Tagged By tenth court

Pious Faults – ‘Pious Faults’ EP

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pious-faults

Pic by Glen Schenau

There was a while there when it seemed like every time you went out to a rock show in Brisbane you knew everyone in the room. And that’s sick for a while. But slowly whispers crept in: where are the kids. Where are the young punk bands starting out? Did everyone just wanna be a DJ or a singer-songwriter? There were the Goon Sax yeah but they seemed so mature, so Chapter Music ready after just like, 6 months, that it almost didn’t really count.

Pious Faults aren’t the first in the movement of younger aggressive bands pushing their way onto lineups again, but they’ve turned heads the quickest. Exciting enough to convince Tenth Court to release this tape after just a couple of shows, they make fast, grim, serious music. At just a bit over 5 minutes, it’s an intense, pressurised experience. Though ‘Our Comfort’, an opus at 1:34 minutes, shows they can make, you know ‘songs’. This is confident, self-assured stuff – sure, sing a song in French why the fuck not. These guys, by virtue of being relatively new to the scene as I know it (though at least a couple have been in other bands), are free from the ubiquitous forced irony of Brisbane rock and roll. From the underlying unspoken rule that sure, you can make punk music, but it’s got to be funny. You can’t really mean it.

Still, it makes me slightly uneasy that one of the most exciting bands I’ve seen in Brisbane recently is four dudes playing music reminiscent of ‘80s East Coast American punk. A scene of almost entirely self-serious dudes that set the blueprint of how we think of punk music until too recently- as a bunch of skinny white men singing vicious, purposefully unfeminine music. All under a guise of progressiveness because hey, it’s not ACTUALY masculine or aggressive, because they’re not big enough to ACTUALLY beat anyone up. Probably. This isn’t the bands fault. It should just be about the music. If only I could stop noticing this shit.

I got off track here. I like this record a lot – I wanna see a Brisbane punk band not shoot themselves in the foot with a lack of self-confidence and ambition. And from lines like ‘we no longer adapt to our surrounds / we now adapt our surrounds to us’  and the general manifesto-like feel of the record, this doesn’t seem like an issue for these guys just yet. I also wanna see young kids getting angry about the right shit, I wanna hear fuck-off tough riffs and someone do something interesting with fast guitar music – and that’s all right here on this tape.

But I also wanna believe that it’s not just young dudes who are allowed to do it. And that this is the beginning for punk kids in Brisbane, with more diverse bands hot on their heels with even more ferocity. I want to believe that a smart label like Tenth Court – one of my favourites – doesn’t have almost exclusively mostly-male bands on their roster on purpose, that they’re just as desperate for some different voices as me. I don’t wanna give up on guitar music because the real innovators moved on to pop and dance a long time ago. And I’m gonna keep writing about this stuff because I can’t play guitar and I don’t know what else to do. This is a good record.

Pious Faults is available via Tenth Court here

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WATCH: Wireheads – ‘So Softly Spoken’

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Wireheads 4

Image by Sia Duff

A good low-budget clip should make you think two things: ‘hey that’s cool’ and ‘these guys are cool’. Alex Gordon-Smith’s one shot, one take (yeah, let’s not fuck around) clip for Adelaide band Wireheads’ ‘So Softly Spoken’, off their recent album Arrive Alive (which we  liked heaps), does just that.

It starts off inside a share house with an effective mix of the surreal and mundane, matching the haphazard energy of the first half of the track perfectly. This is a song that sounds like it could be coming through the floor into your room while your housemates band practised downstairs – if that band was actually good.

Then the tempo slows, becomes more reflective and romantic, as the camera’s blurry gaze shifts to the world outside, walking down familiar suburban streets, smoking durries and drinking tallies, eating whole heads of lettuce. The clip ends with the members of the band (and other bands – Adelaide mates from Rule of Thirds, The High Beamers, Gentleworms, and more were roped in for the shoot) walking down the street playing guitar, or wearing a stained wedding dress and drinking a bottle of red wine.

It’s a melancholy note to end on – this band house with your mates stuff doesn’t last forever, things change all the time. With that in mind this clip becomes a weird, slightly dark but affectionate document of a specific time and place and people.

You can buy Arrive Alive from Tenth Court now, and if you live in Adelaide or Melbourne and don’t catch one of the album launch shows (dates below)… sort your shit out.

August 6 – The Metro, Adelaide w/ Primo (Melb) + Fair Maiden + Workhorse

August 19 – The Grace Darling, Melbourne w/ Summer Flake + Primo + SMB

August 20 – The Curtin, Melbourne w/ Shame Brothers + Blank Statements

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LISTEN: Tralala Blip – ‘Oceans of Love’

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tralala blip

With all the kind of dark-leaning, ‘go the fuck off’ electronic music we’ve all enjoyed listening/ getting trashed to lately, it’s sometimes a relief to just bloody relax. ‘Oceans of Love’, the title track from the new (…ish) EP by Tralala Blip is about as chill and pretty as it gets.

Tralala Blip are from Lismore in northern New South Wales, where cashed-up sea changers and real-deal hippies collide in beautiful mountainous bushland. This might be why they sound like not much else around at the moment – they’re isolated enough to do their own thing, but close enough to Brisbane to catch some ears (this latest LP is out on Bris label Tenth Court). They’ve been around since 2007, releasing albums of super intriguing experimental pop at a relaxed pace.

‘Oceans of Love’ is pure escapism – pools of water and light and all that nice stuff. The bass grooves along at the perfect head-bobbing pace, never deviating from its mission to make you feel real good. The video features a turtle swimming around looking at stuff, which is exactly what you feel like watching when you listen to this song.

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There’s a lot of hypnotic, out-there sounds on the record to love, with many of the songs mining more unsettling territory than this one, if that’s your vibe. You can hear and buy ‘Oceans of Love’ via Tenth Court.

Tralala Blip are playing the Opera House on 25 May as part of TEDxSydney.

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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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PREMIERE: Naked – ‘Critical Half-Arsed’ video

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Tasmanian experimental punk malcontents, Naked, are on the cusp of having a very big month. The three-piece made some waves in late 2015 with ‘Sprinters of the World Unite’, a ramshackle but intriguing piece of outsider noise. Around the same time it was announced that Naked would be releasing a full-length record through Brisbane label, Tenth Court, who released some stellar LP’s last year from the likes of Wireheads and Mope City. Pink Quartz is the name of the record, which is set to drop into our hot little hands on Friday, 5 February. To make sure we don’t forget, Naked is offering up a new single and video, ‘Critical Half-Arsed’.

‘Critical Half-Arsed’ is one minute and twenty seconds of buzzing and strained noise punk. Taken at face value, you might think the title accurately describes the offering, but in eighty seconds the band manages to fit a large amount of urgency and tension into the mix. Toothy guitar slashes and quick pummelling of the drums keep you on edge, as lead singer Kieran Sullivan offers a halted recollection of a deadly accident.

The clip sees the members of Naked rinsing off in showers and bathtubs fully clothed. It’s as if they are trying to wash themselves of some distasteful experience – a cleansing of something unshakable, something that can’t be unseen. Quick cuts build on the tense nature of the song, and it makes for a suitably unnerving accompaniment.

You can preorder Pink Quartz on digital or limited edition vinyl via Tenth Court now. Once the album drops, catch Naked on their extensive east coast tour:

Fri 5th – The Grand Poobah, Hobart w/ Native Cats, Orlando Furious (Melb) and Henry Savery

Sat 13th (arvo) – 4ZZZ Carpark, Brisbane w/ Thigh Master, Clever, The Mosaics and Hexmere

Sat 13th (eve) – Trainspotters, Brisbane w/ Cannon, Pillow Pro (Melb) and Rebel Yell

Sun 14th – Seespace, Lismore w/ Dracopede, Skinpin and Poetaster

Tues 16th – The Croatian Club, Newcastle w/ Nailhouse and Polyfox

Wed 17th – Rad Bar, Wollongong w/ Julia Why? (Syd), Orphans (Syd) and White Blanks

Thurs 18th – Marly Bar, Sydney w/ Julia Why? and Lenin Lennon (Facebook)

Fri 19th – The Union, Sydney w/ Mope City (LP launch), Point Being and Pillow Pro (Melb) (Facebook)

Sat 20th – The Phoenix, Canberra w/ Wives and California Girls (Facebook)

Sun 21st – Grace Darling, Melbourne w/ Faye Soft, Orlando Furious and Sweet Whirl

Mon 22nd – Northcote Social Club w/ Taipan Tiger Girls, The Bunyip Moon and Secret Valley

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PREMIERE: Mope City – ‘W.O.Y (Wave of Youth)’ Video

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mope city

There’s a huge list of obvious reasons as to why record stores are still vital, but my personal favourite has to go to the art of the ‘recommendation’. It’s a lot harder than it sounds; trying to get the right balance between something that matches what the customer is interested in, but not too strange that it will alienate them. For example, you wouldn’t give a Cannibal Corpse record to someone who’s recently discovered The Living End, just because both involve guitars. I would, but I’m a bad person, and that’s why I don’t work in a record store.

The people behind the counters of Australia’s finest and longest lasting record stores have got the ‘recommendation’ down to an art. A few years back, in Sydney’s Red Eye Records, the clerk saw me perusing through Unity Floors and Day Ravies‘ albums, and suggested I look into a band called Mope City. BAM! Like that, a simple, “…check this out…” has turned an awkward ginger kid into an awkward ginger kid that has a new favourite band.

Fast forward to 2015, and the Sydney trio have surpassed their scratchy lo-fi beginnings of their first two EPs, and kept the adoration of that same weird child who’s now kind of an adult. Releasing a 7″ earlier this year of tight, post-punk inflections, Mope City have already followed up with a full-length album. Released on Tenth Court (Wireheads, Sewers, Thigh Master), Petri Dish features stand out, ‘Wave of Youth’, a track which echoes the band’s love of Slint, whilst maintaining the morbid pop aspects that made Mope City so great to begin with.

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Melancholic as a finding yourself 10 cents short of a coffee on a hungover Monday, ‘Wave of Youth’ packs salad day nostalgia with plodding bass, call and response guitars, and dishevelled drums. The accompanying video, directed by the band’s own Matt Neville, throws together a pastiche of stop motion, silhouttes, and knick knacks sourced from the back of cupboards for a swirling pastiche of the youth Mope City sing about.

Petri Dish is out now on Tenth Court. Buy it here, or better yet, head to your local record store to grab it and cop a few new recommendations while you’re there.

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WATCH: Wireheads – ‘Boys Home’

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wireheads

Adelaide’s Wireheads have had a criminally underrated run – “criminal” in the sense of a Manson murder spree, and “underrated” in the sense of Vegemite, honey and avocado on toast (try it). It’s as though the lazy pop of Galaxie 500 was transmuted into a dusty, beer-swilling six piece who prefer to coat their songs in fuzz. The end result is something that sits well alongside Aussie contemporaries Bitch Prefect and Beef Jerk, or perhaps a more chaotic version of the Stevens or Full Ugly.

On the second single from their upcoming second album, Big Issues, Wireheads have released the stream-of-consciousness yelper ‘Boys Home’. Wireheads deliver a strident, snarling three minutes, saddling whimsical pop (lots of “oo-oo’s”) with shuffling drum thwacks and a runaway guitar solo that wouldn’t sound out of place on a howling 80’s cock-rock soundtrack.

Now that they’re signed to the major label [sic] Tenth Court (Thigh Master / Sewers / Mope City), Wireheads have released a compulsory video clip. Therein, the Adelaidians queue up visions of greyscale Australiana and live footage, complementing their babbling homage to youthful defiance via kicking the footy and wringing the neck of a beaten up guitar. It’s good stuff all round, and sets the expectations high for the forthcoming record.

Big Issues comes out August 7th via Tenth Court. Pre-order here.

Upcoming shows:

21st August – The Union Hotel, Sydney w/ Day Ravies, Thigh Master, Weak Boys (FREE)

23st August – The Haunt, Brisbane w/ Old Mate (LP Launch), Bent, Sydney 2000

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