Australia's COMFORT offer everything but...
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
22 October 2016
20 September 2016
MANHUNT
I would say that I'm sorry for the short break...but I'm not. Shit happens. Life gets in the way. But this shit is always there for you. And what do I mean when I say "this shit"? I'm talking about Australia's MANHUNT. Five creamers. Seven minutes. Desperate and vicious. The few sepos lucky enough to see them in the flesh earlier this year know what I'm talking about. ..the rest of you are about to learn.
01 May 2016
CRANK
There are people that would suggest that I should be ashamed for liking this demo as much as I do. Those people are fools. Catchy shit is catchy for a reason. You wanna know the reason? Because the shit is catchy. This shit was growing on trees in the '90s, and sometimes that fruit was undeniably delicious....and so we eat.
03 January 2016
LOBBY LOYDE & THE COLOURED BALLS
Burnin' Churnin' Aussie Rock 'n Roll from Lobby Loyde. I was unfamiliar before this tape passed through my hands, but these tracks have become essential since...swinging tunes with a guitar that calls to the Gibbons God as much as it forges a truly unique path, all crashing headlong into the proto punk of the Australian 1970s. Fans of STOOGES, ROSE TATTOO (for whom Loyde played bass for a short stint in '79), MC5, THE SAINTS, RADIO BIRDMAN, and so on will want to take note and then dive further into a discography that includes THE PURPLE HEARTS, THE COLOURED BALLS (I know this tape is a collection of COLOURED BALLS tracks, but you need to dig this version of "Heavy Metal Kids" before you move along any further, you'll thank me), WILD CHERRIES, and heaps more. This is why tape trading rules, my friends. Get down.
10 October 2015
PATHETIC HUMAN // COLLAPSED TOILET VIETNAM
Noise drenched raw sludge/fastcore hybrid PATHETIC HUMAN just walk right up and lay waste to their side of this split...an exercise in devastation, pure and simple. Very, very ugly. On the other hand, COLLAPSED TOILET VIETNAM makes their friends sound like flowers and butterflies. One ten plus minute improv distorto-rama titled "Choking/Vomiting/Spitting/Bleeding/Wheezing" and you will start to wonder what you have done with your life as the movements just fall into each other. You know that "noise not music" symbol on Art Garfunkel's forehead? Yeah, these monkeys mean it.
COLLAPSED TOILET VIETNAM have just dropped a bunch of new tunes after a recording hiatus that followed the 2008 release of this cassette. PATHETIC HUMAN shut their operation down a few years ago, but their final offering is available here..it crushes.
19 January 2015
R.I.P. FUCKER
There was a time when all you monkeys would climb over each other's dicks for a taste of the latest burst of distortion. No one cared what it was, as long as the vocals were drenched in reverb and there was at least one guitar track tweaked to a tinny pulp, nothing more than ambient noise and hiss showering the entire recording with shades of white. Drum could play a DBeat, or pogo punk, or galloping crust - it didn't matter as long as the shit sounded fucked up and there was chaos (implied or real). That was 2010, and 2010 was a long long time ago. Now you monkeys want synths and choruses, you want your harsh noise to come from weird shelves of pedals and laptops instead of guitars, and your pretentious shoelace headbands have been replaced with pretentious trench coats or some other ironic garb. This is for you, you monkeys: six minutes of madness. I love you.
03 August 2014
11 June 2014
COFFIN LUST
Last year I happened upon a heavy metal concert featuring bands I was completely unfamiliar with. I enjoyed myself immensely, so I celebrated by drunkenly purchasing cassettes from heavy (and death) metal bands I was completely unfamiliar with. This venture did not turn out nearly as well as I had hoped, but this four song death metal banger from Australia was more than worth my financial transgression. Will someone who actually listens to death metal tell me if this is good? Because lately I have been jamming nothing but super minimal ambient sounds and a few killer jazz records I recently acquired...but to my ears at 12:30am, this shit sounds fukkn superb. I'm not wrong here, am i?
28 March 2014
TAMPONS ARE HEAVY
The music? A killer cross section of Australian punk/hardcore focused on the '90s bands like TOE TO TOE, SUBVERSION and FRENZAL RHOMB interpsersed with classics like HARD-ONS, COSMIC PSYCHOS and EXPLODING WHITE MICE. Solid regional punk rock mix tape.
The title? Your guess is as good as mine.
23 February 2014
NERVOUS TREND
It's hard to tell if the forceful guitar melodies or the powerfully determined vocals are the focal point of this demo, but they work together from start to finish. And while those might be the first things you notice, it could be the rhythm section that makes NERVOUS TREND so completely indispensable. Rarely does a band work so well as a unit, and this one kinda demands to be listened to over and over. This is easily one of my favorite demos from 2013, and I will listen to it more than most demos that come out in 2014...the internet seems to already think they are awesome, and this time I'd say the internet is right, but if you're late to the party then do yourself a favor.
14 December 2013
SICK LLAMA // MSHING
Two incredibly prolific noise artists join forces on this 2011 split. SICK LLAMA (aka Heath Moerland) dish out 15 minutes of churning harsh industrial sounds - imagine a soundtrack for a film documenting the end of The Robot Age, the metal parts tossed aside with the same casual disinterest that The Robots showed to our weak human emotions when they took over the planet. MSHING (aka Luke Holland) is a soundtrack too...a soundtrack to a film documenting bitter cold howling terror.
20 September 2013
ULTIMATE ROOM ¡CHALLENGH!
In 2006 I toured Australia. It was great fun, people there are shockingly nice and while some shows were better than others, the experience was overwhelmingly positive. We had three days off in Sydney in the middle of the jaunt, which would ordinarily be great for sight seeing but this pause was not in our favor. The joint where we were staying seemed really far from any kind of action (though it probably wasn't) and it had bugs that made it impossible for me to sleep inside (I'm pretty chill about that kind of shit, I'm just allergic to fleas...and there were a lot of them). But there were plenty of people who offered to take us to see shit; scuba diving, sight seeing, Chinatown, camping, delicious food, historical sydney - the whole city was going to be ours. Except that one by one, the people flaked...and every day we waited at the warehouse for that day's saviour, only to be left hauling our sad asses to the market for another round of dinner supplies. I'm making it sound dreadful (it wasn't) and pathetic (we actually had a great time and did hang out with some absolutely ace people), but it all lead up to our surprise when Nina came to pick us up. She had offered to take us camping outside of town, and after feeling abandoned by one empty promise after another (I'm being melodramatic to achieve literary effect here...), we didn't imagine anyone would make good...but someone did. Jensen stayed behind to get some records, and Yeap joined our journey into nature - we were fukkn camping. By camping, I mean we drove to the store, bought a ton of food, two tons of booze, and we drove into the forest where we made a fire and got plastered. I don't think we even bothered to make a tent, we just burned shit and got wasted and blasted this tape and took ridiculous shirtless pictures of ourselves.
I'm sure that Nina told us what the "Room Challengh" was (or why it was spelled this way), just as I can assure you that I most certainly do not remember. I do recall that the tape was a part of an exchange with a friend and I can promise you that I have never heard a better getting-shitfaced-in-the-forest-with-some-of-your-best-friends (and some people you hardly know) mix tape. Some tracks (3 and 15 specifically) were already cultural sensations but we heard them for the first time that night with no warning and no context and our minds were blown (moments from these tracks are still a part of our world of inside jokes). Some tracks (7, 18-20, 25, 26) are stone cold classics and would be appropriate for virtually any mix tape ever while others (2, 12, 13, 16) have no business being on any mix tape ever, which might be why they are so perfect. There are songs that make you shake your head (4, 10, 21, 24) and others that kick the party into high gear (6, 9, 11) even if you have no idea what the fukk you are listening to. There's nothing cool about the tape, but everything about it is awesome...and Nina let me take it home where it still gets occasional listens and never fails to bring back excellent memories. Everything is presented to you without artist or song info, so you can listen with the same wonder as we did that night. Might I suggest a flaming stick, no shirt, complete darkness and the smell of eucalyptus?
08 September 2013
STAMANECH 6.40
Just...holy shit. In a world where gratuitous samples and songs about professional wrestling stood as equals alongside punishingly heavy hardcore - what was then the transformation of '90s political crust - there are few bands that stand the test of time. Sometimes, those bands are certified classics, and sometimes those bands are new discoveries like STAMANECH 6.40. Pissed as fukk but with an undeniable sense of levity, this shit is exactly what I need. I hope it is also exactly what my friends in Australia need after their apparent return to reactionary rule. Any time your newly elected prime minister declares that your country is "open for business," you should be very afraid...but the industrial remix of "Sabu" contained herein should serve as an escape and as a survivor of The Bush Years (all 12 of them) I can assure you that escapes are necessary. Politics aside, this demo was a total shock and totally rules.
29 July 2013
THE PSYCHWARD CULT
While the first track "Pharaoh" could be the soundtrack for a low budget horror film, it's "Distress, Anxiety, Hallucination" that really seals the disturbing mood. This is a terrifying mania crammed onto 1/4" magnetic tape.
28 June 2013
1in12 PEOPLE COMPIE (with extra 15% value included!)
A mix tape that Dick made for the punks at the 1in12 in Bradford circa 1989, and I'm quite happy that it made it into my hands. Definitely a time warp, with several bands that time has forgotten. A few undeniable creamers on here, a coupla definite classics and some tracks from bands I never really dug but enjoyed hearing in this context. Included bands can be found in the comments, so you can either download blind (like a real punk) or take a sneak peak to see if it's cool enough for you.
Just when I thought that my truth erased confusion // that's when I asked myself what's real and what's illusion
26 June 2013
HANS HARMS
Pulsating madness, rhythmic destruction. HANS HARMS is a brutal sonic assault spitting unbridled disdain, noise carefully masked as music, this is pure harsh bliss in the tradition of the true masters but manipulated for maximum effect. Even more bleak lyrically than the music might suggest, HANS HARMS challenge comfort in the purest manner....sit down with "Pigskin" and try to have a good day, especially when followed by the pulsating brutality of "Neanderthal." There are only four tracks on this cassette, but I dare you to successfully ingest more. Intellectually advanced music steeped in history and respect released in a criminally limited edition...I am sold.
"for the few who have yet to discover the wonders of upright walking from crawling"
02 May 2013
CONCRETE ISLAND
I've been anticipating this collaboration for a while, and CONCRETE ISLAND did more than simply not disappoint me. These sounds are mesmerizing...dark and extremely minimal, they take the ethereal ambiance of TANGERINE DREAM (channeled in "At Midnight"), combine it with primitive industrial (on "Fear From Behind"), and then use the amalgamation to fukk with your mind on "Escape From Concrete Island." The beauty is in the simplicity, and these sounds are very very deliberate.
Spoiler Alert: CONCRETE ISLAND is one member of NEEDLES/LIMP WRIST and one member of WHITEHORSE/IVENS. And it is worthy of such a pedigree.
10 April 2013
EX-CRAW
As good as the fast shit is (and it's very good, I assure you), the melancholy "Death Of Truth," with it's subtle guitar leads borrowed from early '80s LA and vocals that have the time to dish out the power that the rest of the demo might gloss over in favor of speed, really makes Extinct invaluable. Maybe it's the juxtaposition of this mid tempo track against the all-out multi vocal attack of the other sixteen tracks, or it might be simply that the fast shit is killer and that one particular song is also killer...either way this 2011 burner from the most isolated metropolitan city on earth has been getting a lot of listens at Casa de Escape.
06 February 2013
DARK MATTER // IVENS
IVENS have visited The Escape before, but their stay here was not nearly as sinister sounding as this collaboration with DARK MATTER. Synths swarm like locusts through this recording as electronics pound uncomfortably into your chest - a SWANS like dirge first, and then a ten minute sonic exercise that concentrates on numbing you with subtle intensity. It succeeds.
30 September 2012
STRAIGHT ARROWS
Basement garage punk sounds ripped out of the jangly psych-rock '60s and thrown headfirst into a modern world of nostalgia. STRAIGHT ARROWS fall somewhere between Nuggets and the notably sizable crop of echo friendly head bopping bastards from their island state, and It's Happening makes me feel like I'm cruising around in my old roommate Todd's '70 grey LTD at dawn...reflecting on the good times that made up the night that is coming to its end. Pleasant Screams recently gave the 2010 release the cassette treatment, simultaneously serious and seriously fun no matter how hip you are(n't).
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