New Noise: Venice Music, Banoffee, Diger Rokwell, The Bombay Royale

Beats, baritone and Bollywood collide in this week’s roundup of new music.

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– Fans of Lindsay Phillips should appreciate Venice Music, the baroque-folk work of Melbourne songwriter Ryan Downey. It’s similarly haunting, with a voice of such darkened weight that we’re drawn immediately in. Downey’s self-produced debut EP Familiar Ground was mixed and mastered by familiar face Casey Rice and includes contributions from percussionist Grizzly Jim Lawrie, bassist Simon Lawrie (Major Tom & The Atoms), violinist Sarinah Masukor and “The Berry St Choir.” Released last Friday on New Morning/Gaga Digi, the EP will get an official launch soon. For now, Venice Music will play this Saturday (Aug 3) at Pure Pop Records from 4pm, and alongside Lehmann B Smith on Saturday, Aug 17 at Some Velvet Morning in Clifton Hill.

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– “Banoffee plies intimate ache into jams that still inspire dancefloor joy,” wrote Anthony Carew in our mid-year roundup. Now that we’ve heard official debut single ‘Ninja’, we agree wholeheartedly. Otouto’s Martha Brown evolves from meek and pliant to defiant and strong by its closing line (“I’m a fucking ninja now/I won’t let you bring down”). It’s quite a stunner, and perfectly realised in the warehouse-shot new video by Brown’s regular collaborator Alice Glenn. Out through Two Bright Lakes, the single was first aired in demo version a year ago. Like the aforementioned journey from the song’s start to finish, the final version is much clearer and more forthright – and all the more powerful for it.

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– Dubbed “a chameleon of the Perth creative scene,” Ash Hosken cofounded the music collective The Community in 2004. His latest release as Diger Rokwell is the wobbling, finely detailed Innersense EP. Conceived last year in Berlin, its four tracks are all four minutes long and derive from 4/4 beats. Hosken calls it “something of a departure,” indebted more to ’90s and early-2000s house. And while Berlin is a long way from Perth, the closing ‘Rain’ uses as its backdrop the relaxing sound of a winter drizzle back home.

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– Having turned many a head with last year’s debut Tarantino-meets-Bollywood debut You Me Bullets Love, Melbourne’s The Bombay Royale recently made their Glastonbury debut and just finished touring Europe around that milestone. The troupe’s new 12” hinges on the album’s closing track, ‘Phone Baje Na’, which “skipper” Adam Williamson told us was “inspired as much by Persian pop and Ethio-funk [and] heads in a musical direction we are keen to keep pursuing into the future. Its hypnotic tempo and spacious landscape make it a nice contrast to the fast, adrenalin-fuelled surf tunes.” It’s paired on the vinyl (and digitally) with three remixes: “Pasobionic’s jilted post-Dilla bounce, Damn Moroda’s aggressive bassrave futurism [and] Monkeymarc’s arpeggiated boom bap beatdown.” Also included is the short new number ‘Sleeping Giant’, which ups the funk factor. The Bombay Royale launch the HopeStreet-released EP at new Melbourne venue Howler on Saturday, August 31, with support from The Bluebottles and DJ Chris Gill of Northside Records. Tickets are $18 in advance.

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