New Noise: Tings & Savage, Spirit Level, Barbiturates, Slow Violence

Richly textured, genre-defying meditations fill this week’s roundup of Soundcloud offerings, whether the result of solo work or a collaboration.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

– The last couple times we checked in with Roland Tings, the rising Melbourne producer had released a debut EP on 100% Silk and a live cassette on Not Not Fun. Now he’s gearing up for a release on another taste-making label: Modular. But before that hits, he’s teamed up with his old friend Nathan Savage as Tings & Savage. Their debut collaboration Brain Foam came out last week digitally and as a 200-run tape through 1080p. Recorded in Berlin, the four-track EP involved experimenting with old amps and “Nathan’s crusty multi-FX pedal” for 11 hours a day while “consciously avoiding tempos of 115 – 130.” The entirely improvised release comes with eye-popping silkscreened art by Ryo Kuramoto. Absorb the ambience-haloed opener ‘Shiver’ and watch Savage’s clip for ‘Sequins’.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]Tings & Savage - Shiver by 1080pツ

– While tapping a droning pop warmth similar to his other band, Erasers, Perth’s Rupert Thomas explores well beyond that on ‘Is You’, the free-download first taste of his new project Spirit Level. A collaboration with Lyndon Blue (Seams, Solar Barge, Leafy Suburbs), the duo will soon issue a debut EP via 50 CD-Rs on Thomas’s label OWLS. Spirit Level formed to record at foodchain’s “real to reel” sessions before re-recording the songs themselves. ‘Is You’ is a lovely introduction, bestowed with an organic calm no matter how many moving parts are at work.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]Is You by Spirit Level Duo

– Roland Hlavka channels the squeaky oddball delivery of underground rap hero Quasimoto on Barbiturates’ ‘Double Happiness’, a spaced-out track that’s pretty far removed from Hlavka’s other band, Cobwebbs. The song is off a 50-run 10” called Shades on Lost Race, which also includes the instrumental ‘Rinona Wyder’. The freeform Brisbane trio have a handful of previous releases and will play 4ZZZ’s annual Happy-Fest at The Zoo this Saturday (July 6) alongside Forces, Multiple Man, Raw Prawn, Footy and more.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]Barbiturates - Double Happiness by lostracerecords

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]Barbiturates - Rinona Wyder by lostracerecords

– ‘Beyoncé Knowles’ is the latest track to be aired with little fanfare from Slow Violence. It’s the guise of 22-year-old Canberra native Advait Thakur, who’s three-quarters of the way through a degree at the prestigious US art school Rhode Island School of Design. He makes music using field recordings, processed instrumentation and samples, resulting in ominous compositions that bleed across multiple genres. Other tracks veer into sample-heavy R&B (‘Rinse’), found-sound atmosphere (‘Steinhert’), jittery beatmaking (‘Kabhi Aar Kabhi Paar’), melody-steeped ambient (‘Daughters’), horror-film foreboding (‘Twenty-One’) and even delicately sung dream-pop (‘Strawberries’, ‘The Horror’). Despite its seeming joke title, ‘Beyoncé Knowles’ is a profound piece of quiet, score-like power.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]Beyoncé Knowles by Slow Violence

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To nominate new music for this column email us at news@messandnoise.com.