Party Dozen
Prep your thickest goggles and don your protective visors because you’re in the presence of an intemperate face melter. Sydney’s Party Dozen may have just become my new favourite band and one of the first domestic records of 2016 to knock me flat on my ass without the sense of decency to offer a pillowed landing. At least I had the fortune of starting with ‘The Living Man’ (the first song from this Party Dozen two-tracker). It gave me time to incrementally aclimmatize myself to the palette of sound that Jonathan Boulet and Kirsty Tickle utilised here. Waves of guitar-sounding-synth or synth-sounding-guitar roll against cleverly dynamic drum parts and wild sax improvisation. By the end of the track the synth sounds have established themselves as guitars and don’t you feel like an absolute burke for ever confusing the two. But this is the start of our journey friends, this is where it begins. Now you’re entering the ‘Wide World’, a thundering bison of a track that threatens to trample you at its commencement then uhhhh… well then it tramples you, true to it’s omens. More distorted saxophone that’s also shed any clear sense of identity which I’ve realised is something of a production trope on these tracks. The two of them have taken traditional instruments and bent their sounds into new angles so that it’s never quite clear what’s what. Anywho, listen in order and then it’s of paramount importance that you text me with your opinions on this track. Hit me with your most informed cool thought, drop it square in my text-centre, share with me all the clever things you thought up in your cubical you worthless swine. Hell, these records gone and got me all jazzed up now, I better go.
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[…] Last time PD graced the glossy pages of Sound Doc was April 2016, when they unceremoniously made their opening move – a two-tracker featuring a single by the name of ‘The Living Man’. Roundabout a year later and both those songs found their way onto a full length (also called The Living Man). In the time shortly prior to its release and in the months thereafter, they lent their full weight to their anvil-heavy live show and are, in my humble opinion, one of the very few truly essential Australian live performances currently in effect. It’s blistering catharsis, strobing intensity, distorted horn blasts, synth stabs and Jonathan Boulet’s best efforts to lay waste to his kit. They’re a band who’s byproduct is not just light but also heat. […]