Tracks Of The Year 2013

M+N Editor DOUG WALLEN counts down the top 20 local tracks of 2013.

20. Roland Tings
‘Tomita’s Basement’
(From the 12” ‘Tomita’s Basement’/‘Cagean Sea’)

Really, there should be an alternate rundown of the year’s best local electronic tracks. (Maybe as a special edition of Cellular Bits?) Tings’ colour-drenched, throwback acid house isn’t necessarily superior to standout work this year by Abstract Mutation, Gareth Psaltis, Air Max ’97, Gil Michell, Tornado Wallace, Okey Szoke, Document Swell, Gardland, Brothers Hand Mirror or Oscar Key Sung – just to scrape the surface – but it sure is a perfect balance of intelligence and endorphins. In a year that saw Tings bumped up to the league of Meredith and of Modular’s boutique imprint Club Mod (as well as dabble in Tings & Savage and make an exclusive mixtape for M+N), his rise felt both organic and well-earned.

19. Bloods
Bloods ‘Into My Arms’/‘Back to You’/‘No Fun’
(From the EP Golden Fang)

Call it a three-way tie. Bloods cranked out the singles this year, none of which reinvented the wheel but all of which tapped the earnest and cathartic best of ’90s rock. Filtered then through the shrugged-off simplicity of the current Brisbane garage revival, these songs live pretty much by the following line from ‘No Fun’: “Let your hair down/You ain’t got a care.” Nuff said.

18. Big Richard Insect
‘Death to the Animals’
(From the EP Big Richard Insect)

A howling minute-long brawler that you might not suspect is about “snotty suburban dissatisfaction”, ‘Death to the Animals’ is a prime example of Australia’s robust garage-punk crop, which borrows liberally (and widely) from the past while valuing chaotic energy over too-cool-for-school perfection. It’s also a helpful reminder of all the fairly obscure bands keeping Adelaide interesting these days; see also Body Horror, Divine Rip, Summer Flake, Hydromedusa, Rule of Thirds and Mountain Blood.

17. Pond
‘Xanman’
(From the album Hobo Rocket)

“I’m barely a boy,” sings Nick Allbrook, the indeed diminutive frontman-by-default of Tame Impala sister band Pond, who walked away from Tame this year to devote more time to Pond and other projects. Hobo Rocket is Pond to a tee, wearing derivativeness as a badge of rock-nerd honour while capturing the caved-in psych riot of their live show. It’s merely a happily dumb pleasure on first listen, but behold as it shape-shifts closer to Tame’s inter-dimensional drift. And that chorus takes weeks to shake from one’s head.

16. Baptism of Uzi
‘Stray Current’
(From the EP Stray Currents)

What a strange little song. So funky yet so casual about it; so sure-footed yet so open to sprawling into any number of far-flung corners. A subtler transmuting of daggy blue-eyed-soul cues than you’ll find in Shining Bird or Client Liaison, ‘Stray Current’ was an unlikely breakthrough for Melbourne’s genre-blind Baptism of Uzi, scoring them newfound attention and probably some confused punters scratching their heads at the rest of the live set. Whether they capitalise on this direction with future material or simply let this song remain a fluke, it plays like the most accidental pop hit in the world.

15. Midnight Juggernauts
‘Ballad of the War Machine’
(From the album Uncanny Valley)

Zombified synth-pop dressed up as Soviet intrigue? Sure, why not? If not the most accurate lead single for Uncanny Valley – an album that’s really quite straight-down-the-line in a lot of places – this is a creepy-crawly feat of Krauty finesse that’s also incredibly infectious. Like the “fever through your body raising hell” cited in the lyrics, ‘Ballad of the War Machine’ gets under the skin (though it warms the cockles more than raises hell.) File next to all the awesomely diffuse singles Pikelet released this year.

14. Cash Savage & The Last Drinks
‘I’m in Love’
(From the album The Hypnotiser)

This is not what we expected from Cash Savage, who’s made her name with boozy and fired-up gigs full of sweat and Elvis flashbacks. It’s a love song, yeah, but it’s uncommonly self-aware: “Ain’t gonna reference no lonesome road,” she sings, in a nimble act of cliché-dodging. Best of all, the rising Melbourne full-package opens herself up to the healing purity of love – here signified by strings, horns and a 15-piece choir – while still keeping her voice as lived-in as ever. It points to a shot at redemption for the ne’er-do-well barfly in all of us.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]Cash Savage and the Last Drinks -I'm In Love by Heapsaflash

13. Geoffrey O’Connor
‘Jacqueline’

Australia’s dreaming, and Geoffrey O’Connor is Mister Sandman. In the lead-up to new albums on both the solo front and from The Crayon Fields, he checked in with this New Order-ish piece of floating-on-air possibility. It starts with what’s arguably soft-rock pastiche but goes deeper and darker in the lyrics, with such acidic observations as “You loved ugly men, so harmless and afraid/Too rough to make love, too polite to get laid.” While still soft-sung, O’Connor feels more confident with every new release. And, watching the below video, more lecherous too.

12. Rainbow Chan
‘Haircut’
(From the EP Long Vacation)

‘Skinny Dipping’ or ‘Fool’s Gold’ could slot into here pretty easily too, but neither are as eerie and knowing as ‘Haircut’, an account of chopping “off my sable tresses/because lately I’ve been feeling restless.” It could be read as typical post-breakup empowerment (or ‘Caroline No’ in reverse) or a gentle mocking of that scissor-happy tradition. Whatever way, Chan is vastly more interesting than her peers, both vocally and otherwise. The song’s just been remixed by Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, putting a cherry on top of the Sydney multi-hyphenate’s breakout year of overseas attention. Not bad for an EP recorded mostly in the bedroom closet.

11. The Native Cats
‘I Remember Everyone’
(From the album Dallas)

A hijacked handheld Nintendo console and prowling bass line are enough to hold our attention from the start of ‘I Remember Everyone’. As always, though, that menacing atmosphere is merely prelude to much more fraught lyrics. Here it’s Peter Escott’s slow-burn portrait of never being able to shake the past. “I remember everyone,” he repeats with the opposite of relief, before later drawling “I’m runnin’ out of people to never see again/I’m seein’ them again.” There’s also a great little joke in there that riffs on the classic threat “You mess with him, you mess with all of us.” You can trace The Native Cats back to various post-punk touchstones, but for the most part they occupy their own weird universe, entropic and misanthropic yet somehow always able to prompt a smile.

10. Major Leagues
‘Endless Drain’
(From the upcoming EP Weird Season)

“You’re an endless drain/And I’m a waste of space.” It’s a kiss-off, right? But near the end comes the capitulating line “I love you just the same.” So yeah, colour it conflicted. That just adds to the sloshing appeal of this Brisbane quartet’s fuzz-loving, beach-scene-gone-sour single, which plays like the post-Breeders wave of ’90s woman-fronted alt-rock spiked with the Aislers Set side of the Slumberland Records catalogue. The follow-up ‘Silver Tides’ is quite good too. Keep an eye of these guys.

9. Cull
‘World Inside Your Head’
(From the EP bà nội)

If this song’s beatific sonic domain is any indication, the titular “world inside your head” is a snowglobe in mid-shake, luscious particles flurrying all around. Few songs by bands as young as Sydney quartet Cull manage to create their own self-contained sphere this way, let alone with a self-produced number that’s instantly loveable. For all the frosty melodies, draggy My Bloody Valentine-ish layers and that spend-the-day-in-bed chorus, the best bit may be the descending bass line – one more winsome hook in a song that’s overcrowded with them.

8. Standish/Carlyon
‘Nono/Yoyo’
(From the album Deleted Scenes)

It’s a sensory thing, as Kate Hennessy put it, though she was talking about the live show. This song wades through us rather than the other way around, triggering distant muscle memories at every turn. For me it’s something like being right there as The Fly Girls slip into the Nuthin’ But a G Thang’ video through some cosmic backdoor, only to take that house party to 1980s Japan. I also feel like if you were to bite into one of those bass licks, you’d come away with a mouth smeared in crushed strawberry. It doesn’t make much sense – Conrad Standish himself described it as “Warren G uncomfortably stoned, leaning on a fire hydrant” – but it takes over.

7. The Gooch Palms
‘We Get By’
(From the album Novo’s)

“Do you guys play much around here?/Oh no, we don’t see the point.” So goes The Gooch Palms’ ace postcard of small-city desolation, aimed squarely at Newcastle. It’s about shrugging off the larger populace and sticking to kindred spirits where you can find them: “It’s just me and you … And that’s alright.” Post-Ramones bubblegum punk with a Jello Biafra slant to the vocals, it’s wickedly catchy while underscoring the importance of making your own scene. Of thriving in the fringes rather than languishing in the mainstream. That’s how we get by.

6. Kirin J Callinan
‘Love Delay’/‘Embracism’
(From the album Embracism)

Including both these songs gets at just how all-over-the-place Kirin J Callinan’s debut album is, while still only presenting two pieces of the full picture. The male-bonding nightmare ‘Embracism’ is indulgent and off-the wall yet works better with increasing listens, while ‘Love Delay’ plays it straighter by comparison, seizing on the timeless power of electric guitar and howling vocal catharsis. By all rights Callinan should have stranded himself in cartoonish novelty with this record, but instead it’s one of the rawest and weirdest, most ambitious and unpredictable Australian releases in years.

5. Ooga Boogas
‘Sex in the Chillzone’
(From the album Ooga Boogas)

As with The Drones’ instant-classic I See Seaweed, it’s quite hard to single out one song from Ooga Boogas’ first album in five years. But then, The Drones don’t have a song called ‘Sex in the Chillzone’. This song is so fascinating because it sounds like three or four songs playing over top of each other at once – as if each member of the band were on a different page (or plane of existence). There are better songs on this album – another contender for instant-classic status, though very different in tone to The Drones obviously – but none that reminds me so strongly of the ‘Money for Nothing’/Beverly Hillbillies mash-up in “Weird Al” Yankovic’s UHF. ‘Chillzone’ has a bit more Krautrock and Robert Palmer to it (plus an Aussie accent) but otherwise they’re kindred spirits.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]Sex in the Chillzone by Mess+Noise

4. Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys
‘Any Day Now’
(From the album Ready for Boredom)

You like guitars? The Replacements? Guided by Voices? Beer? So do these guys. It’s all there in this song, the only flaw of which is that it eventually ends.

3. Courtney Barnett
‘Avant Gardener’
(From the EP How to Carve a Carrot into a Rose)

Courtney Barnett’s rise to international hype act has been one of the year’s most heartening Aussie success stories. That the Melbourne songwriter has connected so much with people all over the world with her bone-dry deadpan is all the more so; who would have thought that a song as specific and idiosyncratic as ‘Avant Gardener’ could make for such an effective calling card? As overseas fans listen to Barnett’s account of gardening cut short by anaphylactic shock – Googling Weet-Bix and “triple O” – we can rest assured that this overnight success couldn’t have happened to a better candidate – or a more uniquely charismatic presence.

2. Dick Diver
‘Water Damage’
(From the album Calendar Days)

This year’s ‘Nullarbor’, for starters, ‘Water Damage’ is a meandering Sunday drive through everything Dick Diver does so well: multiple singers chiming in, precise everyday details (“a third-floor Fitness First”), golden guitar threads and an emotional undercurrent that can make you weepy in the space of seconds. Generous with open space, this is the sound of a great Australian band settling right into their sound. Best lyric? “Now everybody’s turning like venetian blinds.”

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Water Damage by Dick Diver Calendar Days

1. TV Colours
‘Beverly’
(From the album Purple Skies, Toxic River)

As much a dark horse as the album it came from, ‘Beverly’ might seem an unlikely list-topper. But every time it kicks in, it’s all-consuming in its dank, fuzzed-out, home-fi glory. It’s super potent on several levels, tapping the universal dreams of escape in all TV Colours material, reminding us of Bobby Kill’s six-year journey making this album and crystallising our own youthful emotional extremes in the single line “You always walked away.” Not to get all Rosebud about it, but we all have a Beverly, something missing that can’t be regained. So turn it up LOUD, and shout along to Kill’s everyman anthem.

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