HENGE BEAT

MP3: Total Control - The Hammer

Over four 7”s Total Control pretty much covered the post-punk gamut, starting with austere new wave and ending up with minimalist electro. But on their just-released debut LP, Henge Beat, they serve up 12 new songs that cover all of the genres they’ve previously worked with and more. Elsewhere on Henge Beat, Total Control (made up of Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s Mikey Young, Daniel Stewart of The UV Race and artist James Vinciguerra) play noisy punk and dabble in hardcore, but the album’s stellar first single The Hammer opens with a clinical drum machine and adds ominous synth swirls and squelches, building an atmosphere of detached sadness that’s more reminiscent of New Order.

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POST WHATEVER

MP3: Terrible Truths – Don Juan

Way into this slinky new jam from Adelaide’s Terrible Truths (Adelaide what is up!), which is all straddling the line between what is post-punk  and what is some floaty, abstract dream-pop or something, and maybe there’s also a lil bit of punk-funk in there, if I can say that without y’all vomiting everywhere. Don’t vomit, though! Or do. What do I care. On their Tumblr, Terrible Truths say they love (actually: “luuurve”) ESG and Delta 5, which is very cool and apparent in their music, what with that sparse groove and vaguely paranoid edge. This track is off a soon-to-be-released split 7” with Hissey Miyake and is kind of a big mash of things we like: it was mastered by ECSR’s Mikey Young, and the band includes members of Bitch Prefect, Kitchen's Floor and Rites Wild. Great!

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PINS N NEEDLES

MP3: Total Control - Paranoid Video

Real austere, urgent "cyberpunk" vibes on this new track from the latest project for analogue heroes Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Brain Children) and Daniel Stewart (The UV Race). These dudes have made a name for themselves playing enthusiastically sloppy punk rock, but this situation is totally different: drum machines and synths hammering out frosty new wave beats with a general feeling of breathlessness and subdued violence. It's pretty unsettling stuff, really, all droning and atonal and hurried. You can buy it now on their third 7", out now through US label Smart Guy.

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DEJA WHAT

MP3: Blank Realm - Full Moon Door

Luvvin the hungover glow of this Blank Realm classic: their Deja What record, originally issued in a stupidly limited run (52 copies whaaaaaat?) has just been remastered by ECSR's Mikey Young so you can actually fucking buy it and revel in the headache buzz and wild west swagger. It's kind of insane how good this sounds, really, the burn of the undulating bass and organ and the clanking percussion and the super subtle layering of guitars and vocals that slowly creep in and quickly die off. Sounds like it could have been recorded in the Californian desert, maybe, all dry and feverish and half crazy.

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SISTERS KNOW

Fabulous Diamonds - Track 4

EXCLUSIVE: Direct from the future when they have Las Vegas on the moon, it's the new song from Fabulous Diamonds! Love how 'Track 4' (or 'untitled') is still totally dubbed out but sorta less "druggy" than 7 Songs' jawns. The production is as crisp as an autumnal breeze to the face and you could even describe it as "up" if you had to! Here's what I love: the crisp production (really, it's amazing); the piano plinks trailing off into the void; the mid-section lull; the poker machine payout melody after the mid-section lull that degenerates into atonal stabs of noise before coming back again; the cavernous drumming. Love it. Love Fabulous Diamonds.

[Fabulous Diamonds MySpace]

[Fabulous Diamonds II by Fabulous Diamonds is out June 19 through Chapter]

HOLD ME DOWN

Super Wild Horses - Golden Town

Yeah Super Wild Horses! I had plans to stretch a metaphor about how this track is "toasty" (simple yet delicious; crunchy; cozy etc.) but I changed my mind. This is the first cut from the Melbourne duo's debut album Fifteen (totally appropriate title considering their youthful exuberance) and, let's be clear, it's fucking cool. Last year's 7" was all about lightning-quick charges through uncomplicated lo-fi gems, and some of that spirit's intact. But it's been brilliantly augmented by some cleverly applied wall of sound production (courtesy Mikey Young of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, who at this point is basically incapable of turning out a dud) and impressively developed, Flying Nun-inspired songwriting. I'm predicting best of '10.

Super Wild Horses are doing a bunch of Australian shows soon. Americans: you get them later this year.

[Super Wild Horses MySpace]

[Fifteen is out July 23 through Aarght!]

GRINDIN' TEETH

MP3: Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Anxiety

This new track from Melbourne’s finest gang of misfits is as ADD and infectious as you’d hope from the band who brought unpretentious punk rock back (why the fuck did it ever go away?). ECSR always seem to be careening along on the edges of control, and Anxiety, from (I think?) their forthcoming third album INGENIOUSLY edges up the production values while still sounding like a bunch of bros fucking around in the shed. The slightly more polished sound suits them real nice, too: this is an instantly likeable track, but it points to a sound that could push Eddy Current Suppression Ring from a very, very good band to a great one. Will this album be their Marquee Moon? Will a squillion people buy it and make them ultra-famous and a bit jaded? Will they? Will their stadium extravaganza show feature carnies like Britney did? Rhetorical question? Boy, I can’t wait to see!

myspace

CREEP ON ME

Brain Children – Lucky Land of Skin

I’ll say this: you need to have some stones to turn up in peoples’ lives rocking a mesh shirt and ambient-ish disco grooves. Mikey Squires, aka Eddy Current, clearly has some serious goodwill flowing around at the moment, but disco? It’s risky. Not as risky as turning out a reggae record, but close. A few months ago we posted the first taste of Brain Children for you, and now the debut EP from this Melbourne duo (feat. Mr Squires of Eddy Current Suppression Ring & Ooga Boogas and Max Kohane of Agents of Abhorrence) has dropped. The good news is it’s sounding less like the ironic side-project of a couple of punk rock dudes (actually, it sounds nothing like that) and more like the inspired product of genuine affection for classic club sounds. Not that it’s a Bee Gees love-in: it’s more subtle than that, with hints of krautrock and the warm, organic snap of early Prince. It also basically confirms that Mikey Squires is the modern genius we’ve been expecting.



[Brain Children MySpace]

[Buy Brain Children from Stained Circles]

IT'S THE AIM

We really like Eddy Current Suppression Ring here at Rose Quartz, so when the first eva ECSR side-project, Ooga Boogas, dropped a SURPRISE ALBUM on us last year we went crazy with expectations of revolutionary, bonerfying genius beyond compare and that. WHAT THE SHIT?, we thought, THESE BROS HAVE BARELY RELEASED TWO ALBUMS AND ALREADY THEY ARE BRANCHING OUT AND EXPERIMENTING WITH DIFFERENT NAMES AND LESS-GLOVED SINGERS. (Truth: NO ONE in Ooga Boogas wears gloves.)

Ooga Boogas – Neon Sunset

Virile riffage. Sludgefest ’08. The album, Romance and Adventure, was pretty decent lo-fi punk action that ended up doing OK in some end-of-year lists on the “BLOGOSPHERE”. It also sounded more or less how you’d expect, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

[Ooga Boogas MySpace]

Imagine my surprise, if you will, when I copped a listen to the NEW new side project from Eddy Current. I think it’s Eddy Current’s new side project, anyway, but I’m pretty fucking confused because he’s calling himself Mikey Squires now and wearing fishnet bodysuits. WTF.

He’s teamed up with Max Crumbs, a dude who is probably best known for his work in the field of ‘beats’ with Catcall for example. They call themselves Brain Children (nice) and they sound awesomely like nothing you’d expect.

Brain Children – Guts

DO NOT EXPECT: Punk rock, power chords, tuneless singing.
DO EXPECT: Ultra-toasty vintage synths, falsetto vox, delicately funky rhythms.

To reduce the complex recipe of influences that have gone into all three of these outfits to a single sentence, it’s like Eddy Current went from the Saints to the Birthday Party (which makes sense) to Stereolab (which doesn’t). But it rules. You rule, Eddy Current. I look forward to liking you more in future.

[Brain Children MySpace]

NEW EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING

Eddy Current Suppression Ring – That Time Of Day

Oh wow, it’s yet another casually great song from Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Geez, fellas. Thinking of new ways to say “BUY WHAT THIS BAND IS SELLING COS IT ROOLZ” is getting to be a bit of a drag so why don’t you stop making awkward punk riffs and stream-of-consciousness lyrics sound so irresistible, I’ll stop trying way too hard to be whimsical in my blog posts and we’ll split the difference. Srsly, no more lo-fi singalongs with perfectly satisfying climaxes, OK? I mean it. This is really shitting me off. STOP IT.

You can buy the That Time Of Day 7” from Nervous Jerk from next week.

[Eddy Current Suppression Ring MySpace]

[Buy Primary Colours from Shock]