New Noise: Half High, André, Cool Drinks, Sweet Shoppe

Uneasy ambience and homespun pop comprise this week’s roundup of new music.

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– Sydney duo Half High make what’s been called “uneasy ambience.” That tag certainly fits their new 7” for Altered States Tapes, the label’s first-ever vinyl release. The work of former Naked on the Vague members Lucy Phelan (Lucy Cliché, Knitted Abyss) and Matthew Hopkins (Four Door, Hochman & Hopkins), the two-song Shapeless Advice 7” is limited to 150 copies. Both tracks are untitled and hover close to five minutes in length. The 7” release coincides roughly with the 300-run vinyl re-release of Half High’s debut album Suspension on R.I.P. Society; it was originally self-released on tape and CD-R. Really creepy yet finely-tuned stuff.

– André Vanderwert’s eponymous Melbourne band André has teased the upcoming album Smooth Move with the free-download single ‘Friends’. Following this year’s album Do Watchya Wanna, the new album was recorded and mixed by Jake Phillips (Astral Traveler) and the languid ‘Friends’ – with the resigned refrain “You know it is not easy to be your friend” – features keyboardist Jordan Thompson (The Ocean Party), bassist Jake Core (Soda Eaves) and guitarist Alec Marshall (Hot Palms). Vanderwert himself also plays in Hot Palms and Pencil, in that typical Melbourne way. The single launches next Thursday (Dec 12) at The Grace Darling with The Clits, Dr Doctor and Tomb Hanx. It’s $8 from 8:30pm.

– Debuting last year with the promising single ‘I Don’t Wanna Lose You’, Matthew Cribb’s Cool Drinks project returns with a self-titled four-song EP. It’s a name-your-price download, though you can buy a limited tape of it from Osborne Again. Cribb recorded and mixed the EP in his bedroom, while Morgan McWaters (WORNG, The Emergency) did the mastering. The new songs are ’80s-ish in a New Order sort of way, all smeared synths, dreamy vocals and endless pulses.

– Depending on how well you’re keeping up with the Canberra scene, you might recognise members of Sweet Shoppe from Sex Noises, Beach Slut and last week’s New Noise veterans Mornings. Whatever way, the quartet have just released the six-song EP Taste It, full of catchy and bratty pop that can sound a bit like Love is All. The standout is ‘Streets (Deep Heat)’, which isn’t a Deep Heat cover but simply one more usage of that phrase in recent memory. Out now through Cinnamon Records, the EP launches Saturday, December 14 at The Phoenix in Canberra, alongside Sydney bands Meat Tray (members of Yard Duty) and Territory. More info here.

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