Your weekend fare is a single track from Joasiah Birrell, aka GOVS and it sounds something like a cross between Jordan Ireland and Copeland, the first for the vocals, the second for the delicate piano line. Gang vocals rise to bring good vibes at the end of the thing in what I think is a fairly lovely resolution to a fairly lovely first joint. I love this enough to drop a rare exclamation mark at the end of this sentence! Punctuation is a srs bzness. I’m going out of my way to lower the tone of this and all future posts in the hope that I won’t again be mistaken for a music ‘writer’ or ‘critic’. Hell, if you consider the editorial content of this here livejournal site you’d be hard pressed to identify any recurrent theme. This is, and always has been, nothing more than an outlet for my passion. So if good grammar or structurally sound sentance structure (or even the correct spelling of sentence/sentance) then you’re in the wrong place. This is the repeated and unapologetic detonation of opinion bombs underneath the foundational support beams of informed prose.

As mentioned, this is the first song to make it online from the Gold coast native but I’ve heard it from a decent source that Triple J has picked this up without hesitation. That might be an encouragement or a barrier for you but it is what it is. Listen/Download below:

A few weeks back, Channel V sent me to BIGSOUND to write about my emotions. We saw Gung Ho play at Black Bear Lodge on the Tuesday night before the official BIGSOUND had actually commenced and while I don’t want to go too deep into this I think they were the victim of bad mix and a surly crowd. There was a sizeable gap between performer and patron and the three piece looked small and alone in what wasn’t even a large venue to start with. The set sounded more like a sloppy I Heart Hiroshima where I expected to hear the crafty vocal melds that are present on their recordings. As I said, it might have just been a dud night for them.

Gung Ho – ‘Twin Rays’

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[MP3 DOWNLOAD]

The two most recent singles the Brisbane three piece have made available are far less tense than their live set was and the perfect cure for a case of the Mondays. I don’t know if there’s an EP/record on the way but the group would be remiss not to take advantage of the musical vulnerability created by raised temperatures and lowered windows, the appropriate physical setting to their slacker/surf rock.

Gung Ho – ‘Side By Side’

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I usually try to steer clear of the overblogged Triple J favourites but a tune’s a tune, you know? So on that note, here is a bonus track from Jesse Davidson of Adelaide, Unearthed High finalist and future Matt Corby.

Jesse Davidson – ‘Flaws’

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Introducing Spirit Faces, proprietors of 70s soul backed groove mumbling, cymbal heavy jazz referencing free beats and overwhelmingly underwhelming basslines. That basslines bit sounds negative, but it’s not. I’m effectively trying to argue that the basslines have an overwhelming subtlety, in as much as I’d like to be overwhelmed by a bassline (so, you know… a bit). Central to the band’s ethos is freedom of direction (read: improv) which you can hear spattered throughout their only available track, ‘Feels Like Nothing’. It’s just bass, drums and guitar conversationally interacting with a few props littered around the set. Is that a wind-up toybox? Maybe. I don’t know and truly, I don’t care because despite the sweet contrast it creates with singer Pete Covingtons deep husk, it’s not the point of the track. Plus, I’ve recently learned that very few of you will actually read this far through each of my posts so for all intents and purposes I could just start rattling off any old nonsense. Violent offender sells house for bogus skin graft. The first three Apollo missions were largely funded by white supremacists. Sports cheese shares fierce fire shame.

You might know Pete from his work in Sydney’s second biggest Islamo-vegan folk collective Valar who, if the rumours are to be believed, will be releasing their debut record sometime in the latter part of this year. I. Am. Keen. In the meantime, stream and download and share the first Spirit Faces tune below:

If there’s a scene in the film you’re producing where two starcrossed lovers split and walk through empty night streets, tears astreaming down their screen-friendly faces and damnit, you just can’t find the right track for the moment… I’ve got you. The new single from Sydney’s Cogel opens with the distorted mauling of some poor wretched guitar and it’s that same abused guitar that receives most attention throughout the thing. It cuts in and cuts out with a grief-stricken violin part to keep it company between drinks. It’s one part Efterklang, one part Arcade Fire and a whole lot of angst. It’s interesting how I can’t say ‘angst’ without immediately thinking of teenage angst but I’m not being cynical here, it’s just some heavy juju. If you’d care to hear more (recommended) you can follow this link and start with ‘In The Middle’.

Cogel – Felusine

[DOWNLOAD]

Let’s stop for a second and admire those sleek grey player below. Haven’t seen these for a while, have we. It’s been all bandcamp and soundcloud. Here’s another, less recent recording from Cogel. I dare say you can hear more of the Arcade Fire influence on this one.

Cogel – The Bug

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This one has been sitting in my inbox longer than reasonably explainable. Since mid August actually. Sorry Sky Squadron. In my defence I did download the tracks and they’ve been in my itunes library I’ve just you know, never listened to them or anything. It was when I saw them on the flyer for Phobiac‘s recent show that I thought it could finally be time to do this thing. I’m glad I did too because the four tracks these dudes have available are more interesting than most everything else in my inbox, that’s for certain. Muffled post-rock with vocals suspended like thousand foot condensation. I’m pretty sure it was recorded during a thick studio mist (rare but beautiful) before being mastered by Beef. It’s good to see the various meats entering the production game, I’ve been waiting on that for a while. Enjoy all four tracks below. ENJOY THEM.