New Noise: Peel, Hot Palms, Phondupe, Territory

Four new EPs, all available as name-your-price downloads, feature in this week’s roundup of new music.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

– Quite new on the block, Peel is a Blue Mountains export specialising in “slacker, and occasionally stoned, garage pop.” The wryly self-aware tune ‘Junkies in Bands’ graces the new Skydreams comp, and it also closes the debut EP Ok, But We Need a Safety Word. The EP is still unmastered, coming out in a mastered version with one more track in physical formats next February. It’s got plenty of shrugged-off appeal as it is, though. As Peel’s Josch Dinjar recounts on Bandcamp: “These songs were mostly conceived during pizza delivery shifts while I was experiencing intense caffeine highs. I wanted them to be energetic like Thee Oh Sees, but my lethargic songwriting and limited recording opportunities meant that this sentiment instead materialised as a sort of clumsy urgency. That was really exciting for me; I felt like it captured perfectly what it’s like living in the suburbs in your early 20s.”

– Recorded live at Bella Union during the Melbourne Music Week event Floating World, Hot Palms’ new Floating World Tape captures the troupe in sleepy, easy-going mode over nine minutes and several songs. The line-up this time includes acclaimed songwriter Emma Russack, Zahra Khamissa and Ashley Bundang (both also of Pencil and Zone Out), Astral Traveller (who took the above cover photograph), Why Don’t You Believe Me?’s Alec Marshall and André Vanderwert, who has his own eponymous band. Hot Palms are currently writing and demoing for an album release next year, finishing a split 7” with Jordan Ireland (Stolen Violin, ex-The Middle East) and plotting a short EP featuring interpretations of three songs by The Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce.

– Having debuted last year with the Dinner Melts EP, electronic duo Phondupe return with a second EP in Greenhouse. Written and produced in Sydney, Brooklyn, London and a Blue Mountains shack, the spacey, slow-burn four tracks include guest vocals on ‘Asena’ by Corinne Shalala and on ‘Proxy’ by Justin Dean Thomas. (There’s also a video for the latter.) Says the presser: “Greenhouse continues their exploration of the void between synthetic and organic; a portrait of the world from space.”

– A recording project turned trio that has relocated from Canberra to Sydney, Territory keep things hushed and jangly on their self-titled debut EP. Home recorded and mastered by Casey Rice, the gentle four-songer relishes the ambling, shambling romance of bedroom guitar-pop. More songs and gigs are planned for summer, so keep an ear out.

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