane, and that his track ‘I love my love’ is an effortless downtempo ear-worm. Wimble’s anonymity does absolutely nothing to distract from the strength of this track, which could have been produced by Diplo for all I care – it wouldn’t make it any less beautiful. Wimble is the latest signing to Sydney’s TEEF Records, a solid addition and sophisticated direction for the infant label.

‘I Love My Love’ has a warmth to it radiating from a run of simple synth chords that have a definite James Blake brass-like quality to them, laying a smooth ground for the tinkling glockenspiel, or maybe it’s a triangle or something else Wimble founding lying around in the aux box. The vocal manipulation enhances rather than warps Wimble’s natural tone, with the smooth repetition of the vocal refrain reminiscent of The Internet.

‘I Love My Love’ is almost ruthlessly clean, so much so that it seems cruel for Wimble to have kept this track just under 3 minutes because there’s definitely room for an extended synth build or triangle solo in there. That could also be the James Blake fan in me talking, and if Wimble did go the longer route the track would risk copy-catting the British producer’s schtick. For now though this low-key artist is batting at a 100% strike rate, piquing my interest for both Wimble and TEEF’s future outputs.

 

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VIRTUAL MIXTAPE: Kučka

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Virtual-Mixtape_Lucy-Roleff

Perth artist Kučka aka Laura Jane Lowther first appeared on the scene with her self-titled debut EP for New Weird Australia imprint Wood & Wire. Throughout its brief but fertile life the label was responsible for releasing challenging, forward thinking music across a broad spectrum of genres making it a perfect fit for Kučka’s unconventional brand of electronica. The EPs mix of post dubstep beats, whimsical ambience and off-kilter songwriting revealed an irrefutable pop heart which caught the attention of French label Nuun Records, who quickly set about repackaging the EP to include her much lauded single ‘Phantasy’ and re-releasing it in 2014. 

After a number of highly successful singles, a chance but nonetheless high-profile collaboration with A$AP Rocky, and a slew of accolades Kučka now returns with her Unconditional EP released via new Inertia imprint Midnight Feature. The EP shows a refined, mature sound smoothing out some of Kučka’s sharper edges but leaving her eccentricities intact which should appeal to old and new fans alike.

For the fourth instalment in our Virtual Mixtape series Kučka focuses on the fertile music scene of her hometown WA, compiling her five favourite tunes from Perth.

Kucka

Illustration by Lucy Roleff

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Lower Spectrum – ‘Levity’

Opening with a repeated harp melody, Lower Spectrum gradually adds pads and a swelling bass synth into the mix and the result is an incredibly beautiful soundscape with cinematic and flowing textures. When the beats eventually drop they are accompanied by an arpeggiated synth creating a frenetic contrast to the track’s beginnings.

Methyl Ethel – ‘Depth Perception’

This track is taken from Methyl Ethyl’s incredible debut album Oh Inhuman Spectacle. Though not a single, this is my favourite track from the release. It begins with warped guitar sounds and hazy samples and gradually builds up with ‘Air’ like chords until the vocals come in towards the end of the track.

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INTRODUCING: ORB

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orb

It’s fair to say that Geelong’s ORB have taken a fair bit of inspiration from Black Sabbath. Actually, I’m certain these guys love Sabbath so much that they’ve stapled all 19 Sabbath records into a Sabbath suit and Mission Impossible-d a face mask replica of Ozzy Osborne’s face to wear while they wail to ‘Sweet Leaf’ and ‘Children of the Grave’. Doesn’t really seem like a bad way to spend a lazy Sunday, now that I’ve said it out loud.

Despite their tendency to mimic their favourite band – or perhaps because of it – ORB make for an incredible listen. Their debut EP, which was released to tape in January of this year but only uploaded to the www.com’s a week or so ago, is molten sludge goodness. Over five tracks of plunging, schlocky metal, ORB remind everyone what made this music so fun to listen to in the first place. These guys kick like a horse on acid, reeling off one gargantuan riff after another. The blistering centrepiece ’11th Commandment’ is exemplary of this vintage headbanging approach.

Even when we’ve got legends like Batpiss, Worm Crown and Horsehunter keeping metal well and truly alive, it’s good to herald the addition of ORB to the ranks. Over the next couple of months, they’ll be playing Maggot Fest 6 down in Melbourne, joining King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard in support of GOAT’s Australian tour, and playing with the Murlocs in Sydney and Brisbane.

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