Features
New Noise: Full Ugly, Gareth Psaltis, Spelunks, Heads Of Charm
By Mess+Noise
Whether with guitars or synths, things are kept off-kilter and uncertain to varying degrees in this week’s roundup of new music.
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– Melbourne Jangle alumni Full Ugly have teamed up with Bedroom Suck to release their forthcoming debut album. But first arrives the weaving, chiming, heartstring-tugging single ‘Drove Down’, out September 9 on vinyl and digital. It follows a March residency at Gasometer and last year’s four-way split with The Stevens and English bands Omi Palone and Sauna Youth, released on the in-house label of London band Male Bonding. A quartet built around Love Connection’s Nathan Burgess that now also includes Milk Teddy’s Thomas Mendelovits, Full Ugly will play Alhambra Lounge in Brisbane on Tuesday, September 10 as part of BIGSOUND.
– Gareth Psaltis’s free-download single ‘Arbantu’ is a clammy wonder, shivering its ways through three minutes of disconcerting cues. It was our first exposure to Voriulk, the debut EP from the analogue-favouring Sydney producer. Stocked with both “ultra-wigged club tip offerings [and] spacious/vacuous dreadscapes,” the EP came out this week on Hunter Gatherer for just $4 digitally. Psaltis will launch it Friday, September 6 at Civic Underground with Ken Cloud and Magda Byrtnerowicz. In a banner year for Australian electronic music, his work shines especially bright – well, as much as you can say that of such shadowy compositions.
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– Out today on limited CDR and pay-whatever download through Sydney bedroom label Crystal Magic, Serenely Skeptical is the addled but oddly suave new EP from Spelunks. It’s the work of James Grant, who runs the Melbourne CDR label Vinyl Only Tapes and also records as Abstract Mutation; in fact, he’s releasing a tape soon on 1080p under that guise. Dubbed “a casual observer of bass as a transcendental conduit,” Grant certainly weirds it up on this EP, sounding lost between decades and probably stranded in a soggy parallel universe too. Yet the pop half of that outsider-pop vibe comes through, as does a wonky funkiness. Visit ‘Endless Foodcourt’ for proof.
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– Having conquered the realm of WTF video-making with ‘Don’t Hate Me’ earlier this year, Melbourne band Heads of Charm are back with another single. The self-recorded, free-download ‘Check Check Check’ is an acerbic throttler that nonetheless spends a lot of time skulking about before deigning to properly unleash its ire. It follows their debut EP, If I Was Still General Manager of the World You Guys Would be Fucked! and will be supported with a Tote residency every Wednesday in September, with doors at 7:30pm and entry $8 each week.
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