New Noise: Saul Jarvie, Rough River, Coloured Clocks, Excess

Brooding dark horses, babbling folk, gooey psych and DIY electronics make up this week’s roundup of new music.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

– Sometimes you stumble onto an album with zero preconceptions or expectations, and it knocks you flat. If you’ve read that first sentence, it’s already too late to experience Saul Jarvie’s Existential Eczema with a clean slate, so let’s muddy it up some more: the Melbourne songwriter used to front Rival Flight, a band leaning towards post-rock that shared the stage with such late-’90s luminaries as June of 44, Trans Am, Arab Strap and The Spinnanes’ Rebecca Gates. Since then he’s released a 7” as Microflora and worked away on an ambient record. He also successfully crowdfunded an 180gm vinyl release for Existential Eczema, an album that features cameos from Heinz Riegler, Seja, Mirko Vogel (Sekiden), Lucy Roleff, Mark Monnone (The Lucksmiths, Monnone Alone), Sez Wilks (Kikuyu), Peter Joseph Head (Actor Buddhists) and many other familiar friends. So, after that sprawling preamble, what’s it sound like? Moody and brooding, with bone-scraping nods to the Jason Loewenstein side of Sebadoh as well as whiffs of Smog, Sunset Rubdown and other dark horses of indie rock. Start with ‘Tracks Line Up’ if you’re after Jarvie’s poppier potential, and from there the single ‘The Heart, The Art, The Wealth’. But honestly, it’s best to start at the start and just work your way through. The album’s much-delayed vinyl pressing will be available soon here, and although Jarvie doesn’t have plans to launch it at the moment (due to personal health issues), he’s someone you’ll want to keep track of from now on.

– Another choice under-the-radar discovery is Rough River, the work of Melbourne’s Kate Skinner. Assured folk songwriting fleshed out by warm babblings of lead guitar, piano, bass and drums – contributed by King Gizzard’s Lucas Skinner and Aleks & The Ramps’ Pascal Babare, among others – the self-titled debut album makes great use of both Skinner’s winding, idiosyncratic singing and Dirty Three-style violin strains. King Gizzard’s Joey Walker lends sleepy guitar to ‘Almost Home’, and the lead single ‘Sometimes’ is another good place to start. Likened to Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten in the presser, Skinner indeed makes a strong first impression. Grab the album via the link above for $5 download or as a limited CD, and catch the full-band incarnation of Rough River at their first-ever gigs, listed below.

Thurs, June 12 – Boney, Melbourne, VIC [w/Mallee Songs, Sagamore + DJ Fraser A Gorman]
Fri, Aug 1 – Grace Darling, Melbourne, VIC [album launch, w/Lucy Roleff + Holy Lotus]

– We praised Coloured Clocks’ single ‘Killing Time’ back in January, and now Melbourne’s James Wallace has another free album in All is Round. It’s 20 tracks of self-produced psychedelia, ranging from ropey guitar-pop (‘Elevators’) to Tame Impala/Todd Rundgren gooiness (‘Brick’) and Beatles-y balladry (‘It’s Getting So Close’). And that’s just scratching the surface. It’s meant to be a Choose Your Own Adventure-style experience, listened to in any order, which may account for the noted stylistic leaps from track to track.

– Matt Kennedy from Kitchen’s Floor doing electronic music? Yep, that’s Excess: a free EP’s worth of humble keyboard, synth and drum machine voyaging. Swapping out misanthropic lo-fi catharsis for chewy tension and diffuse melodies, the five tracks are short and soundtrack-y, evoking John Carpenter scores and, with ‘Ratchin’’, maybe even a bit of Kraftwerk. The EP closes with ‘History’, a sort of android ballad that keeps it slow and sweet.

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