Tag: Australia

TRACK | Punter – A Minute’s Silence

5/5 golden merles

Hardcore punk from Melbourne with great scope, focused on the vast rot. The vocals are appropriately raving in a perpetual alarm propelled by an undercurrent of backing hooks and lead guitar melodies that facilitate agreeable ingurgitation.

You’re not going to get a better opening line than “Chuck a piss-up on a grave site” for awhile. The primary concerns explicit in the text are privacy in an era of unbidden observation, militarized police forces, and the general degradation and abuses of the social contract. It’s also anthemic. And it’s also a lot of fun.

From what I can gleam as am imbecile and outsider, the son and dotard of many hungry ghosts, the angle is relatively anarchic, I hope, to the extent affiliations don’t damn you outright. There are expressed concerns with left disunity benefitting the bastards at the alternate extreme. Historical examples are cited as everyman martyrs who have been sacrificed for a world they would be ashamed to have been affiliated with.

Your revulsion will either be directed outward or eat you alive from the inside. As an agent within a system of organized degradation with a capacity for self reflection, exercising that capacity for critique is imperative if there is any hope of remediation. And (and) there’s a lot of good hooks in it, too. Revel, wallow, examine, admire the monolithic guillotine on the cover… come up against the limitations of the medium and maybe discover a door.

$6.91 USD on Bandcamp or vinyl from Drunken Sailor Records.

TRACK | Tee Vee Repairmann – Bus Stop

5/5 golden merles

From the C:/ of Ishka Edmeades, in the style of garage punk and powerful pop: some new, prolific and defiant portents for the year in death ahead. “Bus Stop” wouldn’t by any stretch of the imagination sound out of place in a Riptides/Numbers set, save maybe for its general state of tightness and refinement. A warmth of tube derived tones coincide with a lament for missed opportunities, experiments wide in the channel with the organ/lead pulsing.

For better or worse it’s a timeless track, at least for the last 50 or 60 years. That’s a lot of influence to synthesize, to reconstitute from constituent parts in some manner that again feels alive. Rest assured, he’ll keep rewiring the available woes into good hooks and relaying them over digital mainframes regardless of your support. But I for one think that it’s nice to have something this reliable that isn’t a bad thing. Most reliable things are bad. but this is good and should be encouraged.

February 10th, 2023, is the arrival of the record, the tapes and vinyls seem destined to quickly diminish. US version out on Total Punk Records in Portland.

TRACK | Busted Head Racket – Wouldn’t you like 2 Know

5/5 golden merles

Bedroom lo-fi synth pop from Australia, the release from Idiotape Records (Paris) contains two ounces worth of delightful and difficult to kill earworms. The refinement is pronounced and very much appreciated: layers phasing and melodies shifting in precise sequence, the variance in lyric keeping us sated in the recurrent loops.

There’s great detailing in the margins, like the delicate death rattle production on the vocal lanes or the tinny-washed out drums that splash late on in the dying embers. It has great density to it but the appearance of pure candy and handles like a cartoon mallet: swiftly, against the odds, pleasantly gruesome.

The track features the dogged honing of hooks as previously manifested by so many of our senescent idols, by that I mean maybe it has some golden era le tigre feelings about it, maybe a touch of Metric, or of times new viking; things I like and you likely liked too.

The cost is €2 on the bandcamp for the files or €5 for the tape before shipping. See what you can do.

TRACK | OUZO! – State of Affairs

5/5 golden merles

Australian Garage punk that has become sentient and aware of the existential threats which are damning us to an arbitrary and relatively abrupt end. A dangerous prospect, hopefully. The track contains a litany of discontents, each censure delivered with savor. Racing through the excess offenses of the era, OUZO! continues smashing and grabbing back at the daily gauntlet of inadequate empathy.

And, of course, rightfully so. God damn the status quo, the complacency which empowers it, and the fervor with which its defenders somehow manage to live with themselves. In the fine form the critique holds up and is elevated. Tradition is presently the cancer of culture, by and large, we just hope for the benign kinds cluttering up our chest cavities.

But, also, contradictorily, ritual can reinforce behavior, and maybe with nice, catchy, scathing, fun, fiery tracks like these that tradition can be reinvented, with some small part played as a salving commiseration, consensus building catalyst, or soundtrack for direct action. I don’t know. Adam Curtis would politely laugh in my face for discussing tracks in these terms. But he provides no practical alternative and is himself caught in the indefinite arts feedback loop.

The 7″ is sold out from Weather Vane Records (AU), Polaks Records (EU) but some remain for €7 on the French Wine Records (EU) bandcamp. Or $3 AUD for the digital remains straight from the horses’ mouth.

TRACK | Krul – Moon

5/5 golden merles

Melbourne-based punk rock with Japanese vocals, Krul’s “Moon” arises like an ungodly hour, with drums like a stake through the heart. It’s made for inciting, the riot or the unvarnished reverie. In any case, a recipe for revolt and some finely constructed contents for the small hours.

Having lived under the reign of both the sun and moon, I tell you I prefer the moon: a great curator of the light, and patron saint of less is more. That is much like the instrumentation and production here, everything piled and cutting but not running the cup over.

There’s an old saying where I proport to be from, “He who burns bridges, builds mausoleums.” This is the soundtrack of that sentiment. You can name your price to own the set as we await a work at greater length.

TRACK | SOOKS – U.D.

5/5 golden merles

I’d advise you to at least consider any track that contains the line: I will find my enemies / and crush them in a warm embrace. Or at least this one, who knows what the future brings. “U.D.” is punk rock from Perth, Australia. With righteous anger the track laments the impotence of citizens within modern nation states, navigating the hoops and decoy levers of power, while true power is held through legalized corruption and representatives beholden to special interests.

But far from defeated, the chorus beseeches real organizing and the active deconstruction of unjust hierarchies. All generations seem to eventually sour and amalgamate in the hospice or the home, but hopefully we can productively stagger a few more feet further afield than is traditionally within one eras capacity.

The other good news is that in addition to the smiting and fury it’s a lot of fun and sharply constructed rampage. Seek out the whole set. Physical pulp from Richter Scale Tapes who also put out the superb Rude Television – Distractions, Demo 22 is five lbs for the Cassette while supplies last. These are both listed as free downloads, you ghoulish ingrates. Found through Amber Rambo yt curation.

TRACK | Billiam – Jenny Destroys Records

5/5 golden merles

From a split with The Vovos, Billliam’s “Jenny Destroys Records” is synth punk that tells a simple tale of destruction well, with heart and animus. The Vocal-synth harmony is unforgiving in its pursuit: heavily hounding, never yielding. In the writing there is a keen understanding of when to rhyme and when to let it slide, suiting the compiling accusations as they grow in conviction.

It’s a great relief to find this frank wrath so built to scale; the track balances absolute parity of medium and message, the scope fitting the melody and method of execution; all of it craven and compelling. Artistry and insolence are the heart of punk rock, but also here add in a bit of humor and a laser-guided melody.

The remaining tracks will be emerging on the 16th of September, preorder now at $1 AUD. The 150 pressing of the vinyl by Under Heat Records will be gone shortly, those not already smashed or scratched by Jenny the cat. rip.

TRACK | C.P.R. Doll – Drabness

5/5 golden merles

Australian lo-fi rock super-duper group C.P.R. Doll will have you carving out your own bones and honing them into guitar picks just to play along. If you lack bones or sufficient resolve it’ll at least inspire some passive admiration at the stacked, cascading and careening egg punk melodies and demoniac phrasing. They start small and build things of significance which is all you can really ask for in this regrettable world. The accumulation is a great.

It is one of the permutations of rock I enjoy, with the emphasis on mutation. The attention to detail is superb, and there is a great intention in the solving temporal and spatial logic traps that crop up in any map of the soundscape, thwarting every pitfall, escaping entanglement of dullness either through invention or evasion.

There’s a smash and grab ethos: cut it if off it starts to stale, salvage what you can, promptly grow another limb to replace the one left caught in the snare. Each track is spiraling into control: moving forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always confidently twirling towards freedom.

I am told by tippy top tier punk curator Tremendo Garaje that it is to be made available in the US of A by Under The Gun Records and already sold out of Europe in an absurdly limited 20 copies edition by Goodbye Boozy.

TRACK | CLAMM – Something New

5/5 golden merles

Melbourne’s CLAMM offer “Something New,” fangs bared, among a set of impassioned punk and garage rock tracks. The works are ruminating and requesting assistance, an allegiance at the threat of annihilation. The direct language and reiteration of themes insist that this is real seeking/beseeching, decidedly not posture or play on the scales of invest or escape.

The production cracks, daunting and declarative. An authoritative and aggrieved vocal at the core of the track holds court: in a time of mass disillusionment and a growing desperation for reinvention, what can be salvaged and what must be discarded? A reason, a sign. something new. Backing vocals collude with some horns that act as a wax seal on the exit and work to elevate the scope.

Vinyl’s are out from Meat Machine (UK, Europe and Asia) and Chapter Music (rest of world -> this means you, USA) — if you’re off planet or shedding all material possessions in anticipation of the end, digitally it’s $13 AUD worth of audio.

TRACK | R.M.F.C. – Feeder

5/5 golden merles

Garage rock from New South Wales Australia, a bit eternal but it feels fresh as a daisy despite all the elements being composed of cardboard cutouts and wax idols. I don’t know the alchemy of it, maybe melt them down in sweat and blood and they become renewed. It works, somehow, divination or some slight mangling or subversion of the cultural conditioning.

Regardless, it’s strong, inventively building and smashing through the effigies. Follow the uroboros either way around and you eventually get back to the guts. The vocals burrow into your skull and bed down there for the night. There are guitar tones that clip in the cathode manner, gently collapsing and fiercely shedding the echoes of its skin in reverberation. It’s good, fun garage rock that elides the rot all around us. The tapes are sold, but it can be digitally got for $3 AUD.