Get Lost In The Zoo On These Shjips

The great shows continue tonight, with SF psych legends Wooden Shjips sailing into The Zoo to deliver what will most likely be an incendiary tripped out performance. Ably supported by Secret Birds and Nite Fields, this is going to be one of the best shows of 2012, HANDS DOWN.

Wooden Shjips - Lazy Bones

Skewed Wooden Shjips? Well I Never...

San Francisco psych juggernauts Wooden Shjips has a remixes 12" out through Thrill Jockey, featuring remixes by Andrew Weatherall and Sonic Boom, and a collaborative track with kandodo (aka Simon Price of The Heads). The 12" was originally available on crystal clear vinyl with black streaks, yet those sexy pieces have been snavvled so you will have to be content with just plain ol black wax.

As for the remixes... Andrew Weatherall (Primal Scream, New Order, My Bloody Valentine, Bjork) remixed "Crossing". Pete Kember, also known as Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3/Spectrum fame mastered Wooden Shjip's most recent (and fucking excellent) West album, and contributed "Wiking Stew (aka Red Krayola-ing)".
Finally there's the track "Ursus Maritimus (Last Bear's Lament)", a long distance collaboration with Simon Price aka kanodo. Ripley Johnson, the wired lead of Wooden Shjips created the bed of the track in Colorado in between tours and sent if off to Simon, in London. Simon added all the additional instrumentation at his home studio.

These three tracks are incredibly special. Grab the 12" here.

Wooden Shjips - Crossing (Andrew Weatherall remix)

Finally, Wooden Shjips sails into Brisbane for a show at the Zoo Sunday March 25. Supported by Secret Birds and Nite Fields, this is going to be such a great show! Pity I have to teach kids in the morning...I guess it's never stopped me before though...

VIDEO VACUUM - Secret Birds, Fucked Up, Sex Beet, Sunken Seas

I don't know about you, but this week is hurting. Real bad. SO rather than knuckle down and get through the massive load of work I have, I'm gonna hunker down for some movie-watching. You in?

First up is Brissie aural alchemists Secret Birds, who have just completed this beauty for their track 'Part II'. I need to zone out for a while and this will do the trick...

Secret Birds - Part II from Sonoptik on Vimeo.

I do love me some Fucked Up in the morning. Here is a decidedly more lo-fi approach to a David Comes To Life video than the past, and its a lot of fun (as filmed by band member Sally Miranda). I wish I was hanging out with Fucked Up right now...

Fucked Up "Running on Nothing" from Sandy Miranda on Vimeo.

We haven't heard much from London rabble-rousers Sex Beet of late. And although it may be a while before the new recordings see the light of day, we have this video to sate us just that little bit. Sure, it's an old song, but the video is a fresh one, so it all feels new once more...



Now I don't know much about NZ noisemongers Sunken Seas, but I'm a fan of the moody atmospherics inherent here on 'High Rise'. They have new recordings on the way, so expect to hear more from this band in the near future...



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

No Muted Hall For The Angels

Sonoptik are making a name for picking up great sound artists. I mentioned last week the new Secret Birds release - well, here is another one that almost slipped through the cracks (and the artist has played with Secret Birds in the past too...so, thanks Secret Birds!)

Tom Hall is also from Brisbane, although he now calls LA home. He has/had a great noise industrial instrumental project called AXXONN that I managed to catch a couple times at the beginning of the year before he made his exodus. A swirling mix between Jesu, My Bloody Valentine and Coil (can you tell I'm a fan?), AXXONN was a force to be reckoned with. However there were ambient moments amongst the fiery darkness, and its these shades of light that Hall's latest effort under his own name, Muted Angels, attacks.

Thick, sparse, melodic, drone, noise, ambiance - none are my words, yet Muted Angels claims them. The album is supposedly inspired by life’s mysteries, cruel happenings and wondrous surprises, with Hall striving to represent these intangible moments and emotions through sound, particularly sound derived from an in depth studio practice that he describes as “trying to find the sweet spot in a speaker cone just before it tears”. He does that with alarming regularity across all his guises, but it is more nuanced here. A true innovator amongst the experimental noise realm.

Grab Muted Angels here. Watch a clip and grab the mp3 of '4 Seconds Of Emotion' below. Let Hall spirit you away.

Tom Hall - 4 Seconds Of Emotion from Sonoptik on Vimeo.

Tom Hall - 4 Seconds of Emotion

Dreamtime/The Rational Academy/Secret Birds - An Aural Triptych Feast

Seeing as I was doing posts about these three bands independently, and they are playing a show together tomorrow night, I may as well do it all now in a massive post, right? Strap yourselves in folks...


I cannot believe that I saw Secret Birds for the first time only this year. Admittedly Ive seen them about five times now, and never has one gig truly resembled the others. Their brand of undulating noise has ebbed and flowed over the course of their releases, hence such a disparity in their live sets, and this is once more prevalent in their latest release, Moon Clouds Infinite (out through Sonoptik). The sonic ambiance on display on the two sides of this record are a little less schizophrenic, yet showcase the reflections of noise and its denizens to beautiful effect.

Secret Birds - Part II


The Rational Academy are a band that have also been honing their craft in the Brisbane music scene and abroad for over a number of years and a plethora of releases. The latest - a small collection of cassettes detailing a stellar show they did at Brisbane's inimitable sweathole and musical palace The Zoo back in September (you can buy it, along with a tee, for $20 here). New songs, drastically remodelled oldies, it bodes well for the ever-evolving future of Ben Thompson and his battle-hardened brothers in arms...




The party though is all about enthusiastic psych-os (is that even possible? Or appropriate?) Dreamtime and the release of their debut LP. Ill be picking this bad boy up on vinyl for sure - its a stellar, assured debut that has as its highlight a space jam about Gympie (although no reference to the Muster...shame...). Seeing as it was cut with the help of Donovan Miller, he of No Anchor and the brilliant song about another Qld country town Gatton, this comes as no surprise.



Come on down to The Waiting Room tomorrow from 8pm!!

HTRK Back To Work (Work, Work)

It may seem from a cursory, outsider's perspective that its strange - morbid, even - that HTRK are still together. The Australian band have called both Berlin and London home, their brand of cold, icy synth soundscapes evoking an alien landscape devoid of feeling or empathy, all masquerading as pop songs, and the live shows are delivered with an air of detachment yet innate sexual tension. Everybody wants to be loved, right? But in the seven years HTRK (pronounced Hate Rock) have been together, only two effective releases have come to light - Marry Me Tonight and this year's Work (Work, Work). Furthermore, the tragic suicide of band member Sean Stewart has rocked them to their very foundations.

However, it is apparent that Nigel Yang and Jonnine Standish - the two remaining members of HTRK - find the band a platform for expressing their own sense of what is happening in the world. Attacking a world viewpoint of indifference, Work (Work, Work) is darker and icier than Marry Me Tonight, yet much of this was planned before Stewart's untimely passing. Yang and Standish are quick to note Stewart's distancing himself from the traditional bass and gravitating towards more electronic based digital manipulations, especially after his time in Berlin. The culmination is a work that manages to unsettle, unnerve, yet connect - all of which are major attractors to the duo, and indicates that not only did they hit their intended mark, but that HTRK as an entity will go on.

HTRK will be playing in Brisbane for the first time, taking over the newly-formed Bridge Club on November 26. Ably supported by Nite Fields, Lakes and Secret Birds, this promises to be a stellar night of oscillating noise.

HTRK - Ice Eyes Eis
HTRK - Eat Yr Heart