Mea Culpas 2011: Feathers, The Leafs, Lawrence English

DOUG WALLEN looks back on some records we may’ve overlooked amid the flurry of releases that closed out 2011.

Feathers
Hunter’s Moon
(LP, Bon Voyage, 2011)

Part Beat Happening and part Shop Assistants, Brisbane’s all-girl quartet Feathers make dream-pop that’s primitive, surf-bent and all too narcotic. Recorded in three hours in a 100-year-old cinema, this first album from their current line-up plays like some recovered C86 relic. There’s noise and psych in here too, but the dawdling vocals and thudding rhythm section keep things to a druggy snail’s pace. From the Raincoats-worthy ‘Early Morning’ to the reverb-fogged ‘Mary’, this is underground pop both studied and shambling. Bonus points for a creepy, candlelit version of the Stones ballad ‘Play With Fire’.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] "Early Morning" - Feathers (Hunter's Moon LP) by bnvyge

Other Places
Other Places
(LP, Independent, 2011)

Melbourne’s industrious Mathew Watson (Fading Fires, Magic Silver White, Mountains in the Sky) played and produced everything on his debut as Other Places. And he limited himself to two instruments: drums and an analogue EMS Synthi AKS from 1972. The results sound a bit like early Trans Am, but ‘Return To…’ is weirder and ‘In Flux’ almost clubby. Flush with cosmic electronics while anchored with rock drumming, this is searching instrumental music that nonetheless has a real levity at work. It’s a perfect bookend to David Evans’s Internal Temporal Order.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] In Flux by Other Places

Jimmy Hawk & The Endless Party
Jimmy Hawk & The Endless Party
(LP, Independent, 2011)

Ostensibly doing the alt-folk/Americana thing, Jimmy Hawk and band slip into dreamier places than that on the follow-up to last year’s Echo Park. The slippery lead single ‘A Fever’ gives way to much more ringing instrumentation and breathy exhalations from the Melbourne five-piece. And Hawk’s lyrics grow increasingly strange, as evidenced by ‘Cocaine Fury’ and ‘African Love Song’.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] A Fever by showoffservices

The Leafs
Come, Take My Hand
(EP, Independent, 2011)

The Leafs began as a punchy, fuss-free contrast to Michael Pulsford and Gus Kemp’s post-rock outfit Battlesnake. Yet this free download second EP experiments with longer songs than their first. The opening title track is a sort of indie rock raga, while fourth track ‘I Wanna Be A Machine’ finds Pulsford’s voice starting to wear out, which it did by the end of this single-night recording session with Qua. There does remain a nervous vigour – especially on ‘Let’s Get Fucked Up’, a waster’s anthem the duo says is set in 1991.

Rackets and Five
Rosalyn
(LP, Independent, 2011)

With members split between three cities (Perth, Melbourne, Hobart), Rackets and Five are predominately a recording concern. The sextet’s first album has something of The Middle East in it, splitting the difference between indie rock and violin-sliced folk. Beyond that, mariachi horns zing through opener ‘Good Behaviour’, everyday life hangs heavy in the lyrics of ‘Chills’ and harmonies elevate the midsection of the six-minute ‘Storm Surge’. The band’s identity isn’t entirely clear yet, but this is promising enough to look out for a second LP.

May Dreamers
Love is Your Destiny
(LP, Independent, 2011)

As bleak and fitful as Laura Jean’s latest album is, her bandmate Martin Mackerras has struck out on his own with something starkly different. Using a six-piece band plus singers and an orchestra, Mackerras’s hour-plus debut as May Dreamers is reliably airy despite just how much is happening at one time. It’s baroque pop in the mode and scale of Burt Bacharach or Pet Sounds. The layers are as heady as the sentiments are sunny and hopeful (see the album title). The amorphous closer ‘Be What You Are’ is even dedicated to his son.

Avant Gardeners
Mine Errant Vangarden
(LP, Independent, 2011)

An Adelaide troupe with between seven and 11 members at a time, Avant Gardeners now count Steph Krase (Batrider, Hit The Jackpot) in their roster. This first studio album marries Mission of Burma rock swagger with more experimental touches, like the long-running vocal sample on opener ‘Life is a Dream’. ‘Chick It Up’ is about conforming for wider appeal (“Music’s far too loud and noisy/Wanna hear the words of a melody”), which is something this band doesn’t do in the least. Ditto the deadpan, Verlaines-ish ‘We Love Our Audience’. As defiant as they are, though, the songs are catchy in their own subversive way.

Benedict Moleta
White Marble Heyday
(LP, Independent, 2011)

The sixth album by Perth’s Benedict Moleta maintains both his tiptoed folk-pop clarity and penchant for lyrical detail. And like his other records, including last year’s Timesheet, the sleeve is blank but for text. Between the free-flowing words and spare instrumentation, these 13 songs seem to bleed into the next. Still, ‘Thickening’ is more upbeat (by comparison), and the brief closer ‘Bird With a Broken Wing’ is worth sticking around for.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Salmon Brick by Benedict Moleta

Terror of the Deep
Permanent Weekend
(LP, Independent, 2011)

Flying Nun comparisons are kneejerk these days, but the young Kiwis of Terror of the Deep really do honour the groundwork of a previous generation. From the laconic unspooling of opener ‘Here and Now’ to the surprise guitar fireworks in the sprawled ‘One in A Zillion (Codeine Rock)’, singer-guitarist Oly Dixon leads the Wellington act over familiar yet all too fertile ground. This is their second self-released album, following last year’s Airport Underneath The Dome.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Terror Of The Deep: "It's Not Always That Obvious" by alteredzones

Lawrence English
The Peregrine
(LP, Experimedia, 2011)

Brisbane composer and M+N icon Lawrence English evokes an oceanic vastness in the deep drones and ever-shifting ambient backdrops of his latest album. But these pieces aren’t about water: they’re inspired by the descriptions (what English calls “a kind of obsessive rendering of landscape and environment”) in J.A. Baker’s classic 1967 nature account The Peregrine. This vinyl-only outing also marks its titles with a nod to the book (‘November 16 – Dead Oak’, for example). While there are bouts of layered, prickly noise, mostly English achieves a trance-like peace.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Lawrence English - The Peregrine (album preview) by experimedia

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