Tagged By jangle pop

LISTEN: These Guy – ‘Lunchbox’

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I’ve always liked the idea of transporting my vegemite sang and muesli bar in a compartmentalised, carbon neutral (obviously) lunchbox, but in reality I just shovel last night’s pizza into a plastic bag and hope for the best. I have no idea how Joe Saxby, Josh Coxon or Eddie L’Estrange pack their sammiches or why a lunchbox is relevant to their debut collection of tracks as These Guy, and to be honest I’m not sure they do either. And that’s ok, we’re all just figuring it out and that’s fine.

Lunchbox begins with ‘The End’, where These Guy’s broad spectrum of alt-pop influences bleed together in a spin cycle of sounds that unfold over the album’s duration. ‘Coming Around‘ is the first punctuation point and one of the earliest singles, combining the indie pop ethos and sad boi pathos in what is a foundation theme on Lunchbox. Quirky synth hooks bubble up on most tracks to buoy each pessimistic lyric, refusing to let Saxby be sad about things he is justifiably shitty about (see: closing track ‘The Main Thing’, an 11-minute sprawling psych middle finger to long distance relationships). Despite this, Lunchbox is a significant upswing in mood from These Guy’s debut EP when it was Saxby’s heavily overcast solo project.

Techno pop track ‘Biscuits’ and ‘The Main Thing’ have featured in These Guy’s live set for a while now, but hearing them packaged up on Lunchbox makes the pivot from “everything is doomed’ sad to “silver-lining” sad a whole lot sharper. There are just so many quirks built into each song it’s hard to keep track of the ideas, from the disco synth hooks, full fret shredding and sax solos on ‘Over Before it Begins’ to the jangle pop guitar melodies of ‘Suburban Restaurant’, one album could hardly provide enough space to flesh them out.

Yet it’s the clean execution of these ideas which propels These Guy above the white noise of cookie cutter indie pop, with lofty vocal melodies, frenzied instrumentals, delay-heavy synths and a generous peppering of guitar licks all balanced by clever production. Lunchbox is like a pleasant hallucinatory experience, you’ll go places you didn’t know existed and come out wondering where the hell you’ve been and how you can get back there.

Here’s a treat for youse ahead of the album’s launch on June 16th.

 

You can see this play out in all it’s technicolour glory at Brisbane’s Black Bear Lodge on July 15th.

 

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INTRODUCING: Rolling Blackouts

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Look, Australia has always been a hotbed of incredible jangle-pop acts, especially in recent years. Twerps, Dick Diver and the Ocean Party have provided a wealth of consistent and reliable guitar pop, ensuring that any arts student within hearing distance can bop their head along.

But Rolling Blackouts have been around for a number of years, and the lack of attention regarding this band is astounding. They’re incredible! Subtle, nonchalant brilliance taking place in our own backyard, how about that?! Maybe it’s the fact that these guys have been caught up in their more successful – and decidedly different – projects, which include Graveyard Train and Cash Savage & the Last Drinks. But with the recent release of their first fully-fledged EP, 2015 is shaping up to be the year of the Rolling Blackouts.

The Melbournites do everything right: their hooks are catchier than an addiction to meth after 10 minutes in Walter White’s laboratory. And although the riffs are consistent, the Talk Tight EP ranges from the alt-country finger-picking of ‘Clean Slate’ to the long-faced ‘Wither With You’, a spiritual descendent of the Go-Betweens/Triffids/Even As We Speak. Wherever you press play on this EP, you’ll be greeted warmly by a bright guitar and simple lyrics.

As a sidenote, on standout ‘Wide Eyes’, between shimmering waves of shoegaze, there are a few nods to various Sydney locations – like South Dowling St and Clovelly. Could this be an extending of the olive branch to end the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne??? Time will tell – all that needs to be done now is wait for Rolling Blackouts to release their next masterpiece.

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LISTEN: Velcro – ‘Tidal Wave 2009 – 2013’

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velcro tidal

Curtis Wakeling was tinkering around with his computer one day when he dropped his tiny screwdriver down the back of his desk. He crawled in under the desk, past boxes of old records and footy jumpers, and came across a large gray box with a funny shaped lead running out the back. It was a hard disk drive (HDD) from 2009.

Intrigued, he plugged it in and discovered a series of audio sketches for tunes he had been writing over the last five years.

After having a sandwich, he decided to complete what has become a collection or compilation, of complete songs, which has served as the perfect release for his housemate’s new label Osbourne Again. Tidal Wave (2009-2013) is a limited-edition run of 50 cassettes complete with very lovely artwork or a digital download off bandcamp.

‘Rise’ is a freebie on the bandcamp page and it’s a nice lazy-morning track. Kinda demotivating actually. You can feel hungover just by listening to this one. ‘Dreamboat’ is way more romantic. This is the kinda track that sooths me like a snuggled baby being cooed by its mother. Despite describing an anxiety dream, Curtis executes the perfect dole-pop sound with catchy guitar and sincere vocals.

If you’ve been playing at home than you’ll recall that Curtis recently spent an extended stay in the wonderful city of New York, New York. ‘Stoned’ was written there and is an honest account of what many young Australians experience abroad. Loneliness. Despair. Boredom. And masturbation. Sounds like a good Saturday night because he somehow manages to make it sound like something you’d want. What Curtis does so beautifully in every track is take these experiences and put them into song without a filter. I’ve said before how honest the Velcro music is and this compilation lays it all out for you. It’s quite remarkable that the result is such a warm and easy to listen to record.

Velcro will be launching the tape very soon so we’ll keep you posted but for now check out the other tracks on bandcamp or Curtis’ other band The Ocean Party, who were recently picked up by Spunk. Wow.

UPDATE: Brisbane Tape launch Sep 6th 2013 – details here.

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