Tagged By mouth tooth

LISTEN: Mouth Tooth – ‘Red Belly Roadhouse Blues’

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mouthtooth

I came across this curio by Melbourne band Mouth Tooth while doing some research on Smile. Both bands consist of former members of the sprawling Red Berry Plum and share a guitarist in Max Turner. Mouth Tooth is definitely the weirder of the two projects, which is why you’ve probably heard a bit less about them.

‘Red Belly Roadhouse Blues’ is off the duo’s Group Therapy EP. There’s something very unsettling, if undeniably pretty, about this tune; the effect’s kind of like one of Bill Henson’s nocturnal vignettes. An eerie western number, ‘Roadhouse Blues’ is led by Rhys Mitchell’s creepy falsetto, with a slide guitar weeping quietly in the background. Mouth Tooth describe their style as ‘psychedelic ward’, and the lyrics here seem like an exercise in Freudian free association. ‘Heaven is a roadhouse / and you are the waitress,’ Mitchell croons, ‘I want to dissolve you into my coffee’. The video has a grainy, VHS ambiance. Mitchell and Turner’s disembodied heads float over scenes that could have been taken from Twin Peaks, smiling as they deliver lines like ‘I want to stir you through the darkness / Have you with my breakfast / Girl, you make my heart race…’. Check it out below.

 

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LISTEN: Smile – ‘Sunni Hart’ / ‘Born Again’

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smile

Melbourne band Smile formed in 2012, when two members dropped out of the unwieldy seven-piece Red Berry Plum, leaving the rest to go it alone. The present line up is led by singer/guitarist Pete Baxter and features Josh Delaney of Rat & Co. and Chet Faker and Max Turner, who also plays in Mouth Tooth.

Smile’s debut album, Life Choices, came out just over a week ago. It’s full of warm, reflective pop songs that fall somewhere between slowcore and slacker rock. Their sound reminds me of Spain‘s mellow hooks – and there’s an appropriate nod to the Velvets in opening track ‘Still Waiting For My Man’.  There are some nice Melbourne references on the album, with songs called ‘Pascoe Vale’ and ‘Amess St’, but for some reason it always makes me think of summers in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and the afterglow in your skin when you’ve spent the day in a hot dusty car between beaches.

Smile recently put out a video for ‘Born Again’ – a title which, along with B-side ‘Jesus Song’, hints at some childhood experiences with religion that Baxter’s alluded to in interviews. The single has been neatly prologued with naive love song ‘Sunni Hart’, a short-and-sweet, Lemonheads-style number about a girlfriend with a wonderful name who’s almost too good to be true.

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Smile are launching Life Choices on 19 October at new Melbourne venue Boney. For now, you can get the album here and here.

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