The Rational Academy, Secret Birds, Triad, Marl Carx @ Step Inn (09.05.09)

I have no excuse for having not seen Marl Carx previously. I remember getting a myspace request from them right when they started out and finding the rough recordings on their site to be interesting, and yet it's taken me a good year or so to finally check them out. I guess part of the reason for that is that they tend to mostly play houseparties, so I was pretty keen to catch them as part of this great lineup at the Step Inn. Consisting of drums and guitar with a smattering of off-key / squealing vocals, they're an easy band to dismiss (see this Rave review). The playing is rudimentary, and they sound pretty similar to every other house party noise-rock band put together by a bunch of teenagers. That is, of course, if you don't actually give any of your attention to them. For those who DO put a few minutes of effort into understanding the band and trying to decipher the music behind the noise (and, admittedly, are amongst those who already have a predilection towards rough, feedback drenched rock music with a heavy early Sonic Youth influence), it's somewhat surprising to find that there are surprising adept riffs buried in there, and that the rhythms are not so boneheaded as they might first appear. There was one song in particular where I spent the whole song marvelling at the genius drum part, trying to figure out how it was put together. I found myself surprised at the level of songcraft that initially seemed like two kids randomly bashing at their instruments. Marl Carx are not a band who are going to impress a large number of people purely because of the style of music they've chosen to pursue, but they're not without their merits.

I knew pretty much nothing about Triad coming into this show; the only information I had was that it featured Tom Hall (of Brisbane acts AxxOnn and Secret Birds, as well as his solo ventures) and two dudes from Tasmania. When the trio began their set with various drones and delayed guitar I thought to myself 'right, so this is what we're going to get - nice synthy ambience'. I'm sure a good portion of the crowd thought this as well. For the first part of the set this is indeed what we got, with various tones and drones being melded together into a gradually rising wall of sound. At about the 1/3 mark, however, things started to change - Hall threw some bellowed vocals into the mix, twisting them via various laptop effects, and within minutes one of the three musicians had switched to drums and suddenly we were being bathed in waves of distorted doom guitar while Tom Hall ran around the room screaming like a young Henry Rollins. It was one of the few times in recent memory where a set has truly surprised me, as it seemed to do for everyone else in the room. For such dark, violent music there seemed to be a lot of smiles and laughing going on in the audience, but I don't think that anyone was laughing AT the band, instead it seemed that everyone was simply shocked by what they were seeing and truly enjoying the spectacle (though others have disagreed). What a surprising show.

Secret Birds had the job of following up Triad, and did so by putting on one of their best shows. The band doesn't seem to be morphing from one gig to another as much anymore, having settled into a fairly steady lineup of two guitars, bass, drums and keys/ambience. It's difficult to explain the difference between a good Secret Birds show and a poor one - they all tend to consist of two or three lengthy jams based on a handful of heavy guitar riffs. I suppose it all comes down to the effectiveness of the riff and the aptitude of the guitar noodling around it. For this show the riffs were at the higher end of the quality scale, and the band seemed to be really well in sync. In fact, for once it seemed as though Secret Birds weren't just jamming on a riff, instead playing actual compositions that were stretched out over extended periods of time. Maybe the songs that they played at this show were no less structured than previously, but the differences between sections were less subtle and the band moved between them more tightly. Whatever the reasons, the general consensus seemed to be that The Rational Academy had their work cut out for them to meet the standards that had been displayed up until that point in the evening.

Going by the grimaces on the faces of the band members throughout their set, you wouldn't have thought that The Rational Academy were playing a great set. And sure, it wasn't a GREAT set. Maybe, by Rat Acad standards, it wasn't even a GOOD set. But by that same token it certainly wasn't a POOR set. Given the fact that the band played no previously released songs at all the fact that they were able to hold my interest through the entire show would indicate to me that they were still doing a pretty passable job. Some of the more familiar new songs were performed on the night, but the majority of the set seemed pretty new to my ears. I know that I'm certainly eagerly looking forward to hearing the two new records that the band are supposedly releasing within the year. Anyway, yeah there were lots of feedback issues etc, but it wasn't anywhere near the trainwreck that the band seemed to think it was. Plus, any set that finishes with such an abrasively deconstructed cover of Bowie's 'Life On Mars' has to be at least a little bit good.

Review: McKisko - Glorio

When I first saw McKisko (or Helen Franzmann) perform her quiet, simple folk-pop songs she was opening the night's lineup, playing to a moderately empty room at The Hangar. That was about a year ago, these days she's playing to rather large crowds while supporting acts such as Bon Iver, Jose Gonzalez and Juana Molina. She's also just released her debut album, Glorio, to a not insignificant amount of local acclaim.

Glorio is an album centred around Franzmann's (at times quite impressive) voice. Guitar and piano provide the base upon which her songs are built, and various other instruments rear their heads at certain points, but the thing that dominates the mix is that voice - everything else is there for either utility or decoration. The sound of the album evokes thoughts of the mellower songs from Sufjan Stevens' Michigan and Seven Swans albums, or even Talk Talk's Laughing Stock - there's a stark pristine quality to these songs, where each instrument is placed just so in the spectrum of sounds. It's the perfect local release for the upcoming winter months. That's not to say that the songs are unemotional or overly perfected in any way (in fact there's a nice rustic quality to the performances), it's just that the subtle instrumentation and reverb-laced vocals evoke a certain feeling of icy winter landscapes. This is music that sounds like it came from Canada, not Brisbane.

The album starts with perhaps its strongest song, the atmospheric 'How We Are'. With a descending four chord progression that continues through the entire track, the song also features a hazy sounding cello (or perhaps it's a bowed guitar?), glockenspiel, minimal percussion, creepy loops and operatic sounding backing vocals. It's simultaneously incredibly beautiful and faintly terrifying. It could be my favourite local song from the year so far. Following it up is the comparatively upbeat 'The Hollow Boat', which actually features a fairly driving rhythm (of sorts). 'A Difficult Crossing' is probably McKisko's most crowd-pleasing song in a live context with its clever use of loops, but on the record the minimal, vocals-heavy production takes away much of the song's power. It's still a good song and provides a useful jolt of energy, but it could perhaps have benefited from more robust sounding production. It might have also been more effective later in the album, instead of being a mere two songs after the similarly energetic 'The Hollow Boat'. In any case, from that point on everything is fairly slow, sparse and beautiful, with the highlights of the second half of the record being 'Silence Slowly' and the wonderful closer 'Into The Night'. I guess I'm just a sucker for those dirgy piano ballads.

With Franzmann's vocals being such a focal point her lyrics are bound to come under some scrutiny. In my opinion they hold up; I certainly didn't notice any clunky lines that pulled me out of the surrounding soundscapes. McKisko avoids the dreaded 'confessional singer-songwriter' tag by making her lyrics much more abstract that most other local troubadours, and the music benefits from it.

Glorio is a strong record with a handful of truly great tracks (hell, I'd recommend it for 'How We Are' alone). At only 9 songs it's also quite brief, which is a strength when you're talking about predominantly slow, minimal folk music. I can't really think of anything else to say other than if you have a predilection towards fairly minimalist folk pop you should definitely give this record a spin - you can listen to a number of songs from the record at her myspace, as well as find dates to check her out live.

Review: An Horse - Rearrange Beds

I've been planning to review the debut An Horse record for a few weeks now, and wouldn't you know it, the band went and pulled a major coup by performing on Letterman this very week (the youtube video is at the bottom). Congratulations to Kate and Damon.

With that out of the way, let's discuss the record, Rearrange Beds. First things first: if you own the debut Not Really Scared EP, you might be disappointed by the fact that all five songs from that release reappear on the album in fairly similar versions. The largest change to any of the songs is that 'Ledge' has been renamed 'Company', other than that they're fairly identical, if perhaps ever so slightly better recorded ('Shoes Watch' in particular benefits from more punch in its finale). Still, it's not like Not Really Scared was a roughly thrown together bedroom recording - Magoo was the man behind the desks for both records, a producer not often associated with poorly recorded product.

So, we have half a record that's almost identical to a previous record. That's not such a terrible thing, as Not Really Scared was a great little EP. The question now posed is whether the five new songs stand up to and expand upon the ones we've been living with for a number of months now. Not Really Scared was a very consistent record, perhaps to its detriment in some ways - there wasn't exactly a huge variety of sounds and moods explored in it's 15 or so minutes. However, given that we're now up around the 35minute mark, Rearrange Beds needs to throw a few more colours onto the musical canvas. Does it succeed? Well... kind of.

Pretty much the entire recording consists of mid-tempo, 4/4 indie-rock performed with guitar and rock-steady drums - there's no extra instrumentation other than some melodica in the final track, while the guitar tones range from 'mildly overdriven' to 'moderately overdriven', maybe with a little bit of echo when the band get really crazy. There's nothing that's going to knock you over sonically like the noisier bits of Iron On (as much as I'd rather not compare the two bands, there's no getting over the fact that An Horse sounds like a more sedate version of Kate's previous group). Additionally, Kate's style of guitar playing is generally limited to strumming out some barre chords, generally providing little more than a base for her vocals to sit on top of.

Because of this sonic consistency the band relies on their songwriting to keep us interested. In this they're somewhat successful; 'Little Lungs' spreads itself out over five and a half minutes of slow burning build, ending up as probably the best of the new songs, while 'Horizons' is a nice up-tempo pop song that would have made a pretty good Iron On track with a bit of Big Muff thrown over the choruses. However, I just can't get rid of the feeling that most of the best songs are the ones that have been previously released, and I don't think it's just because I'm more familiar with them - 'Scared As Fuck' is still the best thing the band has written, 'Camp Out' is still their catchiest number. 'Little Lungs' is probably the only new song that is of the same level of quality as the Not Really Scared tracks.

I like this record, I really do, and I like this band. I think it's great that they're doing well. I guess I was just expecting more from Rearrange Beds. To say that it offers 'more of the same' from the band is something of an understatement - it would have been better to have just released this as an EP and perhaps picked the best song or two from each release to go on a full length at a later date. Either that or have worked on it for a bit longer so that at least 2/3 of the record was new material. Still, if you haven't bought a copy of Not Really Scared yet and you like guitar pop then this album is a no brainer. If you've already purchased the previous EP then I guess it comes down to how keen you are for more from the band.

Anyway, here's their performance of 'Camp Out' on Letterman.

Review: Mr Maps - Mimicry of Lines and Light EP

Mr Maps are probably the most meticulously consistent live band in Brisbane; if you're at all into their style of dramatic post rock you'll likely not quickly forget the first time you see the band. Their off nights are tighter than pretty much every other local band's best shows. Sometimes this comes at a cost: there's not a huge difference between one Mr Maps show and the next bar a better venue / sound system and a slight re-ordering of the band's setlist (six songs at last count). Up until now that's been ok because live performance has been the only real method of obtaining a Mr Maps fix - with the release of Mimicry of Lines and Light that's all about to change.

The EP is a curious artifact - it's actually a double EP (coming in a lovely foldout digipack ala The Gin Club's Junk album - artwork apparently care of the band's keyboardist Chloe Cooper, though she's not credited). The first CD, Lines, presents five songs as performed by the live band over the past year or so and recorded by Steve Bartlett; the second CD, Lights, shows us the original forms of these same songs - band leader Chris Perren's more electronic versions, stitched together from separately recorded pieces and moulded into recognisable 'songs' for his Honours thesis.

Lines is the 'feature' release of the two, I guess. As with everything Mr Maps, it's impeccably performed and recorded, although I have heard people complain that it doesn't recreate the same impact of the band in a live setting - personally I disagree, for me the recording hits all the rights notes in terms of clarity, dynamics and punch (especially at high volume). Most importantly it's not fatiguing to listen to - there's no intensely harsh high end or excessive compression. As for the songs themselves, if you've ever seen a Mr Maps show then you've probably heard all five before. For those who haven't, imagine the wide-eyed, optimistically cinematic post-rock of Sigur Ros or Explosions In The Sky with a slightly more technical, math-rock bent ala a more organic Battles. This is big, life affirming stuff - it sure ain't subtle, and it ain't trying to be. This is perhaps best exemplified by the requisite epic closer, 'I See Them, They're Like Mountains', which in its more intense sections may cross the line between emotive catharthis and melodrama, perhaps coming across like an instrumental crescendo from a Creed ballad stretched out to 8 minutes. However, the song is saved by two elements which feature throughout the first disc: exceptional drummer Sangdae Yang's rhythmic variety and prowess, and the almost flawless sense of build-and-fall-away that the band seems to posess - every single composition builds, explodes at just the right time and for just the right length, before falling away to either finish or do it all again. It might occasionally be a bit predictable, but at the same time it can still be immensely satisfying.

'Your Heels In Sand, Soul In Pursuit' is the logical opener, with its moody opening and sudden burst into a rush of drums and guitar one minute in (not to mention the very satisfying 'free jazz' drums at the start and end of the track). 'This Mess Is A Place' shows off the band's musicianship with stop-start riffs and a polyrhythmic middle section that is supremely impressive. The best song to my ears is the relatively short 'Til The Money Outruns Us', which with its complex guitar patterns and galloping rhythm would have made a more unconventional but probably more effective closer to the record. Another highlight is penultimate track 'Like Little Soldiers', which shows the band at their most reflective and is the closest the band gets to that celestial beauty that Explosions In The Sky perfected on their third album - though Mr Maps still end it with some searing guitar distortion.

Lights presents us with the same highlights and issues of the first disc, but perhaps magnified. The complex, intertwining layers are even more complex and intertwined, and the overblown bits are often even more overblown (just listen to the stadium-rock guitars in this version of 'I See Them...'). If the attention to detail in the compositions is even more impressive on this disc, that is conterbalanced by the absence of any feeling of 'wow, this is actually five people playing in a room'. Although I mostly prefer the live band versions, I've heard numerous people say that their favourite of the two discs is Lights.

Now that we have this release in our hands, I hope it heralds in a batch of new songs for the band (though I'm not sure whether this is more or less likely given the recent departure of Nick Smethurst on guitar). Due to the absolute precision inherent in Mr Maps' performances the only variety comes from new material - Mr Maps are a long way from the unpredictable nature of a band like Turnpike, where each performance will offer some unique modification of some segment of a song. On the flipside, the amount of writing and rehearsal that must go into creating this music virtually guarantees that new material will appear at a fairly slow rate. I highly doubt that the band is suddenly going to lose the perfectionist streak that has served them so well to date, so it will be interesting to see how Mr Maps handle this issue of over-familiarisation, if they even consider it at all.

Review: AxxOnn - Should You Fear Hell? EP

Should You Fear Hell?, the debut release from experimental noiseniks AxxOnn, is by no means a groundbreaking release. That having been said, most music typified as experimental these days is done so mainly to make it vividly clear that it is an entity distinct form any form of pop music. Indeed, this EP isn't hellish, nor is it heavenly. Rather it is in limbo, or purgatory if you will.

AxxOnn, as you have no doubt read in Cam's previous post, is a collaboration between electronic artist Tom Hall, and No Anchor/Iron On bassist Ian Rogers. Should You Fear Hell? doesn't stray far from either of their previous work (excluding Iron On); rumbling bass, floating soundscapes, and then a few more bursts of abrasive bass tones. The pair take their name from David Lynch's Inland Empire, and there is unlikely any more fitting reference. AxxOnn's music exudes the same sort of tension and subtle perversity that is found in Lynch's works.

The EP consists of one 24 minute track broken up into three sections. The first of these is entitled 'White Glare', and that pretty aptly describes what the 7 minute plus section consists of. The swirling, interstellar synthesizers instill a sense of ethereality, yet at the same time they obscure the slightly menacing growls of bass.

After 7 minutes of drones it comes as a bit of a shock when the synths punch in at a different frequency to initiate the second part of the EP, 'Stolen Pens From The Hyatt'. This section works as almost a crossfade between the passive (at least in terms of listener involvement) first section and aggressive final section. Hall's synths (I say synths for want of a better term - I have absolutely no idea what instrumentation he is using here) slowly give way to Rogers' trashed to fuck bass sound; a buildup to the oncoming Götterdämmerung.

The last 11 minutes of the EP consists of the section entitled 'Shit Rainbows (And Unicorns)'. Now I didn't actually look at the titles before listening to the EP, and rainbows (shit or otherwise) and unicorns definitely did not come to mind. Rather this resonator heavy piece evokes some bizarre factory line, where all the robots happen to produce beautifully distorted tones. The droning synths return, carrying the listener downwards like a conveyor belt past the array of unidentifiable beeps and buzzes, until the song gets as sonically low as possible and fades to static.

While Should You Fear Hell? doesn't answer the question it poses (at least not for me), it does mark an excellent debut for this AxxOnn. If they can take us on a trip through the underworld in 24 minutes, one can only imagine where they would journey given a full length release. Brisbane has been putting out a huge amount of great experimental/avant-garde/post-rock music in recent times, and Should You Fear Hell? is a great addition to that canon.

Should You Fear Hell? is available to download for free at www.axxonnband.com.