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Georgette La Mar - The Things You Find Fawning (Independent, 2021)

Out of nowhere these five tracks struck me. The EP put me in a mood that I haven’t felt since my last visit to The Paradise Motel. Listening more closely it occurs to me that the recording and mixing of these tracks could have so easily been more dense and complicated – bigger – but it’s understated and that allows the brilliance of the songwriting to be laid bare. There are layers, but they serve to leave the songs’ bones exposed and don’t crowd the dusty vocals.

Georgette La Mar’s Fawning is not campfire folk, it’s folk for empty houses.

“You won again, and you're the best”

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Moïse Turizer - Modern Light Modern Light EP (Lofish Records, 2021)

I don’t usually love it when frenetic guitars and synths clash. It’s not that it’s not my taste, gosh no. It’s almost as if it’s never quite right, like my expectations exceed reality. But this one I’ve gone back to a few times and will again. The EP is cool, but the title track is the winner. I like the mix, too, nothing’s superfluous and nothing’s overdone.

I have a love for bits and pieces of 90s industrial, which French duo Moïse Turizer touches on while it combines early-80s post-punk and no-wave with something mid-2000s-ish which I can’t quite put my finger on. But most of all it’s got a bop and a hook, and I can’t help but shake a knee side to side.

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Židrūns - Rindās kails [(Picking) Trees Like Carrots] Židrūns kovārņu mazbērniem [Židrūns to the Grandkids of Jackdaws] (I Love You Records, 2020)

This song just really got me wanting to be up the front of a heaving mass of people, which is something I haven’t felt like doing for a long time. Maybe it was me missing live music during Melbourne’s lockdown, or maybe it’s just that good? 

It reminds me of early stuff from The Rapture which kind of typifies an era of music that I don’t love, but secretly love hearing.

Židrūns is a 4-piece band from Latvia, they’ve been around since 2004 which is huge. How good would it be to go to Latvia? There’s only around 2 million people that live there, and it sounds like an amazing country. One day.

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Adele and the Chandeliers - Something Good Is Happening First Date (Orange Carpet Records, 2020)

Bopping Brisbane-through-and-through power pop and post-punk from the relatively new 3-piece Adele and the Chandeliers. Some moments of First Date bring to mind The B-52′s and The Motels, and others remind me one of my favourite Melbourne bands, Party Pest. All just touchstones, though - this album has its own thing going on entirely. Thankfully the lyrics and vocals are open and up the front for all to hear: I feel like I’ve been invited in to Adele’s world for a chat and I just want to sit and listen and sip my tea (and tap my foot). 

Swimming With Sharks is another stand out for me from First Date, it could go on for days and I just wouldn’t mind. Love You More takes us back to the early 60s and out of our seats at just the right point, and closer How I Love My Sunday Mornings is perfectly placed, slowing it down and leaving you wanting more.

This album could have been complicated so easily by overdubs and overthinking. Instead, the songs are there and stripped bare and minimal, but complete. I’m on my 3rd listen now and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to stop.

“I feel it in my blood it’s what I feel”

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Thibault - Late Expectations Or Not Thibault (Chapter Music, 2020)

Songs from Thibault’s debut album, Or Not Thibault, have been in my head for weeks. Not one track, but snippets of each, soundtracking the mundaneity of lockdown. It’s melancholy and melodic and there’s a mood over the album like a thin fog which you can push away to find moments of lightness and humour, but those spaces are quickly filled. Tracks glimmer with refreshing self-reflection, and these stories are human and knowable and familiar and sad and if you haven’t lived them yourself, you’ll feel as though you have with Nicole Thibault’s soft and lilting voice guiding you.

Or Not Thibault is a complete album in a way that we don’t see very often. There are clear choices for singles, but each song has found its place and would leave a gaping hole if removed. The instrumentals are not there for the sake of it or to make up time, but are complete and considered and wonderful.

Guitars swoop in when they’re needed but don’t take up too much space as guitars are wont to do, and the bass provides a pace that gets you from start to finish before you know it, but without feeling rushed. Or Not Thibault is an album to be listened to in sequence if you can, but if not drop in with Drama or Late Expectations and go from there. It really is very special.

“I don’t want to argue with you, I don’t want to agree with you, I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to think about it”

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On Diamond - Candle Candle [single] (Eastmint Records, 2020)

It sounds as though a Doctor Who episode is about to start, so I’m in early for this one. I’m already a fan of On Diamond - as a collective, definitely, but each member brings such a distinct sound to the group. They communicate with each other so well through their instruments, and I like to focus in on each of them, one at a time.

Lisa Salvo’s vocals in Candle have the cadence of some 60s psych-folk, reminding me of The Incredible String Band, and also bring to mind some of my other favourites like Broadcast and Nico. But just a little bit, they’re her own and you can fall into them easily here. It’s hard not to.

Maria Moles’ drumming is key, as always. Her genius is not just in her style and rhythm, but also in her restraint, lifting and dropping with the surges and flurries of loud-quiet-loud, each cymbal hit shedding light on a new corner, exposing fragments of guitar and bass that were hiding in the shadows.

It’s because of these dynamics that Candle makes for good headphone listening. While I’m so happy that this single has been released, it’s made me yearn for more.

On Diamond also features the incredible talents of Hannah Cameron (guitar/voice), Scott McConnachie (guitar) and Jules Pascoe (bass).

“That sense of grief your body knows has finally found a focus”

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Dolly Dr - Stuck Again Make and Model (Independent, 2020)

The sun is up, the windows are down, you’re not in lockdown. It’s 50kmh on the coast road and Dolly Dr’s Stuck Again is on the stereo. Everything’s OK.

“got blood and a heartbeat“

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California Girls - Small Birds Beat Boy (Dero Arcade, 2020)

This is club music. While the vocals are central, they’re not essential, and California Girls’ Beat Boy could easily be an instrumental album. That’s not to diminish the vocals and the lyrics, they’re what make this album unique and are what keep you there, flinching and wanting to listen more closely at once. It’s more that the production and songwriting is so accomplished that the tracks could easily stand alone as a dance release. 

The lyrics are introspective and personal, though I’m not sure if they’re from the perspective of Gus or from an avatar of himself. Either way, they feel honest. They’re often about sex and always about life or about living. The songs on Beat Boy are catchy, in spite of the monotonous vocal lines, and I’m kept on my toes with the music references - there’s glimpses of 2000s-era pop (Give Me Everything), early 80s new wave (Disorder), industrial (Pairing), and 90s rave (Small Birds), for starters.

California Girls, the project of Gus McGrath, started in Canberra in 2014 and is now based in Sydney.

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Big Yawn - Burton Bell South Preston Garage (Research Records, 2020)

I don’t care how people make music, I just like it when they do. Technology provides us with tools to do stuff we could never have imagined from a desk in our house and that’s great and why not utilise it? But when electronic music incorporates live instruments I do tend to add more weight to it, maybe it’s growing up listening to guitar-based music or maybe its just personal taste. One of my favourite albums of all time is Cybotron’s Implosion (1980), which is made exceptional thanks to Gil Matthews’ drumming (and production, of course).

I didn’t know Big Yawn before I saw them perform live at PBS earlier this year. I really liked their set. Like anything, the live experience can never be captured in a studio, but I did also enjoy their album, No!. Their new EP, South Preston Garage - or S.P.G. - is out today, and is a collection of six cool instrumentals. There’s a definite drum n bass influence which appeals to me, but there’s a lot going on.

The live drums are crucial here, and it is in the processing that they’re unique. Samples and synths fill the spaces between and there is some serious know-how amongst these four humans. I kind of want to dance, but I mostly want to listen.

Fun Fact: S.P.G., or Special Patrol Group, is also the name of Vyvyan’s hamster in The Young Ones.

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Brick Head - Fed Up Thick As Bricks (Independent, 2020)

The rock ‘n’ roll riffs in this album are huge. Buried in fuzz these songs are driving, some so fast you almost miss them but you can smell the exhaust. Before you can take a breath you can hear the screeching tyres of the next track coming ‘round the corner. Then the race is over, far too soon. In the parallel universe I just made up, this album could be Stooges bedroom recordings from 1990 in Olympia.

It’s on a loop for me this afternoon. Yeah it’s the hooks and riffs, it’s the variety track to track, but it’s the acerbic lyrics that keep me going back for more.

All instruments are written, performed and recorded by Sarah Hardiman (Moon Rituals / Nightclub / Deaf Wish), except the drums which are played by Carolyn Hawkins (School Damage, Parsnip, etc) and recorded by Jake Robertson.

“I am at a party and I don’t know what to do.”

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Arvo Dolani - ‘Memories’ Coffee House Ojala (Myth Dealer Recordings, 2020)

‘Memories’ Coffee House starts to play and I feel like I’m in a nice, warm bath with nowhere else to be. I hold my breath and dunk my head under the water. Bubbles surround me and my limbs stretch out, my breath lasts all 5 minutes 30 seconds and then I’m up again, wiping my eyes dry, breathing and ready for the next song on the album. This one is actually about water. And into Today In The Rain I go...

Melbourne artist Arvo Dolani debuts their new record label, Myth Dealer Recordings, with their own new age electronic release, Ojala. It’s worth noting that Myth Dealer Records will donate their proceeds from Olaja to Pay The Rent and the Waltja Palyapayi Aboriginal Corporation. 

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