New Noise: Cured Pink, Manor, Stress Waves, The Townhouses

It’s from two from Brisbane and two from Melbourne in this week’s roundup of new music.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

– No longer the sole province of Brisbane’s Andrew McLellan (Soft Power, Greg Boring, Kitchen’s Floor), Cured Pink has expanded to include Glen Schenau (Per Purpose, Sky Needle), Mitchel Perkins (Per Purpose, Psy Ants) and Stuart Busby (The Deadnotes, Threads). That configuration is sounding broken-down yet oddly swaggering on a new 7”, like some nightmare version of The Stones at their most menacing on the A-side ‘Body Body Body I Need It I Need It I Need It’. That hobbled cool extends to the flip’s ‘Amnesia (As Answer)’ and vaguely recalls Royal Trux in both cases. Released through Sydney label Black Petal, the single launches next Friday (Aug 30) in Sydney at 107 Projects; it’s the third instalment of Ears Have Ears Presents, the live series curated by FBi Radio’s weekly experimental music program. Also on the bill is fellow Brisbane band Brainbeau plus Four Door and
 Ruined Fortune, with projections by Jadis Mischka and Ears Have Ears DJs.

– The third single from Melbourne duo Manor, ‘Architecture’ is a single-minded slice of danceable pop that encourages zoning out with its rhythmic repetition, detached vocals and increasing stacking of layers. It’s the self-recorded work of singer Caitlin Duff and multi-instrumentalist Nathaniel Morse, who from there sent it on for mixing by Ned Cooke (Dappled Cities, Swimwear), additional production by Lee Groves (Goldfrapp, Elbow) and mastering in Brooklyn by Joe Lambert (Toro Y Moi, The National). The well-travelled tune is the project’s last standalone release before a debut EP, planned for summer.

– The follow-up to last year’s free Lost Lustre EP on Wood & Wire, ‘Lurid Abyss’ is the new single from Brisbane trio Stress Waves. Name-checking coldwave and synth-pop as well as Tangerine Dream and Siouxsie & The Banshees, the band have released that brooding new tune and its fluttering B-side ‘Void’ as a name-your-price download. These guys have just started performing outside their bedrooms, so keep an eye out.

– Moving on from last year’s global-minded second album Diaspora, the new single from The Townhouses isn’t just lovely but also the project’s first song with vocals from mastermind Leigh Hannah. Named for an Indian fragrance, ‘Nag Champa’ sprang from a chance encounter between Hannah’s iPhone and the wi-fi network of an ex’s apartment, which had happened unbeknownst to him while he languished on the notoriously slow 79 tram line in Richmond. “I’d completely forgotten about these times [in that space], but my restored-from-backup iPhone had not, and probably never will,” says Hannah. The self-recorded single is the first taste of an as-yet-untitled cassette due sometime this spring. The swaying-then-frisky B-side ‘The Oval’ also puts Hannah behind the microphone, with similarly fragile yet winsome results.

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