Features
New Noise: Collarbones, Austin Buckett, Document Swell, Acts Revelations
By Mess+Noise
Mixtapes, sandpaper, accordion and defunct drum machines all feature in this week’s roundup of new music.
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– A third Collarbones album this year? Yes please. But up first is a mixtape from the spectral R&B duo of Travis Cook and Marcus Whale, teased with a new free track. ‘Burnout’ is a squiggly, tingling ballad that’s perfectly minimal but still hits all the requisite emotional beats, whether with warped synths or pleading vocals. Call it bedroom industrial maybe? It gives us high hopes for the upcoming Atlantis 2014 mixtape, as does this minute-long trailer. Meanwhile, the pair have promised a proper follow-up to 2012’s Die Young late in the year via Two Bright Lakes, with more details to emerge in the next few weeks. For now, ‘Burnout’ is an ideal warmer for the encroaching autumn chill.
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– Sydney’s Austin Buckett has done some diverse work in the past, whether with Golden Blonde or Pollen Trio or other projects. Now he’s released two new instrumental forays under his own name through Room40. First is Grain Loops, a rhythmic exercise fixated on repetition and restricted to just four snare drums and sandpaper. Recorded in Canada in 2012, Buckett “drilled deeply into these objects, drawing out a profound sense of detail from the skins through a variety of close microphone techniques,” according to the presser. The textured results are hypnotic in their cyclical grind and edited to isolate the most incisive moments; sample them below. Grain Loops is out on vinyl and digital and has spawned the free digital remix EP Sand Stems 1-7. The seven artists reinterpreting the disciplined source material are: DJ Earl (Chicago), Andrew Pekler (Germany), Giuseppe Ielasi (Italy), Delofi (US) and Aussie producers Te’ (Kynan Tan and Andrew Brooks), Scissor Lock (Collarbones’ Marcus Whale) and Thomas William. Fascinating stuff.
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– It’s always nice to hear from Document Swell, the ongoing DIY dance project of Fallopian Tunes mainstay Simon Cotter. A year on from the Lost Steam tape, he’s got two new releases through the Melbourne collective. There’s a split 7” with X in O (a member of Brisbane’s very good Brainbeau) that’s the first in a series of splits from Fallopian Tunes. It pairs Document Swell’s sample-laden crystalline quest ‘Strongish Feelings’ with X in O’s slower and woozier ‘Acideratada’. More substantial on Cotter’s part, though, is the three-song 12” Ideal Scenery, which marks Document Swell’s vinyl debut. “Written on M1 synthesisers and defunct ’80s Yamaha drum machines in tropical Thornbury,” it continues his salvage-happy approach to lo-fi electronics. The 12” is launching with a massive label party at Boney next Friday (May 2), with sets from Harvey Sutherland, Raymond Scottwalker, Les Level, Abstract Mutation, Gurner, Bad Bones, Did Vids, Fallops DJs and Cotter himself. More info and tickets here.
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– Acts Revelations is a Melbourne band centred on Mickey Gino Zocchi and roping in such familiar faces as Ollie Browne (Art of Fighting, C.W. Stoneking) and Roman Tucker (Rocket Science, Little Desert). They sound very European and accordion-swept on their new 7”, which pairs ‘With Blessings Unwelcome’ and the instrumental B-side ‘For Tonight, My Love, It’s Curtains’. There’s a spaghetti western twinge to it all that sets a luxuriant mood for the upcoming debut album. The single was produced by longtime Melbourne fixture Simon Grounds, while the band’s live show is enhanced by projections courtesy of Keith Deverell. The 7” launches tomorrow (April 25) at The Workers Club with support from Matt Bailey and band, BJ Morriszonkle, Sailors & Swine (duo) and DJ Applejack. More info here.
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