Bilby’s Funderstorm is a fairly weightless jaunt through the triple vice of drinking, smoking and having fun and unless you’ve set your ears for maximum twee you’re not going to be adequately prepared. I’m speaking here of the single song but then the EP/abum of the same name can equally fit within the same bunch of descriptors. It’s a dry, stacatto record made from guitar runs and unprocessed vocals and it has the same sort of guileless charm that characterised early (and indeed current) March Of The Real Fly tracks. Back to Funderstorm the song here though, which you can listen to just underneath these words and feels like the sort of melody and lyric you’d concoct drunkenly around a fire and sing until it became overwhelmingly irritating. The redeeming featuring of the simple melody and lyricism comes in the ambling guitar section that polishes the vocal part in the verses while following and emphasizing it in the chorus. This is simple fare but it’s sort of gorgeous in an outsider-art way.

I have this image in my head when I listen to Joy Division – a big empty warehouse room with a person crouched in the corner, hands over their ears. Their songs usually start with some kind of chugging or pulsing, a mechanical sound, something like the machinery of the world relentlessly working outside, all around. Then the guitar comes in with high distorted melody lines, the primitive scream emanating from the mouth of this defeated individual. Ian Curtis usually then sings a monotone monologue; the thoughts going through the head of this figure. There’s a similar impression when I listen to Benevolence Riots.

Though GOY have an inherent catchiness that’d be out place in a Division tune, this song starts with that mechanistic chug and the primordial guitar scream, and Dave’s vocals then cutting through with the same world-weary drawl that we’ve come to know and love so well. Equal parts metaphysical and urban, equal parts gritty and etherial, GOY have some of the most interesting textures that I’ve heard for a while. Lots of lost layers slipping in and out, floating up to the sonic surface and fading into the depths. And of course the cacophonic racket at 1:40 is the only real way to get away with doing a guitar solo these days, the Jackson Pollock of guitar playing.

This is conceptual rock. It’s brave to write a song that tries to be more than we (the audience) expect. It’s brave (for you the listener) to then engage with that song until you find that something in it that was meant just for you, even if it isn’t immediately evident. But if you can’t find it in 5 listens, maybe it wasn’t meant to be and there’s always Bon Iver for a fallback.
He’s still a thing right?

I was flummoxed by Ara Koufax’s ‘Converge’ when I first heard it. Who are these people as from where did they receive these otherworldly powers? Sadly there was no origin story to speak of (I was hoping for something along the lines of a Night Man origin story) but rather a case of an already outstanding duo doing their solo projects, but together- as a duo, you know what I mean? Ok fine it’s Naysayer & Gilsun under another name but a necessary other name to denote a necessary other music. Ara Koufax is brighter and housier than it’s N&G brethren but my word, that first single was neeeeeeext level, and we’re already starting on maybe level 12 or 13 or something. They’ve hopped an ocean or two these past couple months to bring us this next track, out as part of Oceans Apart through the seemingly defunct Cutters Records. Maybe this heralds a few new Cutters releases- we can but hope. Normaltimes these Ara Koufax tunes will be out through Gill’s own Downtime and I’ve it from a reliable CI that there are a number of newies on the way. In the meantime, be warmed by piano samples lifted indirect from 90s happy hardcore and the sort of dancefloor positivity that you can usually only glean from tracks Sunchyme. I imagine the ear to ear smile our Cutters Records executives had on their million dollar faces when this song dropped in their inbox was something similar to my own when I repeat play this number.

Leon Osborn’s metallic take on the lead single from Willow Beats’ Water EP is righteous to the point of holier than though. Come down off your mountain Osborn, WE KNOW YOU’RE GOOD. The broken drum loops snap and click largely oblivious to the vocal and wholly adrift from the original track. Th main counterpoint to the beat end is the dial tone synth that, hanging like a held button but at just the right tone to warm the metallic coolness of the rest of the track. Reap a Leon original below so you can know what you’ve been missing all this time. He’s been coming up through that Die High / Pilerats Perth scene for a minute and you’ve gotta think that with jams like these attention need be paid.

Yum.

I’ve listened to this song a whole bunch of times this week because of the harmonies, because of the voice but also because I think it’s one of the most interestingly produced folk tunes I’ve heard in a long time. If this is self-produced, tip of the hat to you Gordi, you’ve done well indeed. Weird satellite sounds after each chorus and various horn samples kick about in strange places. Backing vocals are trimmed and clipped cleverly. She’s trigger happy on the reverb but I’ve always been partial to a wet vocal and when she goes deep on the harmonies it’s full as to bursting. The lyrical imagery might be a bit vanilla but it’s almost not worth mentioning with everything else this song has going for it.