Jellybean Explosion

I first met Headaches’ Jeff Bell at DOC, a tiny bar in Auckland. He bounded up to me and asked if I could play bass. I told him I could. I soon realised he was going around asking pretty much every person in the bar the same question, but his excitement and energy for finding the final member of his band was fun to witness. Little did I know his band was perfectly formed already, and (to my mind) didn’t need a bass player at all.

Headaches are one of those two-pieces that don’t need any “fleshing out”. Like the White Stripes, the Black Keys (of old) and so many others, their restrictions are what makes them so great. By relying solely on catchy songwriting, solid drums and a couple of good pedals, Headaches make the kind of shimmering, glitzy pscyhedelic rock and roll that’s perfect in its simplicity. Singer/guitarist Jeff (from Las Vegas) and drummer Kerry Forde’s (Freudoids, Malenky Robot) time-warped garage punk sits perfectly alongside bands like Thee Oh Sees, who they supported in Auckland. Of their many great demos on Bandcamp recorded by Alex Bennett, ‘Bear Bait’ is a standout, with its jagged and jarring guitar chords, spacey echoes and Kerry’s primal drumming providing a lurching rhythm. Jeff is known to do a great cackling laugh-type-thing with his voice that adds a kind of scary, foreboding vibe.

Having played Two-Piece Fest in Wellington in February alongside DZ Deathrays, The Shocking And Stunning and Seth Frightening, Headaches are now preparing for the release of a vinyl compilation with Raw Nerves, High Society, Death Valley and Proton Beast. They’re also playing a special gig at Whammy/Wine Cellar next month. In the meantime, download some of their awesome free jams on Bandcamp and read this interview with them.

Headaches on Bandcamp

Headaches on Facebook

Posted by Sarah Gooding under Auckland, New Zealand
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Capital FMLY//FMLY Vibes

Here’s a wee preview of a festival we’ll be hitting up when we’re in New York this June. It’s the latest compilation put together by the good folks behind FMLY Fest – featuring new songs from Truman Peyote, Alaskas and Winks, plus a number of dope jams from a bunch of sweet artists we’re yet to become acquainted with. We’re particularly feeling the dark vibe of Yohuna’s track, ‘It’s All Yours’, Alpha MC’s casio-hop number ‘By Any Means’ and Bayatas’ tropical-pop jam ‘The Hand Effect’. There’s also something special from our FMLY brother Cameron Rath – check out final track ‘Silence is Violence’. Everything here is awesome so you should download the whole thing. Pay what you want for 20 eclectic hits.

FMLY Fest blog

Posted by Nick Fulton under Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A
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Crystal Magic

When I last wrote about Dead Mellotron Josh Frazier was going it alone, making a hazy lo-fi racket from his home in Louisiana. He’s now based in Baltimore and has teamed up with three more musicians, known only to us as CC, Aimee and Russell – together producing Dead Mellotron’s third album, Glitter. The album’s first single ‘Stranger’ dropped recently and it’s equally as epic and hazy as his previous two records, but has more depth and polish. At 2 minutes 55 seconds it’s just a short slice, but it’s got all the intensity and integrity of a much grander project that will be revealed on May 7 by the fantastic team at Sonic Cathedral. It’s twisted harmonies and layered guitars make it a bustling number, like a tapestry of shoegaze’s greatest hits.

The video that accompanies the song gives off a blissful ’90s nostalgia. Check it out below and be sure to grab your copy of Glitter when it drops on May 7.

Posted by Nick Fulton under Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A
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Eye of the beholder

One of the highlights from Camp A Low Hum, The All Seeing Hand are now embarking on a nationwide tour, playing 12 shows over four weeks around New Zealand. The Wellington trio combine staggering thrash drums at breakneck speed with indiscernible avant-garde vocals and extreme samples. The high-energy noise they create is like a religious experience, engulfing you in their creationism until you’re basically preaching at their altar. When we saw them play a little low-ceilinged hall in the bush outside of Wellington, they arranged themselves in a circle on the floor, with candles lining the beams above them. People were getting into it in an epic way. It was a sight to behold.

The merging of each member’s musical backgrounds makes for an incredibly unique experience. Drummer Ben Knight’s hardcore punk roots (Teen Hygiene, Rogernomix) come out in his relentless and manic yet incredibly controlled and restrained drum smashing. Meanwhile, former national turntable champion Alphabethead fuses insane otherworldly influences and Noel St Cosmos contributes creepy, guttural but utterly suiting vocals to the mix. They have to be seen to be believed!

More tour information on Facebook

The All Seeing Hand on Facebook

Listen to The All Seeing Hand on Bandcamp

Posted by Sarah Gooding under New Zealand, Wellington
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A Dead Forest Index

Friday, 30 March, 2012
San Francisco Bathhouse, Wellington

Photos by Richard Sando

View more photos of A Dead Forest Index live in Wellington

Posted by Nick Fulton under Live photos
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Rocket to the deep

Since Cool Rainbows’ debut single came out in December I’d been looking forward to hearing their full-length album. Now Whale Rocket is finally out and making a fine impression. With various veins of psychedelic pop and pretty layers of reverb-soaked guitars pushed along by jumpy drums, it’s a cohesive release that brings together central member Djeisan Suskov’s wistful voice that belies his years, with the influences of other musicians that have since come to be an integral part of the band.

Though primarily a solo affair, Cool Rainbows sounds a lot more fleshed-out on Whale Rocket, and with the pristine engineering Djeisan is known for – having grown up hanging around Revolver Studios (which his dad started) – it’s a winning combination. With a lush, shimmering quality that was first explored on ‘Southern Summer Sun’ (the initial single, now the first track of the album), Whale Rocket shows the full extent of Cool Rainbows’ depth. Standouts include ‘Forty Two’, featuring female vocals duelling with Djeisan’s voice plus a sweet, complicated drum beat, and the gentle, chugging guitar lullaby of ‘Tidal Wave’.

See Cool Rainbows play at Auckland’s Casette #9 on April 20.

Stream Whale Rocket on Bandcamp

Buy Whale Rocket on blue vinyl with a free digital download at Lil’ Chief’s store

Cool Rainbows on Facebook

Posted by Sarah Gooding under Auckland, New Zealand
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Vegetarians Don’t Eat Fish

Some of you may remember an ex-Invercargill band named V!xens, led by Joel Wood. The band produced one excellent electro-pop 7″ before disappearing to Australia. Now fully established in Byron Bay, Joel has started a new band called Swamprattts, with Luke Yeaman and Brett Jansh, who both bring their own reputable musical talents to the band. They began performing together in late 2010 and have just posted 3 short “sketches” to their bandcamp. Joel says that, “over time the sketches begin to resemble more of a photograph”, capturing their early development as a band attempting to write more progressive pop songs. Of the three releases, Leucrotta is the most interesting and is structured like a traditional EP. It shows the band doodling with different guitar riffs and synth lines, tangling together unusual noises and muddy bass. Largely instrumental, the music is dark and dancey and is packed full of swampy surf rhythms. It’s early days for Swamprattts, but Joel says that Byron Bay has a emerging scene, naming Wilde Child and M Jack Bee as people of interest.

Posted by Nick Fulton under Australia, Byron Bay, New Zealand
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Fix It With Funk

From the comfy confines of bedroom pop, once simple-indie-ode purveyors Miniature Tigers have graduated to slick, funky pop the likes Phoenix might proffer, on their latest album Mia Pharaoh. We first wrote about them in 2009 – almost three years ago – when they were mainly a two-piece drumming up hype for their Wes Anderson-like all-American pop. Since then they’ve morphed into a modern amalgamation of catchy indie pop merged with the occasional hip hop-style beat, retro-electro synths and funky bass with twinkling optimism thrown in for good measure.

No longer stepping on Ben Kweller or Adam Green’s territory, this groovy new sound suits the band perfectly. It’s a massive step up from their shuffling, slightly shoe-gazing pop that originally stole my heart with its innocence. On Mia Pharaoh the band sounds like they’ve been around the block and had a few gritty experiences. Totally simple but exemplary basslines groove and glide over light-as-air vocals on the suggestive ‘Female Doctor’, and on other songs they even seem to segue into Scissor Sisters’ oddly high-pitched upbeat kitsch (‘Sex on the Regular’), but in my mind do it infinitely better with unbelievably catchy synths and slightly sick vocals. Consequence of Sound said, “Frontman Charlie Brand studied the likes of The Dream, Kanye and Katy Perry and this change in inspiration is most apparent here.”

Mia Pharaoh still utilises the band’s trademark fantastic vocal harmonies and sophisticated melodies (proof is in the amazing ‘Boomerang’), but with added funk. It’s not over the top or cringe-worthy – somehow they’ve tapped into the trend of retro-gazing while adding a modern element. The best thing about them is their catchiness and the mystery of how they pull it all off so seamlessly with totally amazing, celebratory vibes.

Mia Pharaoh came out last week via Modern Art, a label that was set up specifically to release them! Go to the band’s website for a free download of ‘Female Doctor (Algemix)’. Miniature Tigers are on tour now in the US – go to their shows if you’re lucky enough to be there!

Posted by Sarah Gooding under Arizona, U.S.A
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… Without His Punx

Hunx And His Punx first entered my life via Vice Magazine’s New Garage Explosion, which went live in 2011. The documentary features a wave of new garage rock bands sweeping across America, including Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees and Girls and details cities such as Memphis, Detroit and San Francisco. It also features one of the last interviews ever conducted with Jay Reatard, before his untimely death in January 2010. The documentary still blows my mind every time I watch it.

Back to Hunx – and Seth Bogart has just released (out February 28) his first so-called solo album, without any input from his regular punx, Shannon Shaw and Erin Emslie (although I’m sure they helped in some way). The album is titled Hairdresser Blues and it’s first single ‘Always Forever’ is a sexy homage to sixties jingle-pop and the grimy sounds of classic new-wave bands like Richard Hell and the Voidoids and Blondie. Bogart achieves the perfect verse/chorus balance, changing his vocal style from singing to spoken word and transforming the song into a west-coast anthem, with his rich American accent providing the song with a picturesque bohemian backdrop. Bogart describes the album as his darkest work, with songs about a break-up, the lose of a dear friend and morning for his dead father. Many of the songs he doesn’t even remember writing, just of finding them days later as a demo recorded on his computer. It’s that kind of lost feeling that makes Hairdresser Blues stand out from his previous work. Here he’s thinking about things a bit more, writing in a very disconnected, down-and -out punk way, akin to the attitudes of great punk records like Richard Hell’s Destiny Street and The Clash’s debut self-titled record. One particularly sad track is Bogart’s tribute to his good friend Jay Reatard, ’Say Goodbye Before You Leave’. Describing the track, Bogart writes, “Sometimes I cry just when I listen to this song. I became really close with Jay Reatard the year before he died. He would call me at all hours of the night and we would talk about the craziest stuff. He took me on tour I think partly because he wanted my flamboyant punk band to freak out his hetero dominated audience. We had a lot of fun together even though he was obviously in a dark phase. I miss him dearly.” With all the flamboyance that often surrounds Hunx And His Punx missing from this record, it opens a new chapter that exposes Seth Bogart. It’s a pretty brave record to release when so many of the subjects are very personal, but it’s a record that wins respect for revealing that personality.

Learn more and purchase Hairdresser Blues via Hardly Art.

Become a fan of Hunx And His Punx on Facebook

Posted by Nick Fulton under California, San Francisco, U.S.A
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Scraping On Wire

For the past week I’ve had a song on my playlist that every time it’s come on has made my ears prick up. I originally thought it was one of several WOMEN tracks I added to my playlist upon hearing the sad news that the band’s guitarist Christopher Reimer had died in his sleep on February 21. But then it started reminding me a lot of Sic Alps, and Mike Donovan’s equivocal ramblings. When I finally got around to checking it out I discovered it was the work of a young Californian song writer named Ryan Thomas Schmale, going by the name That Ghost. The song in question, ‘Morning Now’, is off a new rarities collection named after Schmale’s late-grandmother Rosalind. The entire Rosalind EP is a reflection on all things old, lost and buried in the past. The seven songs on the EP were evidently influenced by old black and white and sepia photographs of his grandmother. There’s a beautiful loving quality to the collection that sounds a bit like an obituary, written with such passion and emotion that it sounds slightly morbid. ‘Morning Now’ is clearly the highlight, with it’s wonderfully sharp guitar combining perfectly with Schmale’s wiry, rustic voice. Elsewhere ‘Snowrabbit’ is a rattling boxcar number, recalling the roots of travelling musicians from the cotton fields of Memphis, Tennessee. ‘The Birth Of My Son’ continues the storytelling, with a simple guitar riff bouncing about while the story burns and freezes with the phrase “hold your hands out boy”. There’s more to discover from That Ghost that doesn’t need describing here, and I’m sure this is just the beginning of my love affair. Whether you like folk music (Nick Drake, Woody Guthrie), Delta blues (Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson) or slightly more psychedelic versions of both (Devendra Banhart, Sic Alps), That Ghost is a great discovery.

The Rosalind EP, along with That Ghost’s previous three releases, Songs Out Here (2011), Get It And Get Out (2009) and Young Fridays (2008) can all be downloaded from Two Syllable Records’ Bandcamp page. While you’re there, check out some other excellent records by Holiday Shores and Inlets.

‘Like’ That Ghost on Facebook

Posted by Nick Fulton under California, Santa Rosa, U.S.A
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