In-Frequencies #10: Chook Race, Summer Flake, Dead Farmers

MAX EASTON rounds up the latest cassette, 7” and CD-R releases including the new project for Adelaide’s Stephanie Crase, a parting gift from Sydney’s defunct Shark Bait and inexplicably overlooked 7” from Dead Farmers.

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Day Ravies
Day Ravies
(CD-R, independent)

Cherry-sweet shoegaze from this Sydney four-piece who show no signs of the wry snark suggested by their Kinks-stabbing name. From the ’50s-tinged innocence of ‘Heartache’ to the psych-revisionism of ‘Slippery Dip,’ Day Ravies place some very concise pop music under their reverie of jangling guitars and angular beats. Four brief flashes of light from the depths of a stoner haze.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Day Ravies - "Sunshine Punch" by songcount

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Chook Race
Chook Race
(7”, independent)

I don’t really know where you’re supposed to go surfing in Melbourne, but for Chook Race, their brand of surf-punk doesn’t venture far from the garage. Jangling guitars on ‘Medicine’ mingle with a few sneaky doo-wop’s on the sardonically titled ‘Pop Song,’ sandwiching a great little chill number in the form of ‘Playground’. With Chook Race, ’80s garage meets Flying Nun via ’60s rock’n’roll, all contextualised within that great DIY community spewing out of our nation’s capitals.

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Summer Flake
Summer Flake
(Digital EP, independent)

Six instant garage gems from Adelaide’s Stephanie Crase (of Hit the Jackpot and No Through Road fame). There’s no sense of energised furore here though, each track layered with a sense of chilled swoon among fields of teeth-grinding guitars and rambling solos; half a dozen lethargic dreams from the bottom of the world.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] On The River by Summer Flake

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Shark Bait
Shark Tape
(Cassette, One Brick Today)

One of Sydney’s greatest DIY tragedies of 2012 is the parting of pop-punkette’s Shark Bait. The self-described queer punx are all splitting for locales as varied and exotic as Belgium and Alice Springs. Their parting gift is Shark Tape, a muddy-as-fuck straight to cassette recording brimming with a fire and passion consistent with their flash-in-the-pan existence.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Shark Bait - Friend & Fish by Mess+Noise

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Making
Barcelona
(Digital single, Independent)

‘Barcelona’ is the stuttering, almost-instrumental single that carries on from Making’s self-titled EP released in the back of 2011. It’s a math meets post-rock path-weaver, taking you on a frantic journey through jabbing guitars and brushed over asides in an arresting prelude to the inevitably great debut LP shimmering somewhere in the future.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Barcelona (Single) by making

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Intentions
Guilt Party
(7”, independent)

Some genuinely confronting guitar solos here solely in the impossible pace at which they’re thrown at you. These mathy leanings appear only fleetingly, taken over by strained vocal calls and stilted, broken arrangements that come together to give a strange sense of restlessness. Managing to bring together the battling edges of this band into a cohesive centre-point, it’s a release that marks a departure; their last show played to a mass of teary eyes in a Marrickville rehearsal space several weeks ago.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Human Resource by INTENTIONS

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Bikini Eyebolt
Bikini Eyebolt
(LP, tenzenmen)

A posthumous release from a band who split back in 2008 featuring Jace from DEAD. Dark and jagged, but with a surprising pop sensibility, it’s an emotionless journey through maniacal yelps, despair and scuzzy noise. With almost a half decade since their demise, it’s a strange time to release this record, but it’s a hell of a retrospective nonetheless.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
Brain Drain
Brain Drain
(Cassette, independent)

It’s no surprise that the guy behind Brain Drain moonlights as an occasional short film composer, with this release featuring sparse, cinematic realms of guitars looping over the beats plied underneath them. It marks the first real vocal presence of the Brain Drain tapes thus far, lending the project a sense of direction among its meandering repetition and droning atmospheres.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Gray Line by Brain Drain

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
Dead Farmers
Out the Door
(7”, RIP Society)

Somehow missed on its release in November last year, this 7” by RIP Society signees Dead Farmers was one of the great DIY releases of 2011. Predictably mixed by Mikey Young (“at Dave’s house”), ‘Out the Door’ sees a marked change from their debut LP, clearing out the obliterating noise for a much more direct and considered approach. Full of scrappy glee and unrestrained nonchalance (“Up on the roof/Sleep in my eyes/It don’t mean a thing”) the two tracks are a sign of a new breed of Dead Farmers set for a much more notable reception for whenever their second LP drops.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
Naked
Recorded at Sam's Place
(Cassette, Rough Skies Records)

Slotting comfortably into the type of lethargic bedroom-punk made famous by Brisbane’s Kitchen’s Floor, this release by Hobart band Naked proves that you don’t need a 34-degree day at 80 percent humidity to feel fed up by everything. A soul-emptying vocal meets a scrappy guitar over strung-together drum beats, all playing at some kind of general unease - it’s hard to tell, the lyrics are inaudible. The band, too, are un-googlable, so relish the chance if you can get your hands on this tape.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Naked - Run at Me by Rough Skies Records

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