Nots : Virgin Mary

Nots have followed up their debut album ‘We Are Nots’ on Goner with a new single of unswerving garage rock which is more deranged, more scuzzy and even more commanding than before.  This new track has a raw live quality to it which calls back to their first singles, so it’s no surprise to learn that Keith Cooper who worked on those early Nots releases recorded ‘Virgin Mary’.  A menacing bass line, contorted guitars and keys beside bold rhythms frame a void of outright abandon.  Nots’ new single is packed with the drive to heighten their focus on synth punk.  It’s this ability to connect with likeminded bands that have come before and desire to push things further that makes Nots so exhilarating.  They’re reckless, unwavering and totally fun, go get Nots 'Virgin Mary' or Nots gripping new songs will come get you.

Ausmuteants / Housewives Split 7"

Out this week is this split 7” by Ausmuteants and Housewives for Total Punk.  Both bands wrote a song then sent each other chords and lyrics for the partnering group to cover with no information on how the track is composed, so Side-A will be the original version Ausmuteants and Housewives wrote and Side-B will be their interpretation of the other’s song – clear as mud?  ‘I Wanna Sedate You’ and ‘Brown Out’ are the two original songs, interchanged and re-arranged by the Australian outfits.  Ausmuteants scored ‘I Wanna Sedate You’, a deranged strain of punk rock joy which is just as considered as it is totally rampant.  The Housewives’ contribution ‘Brown Out’ is a shrieking, sludgy force of chugging guitars veering on and off course commanded by forthright beats and a gulping bass.  The thing both bands have in common (apart from the same chords and lyrics of course) is a sense of complete disorder in well-formed and thought out songs.  And if you want to know what the covers of ‘I Wanna Sedate You’ and ‘Brown Out’ sound like, well you’ll have to get copy and find out!  

Ausmuteants will be playing here in London as part of their European tour at The Shacklewell Arms on Wednesday 10^th June, get tickets HERE

Shawn David McMillen : On The Clock WIth JJ & Mitch

There’s a strong chance that Shawn David McMillen is already sitting in your record collection, he's played in Austin's power-pysch outfit Rubble, featured on recordings with Jack Rose, Steve Gunn and Pete Walker - he's also collaborated with Charalambide's Tom Carter.   In recent years the Austin-via-Galveston guitarist/vocalist/sound artist has turned out some releases for Tompkins Square, and this new offering 'On The Clock With JJ & Mitch' (12XU) is his first new album since 2010’s 'Dead Friends'.

For this new album McMillen recruited JJ Ruiz on drums (Trustees, Naw Dude, Teeners, Air Traffic Controllers) and Mitch Fraizer playing bass (Sweet Talk, Church Shoes) then set to record the whole thing using protools and an interface in New York during Spring 2014.  Using a pay-per-hour practice space the troupe utilized equipment around them - old choir mics, delay & Zvex fuxx pedal plus JJ played the drums already in the rehearsal room.  Some acoustic guitar, percussion and a good portion of the vocals were produced at Tomas Casas’ art studio.  Casas contributed field recordings to the record as the band hung out in his studio absorbing some Yaseef Lateef albums.  As McMillen puts it, "It all just fell together and worked…”, and here we are with nine new songs.  Wayward guitars, laidback vocals and intuitively lead rhythms rooted by coolheaded bass lines are at the core of McMillen’s songs.  ‘Hunting’ was the first song that really grabbed me just by how the pace is propelled in fits and starts – then a swell of guitar riffery comes in and you’re no longer listening to a chilled rock record the first two tracks lead you to think it was, but pretty fantastic psych piece to boot.  ‘Nowhere To Go’ is another favourite “Walking around in the sun all day, nowhere to go I think I lost my way,” McMillen reiterates through the track as it gathers momentum with cyclical guitars,  wired beats and palpitating bass building up to another joyous solo with the song rounded off by one of Casas’ field recordings.  The album leaves as aloof as it came in and the lasting impression from the shreds of guitar and curious field recordings begs for more and more listens.  

Check out some of his material HERE

Easter & The Totems : The Sum Is Greater Than Its Parts (Reissue)

Living in South East London I’m suprised I’ve not come across this band yet.  Sometimes things really are right under your nose and you don’t even see them.   Doing some background reading Easter & the Totems really seem to have been a cornerstone of underground music south of the river.  The group knocked out their first raw demos in 1981 called ‘Queen Menace Shock Six’.  Their self-styled ‘agit-pop’ was a search for balance between amphetamine driven rhythms, battering punk and melodic arrangements whilst experimenting with tapes and effects.  Album ‘Hip Replacement’ debuted this wrong-footed rock vision, made in 7 days when the band was still in their teens.  All in all Easter & the Totem would go on to release 3 albums and 3 singles in the 12 years they were active - all self-financed with no management, a hard grafting DIY effort.  The line-up fluctuated a little with Mike Barry Guitar/Vocals, Steve Mountain Drums/Vocals being core members, and John Diver, Time Stocker, Dave Pearton, Chris Richardson, Kevin Tweedy, Richard Morris, Neil Braddock all working in the band at different stages.

Rooted in a frustration with UK’s political situation in the early 1980’s, specifically holding an anti-Thatcher stance, Easter & the Totem drew from and gave a voice to the downtrodden working/lower classes of the time.   Coming from those backgrounds themselves and not really identifying with music around them either, Easter & the Totems had more than one reason to feel alienated.  Perhaps this spurred on their need to play in a band, and to make connections with likeminded people in the area.  Typically performing in Woolwich, Penge, Herne Hill, Catford and Crystal Palace they established a group of artists who would be known as Bromley Musicians Collective/South East London Musicians Collective.  They go on to organize gigs for each other and release records with a focus on giving support to victims of social injustices they identified around them.

Easter & The Totem recorded some tracks in Bromley Studios with Nigel Laybourne that had been going down well during these gigs.  ‘Distant Generations’ and ‘Acid Reign’ (both direct political songs about Thatcher) from this session would feature on ‘The Sum Is Great Than Its Parts’, originally released in November 1986.  This was a collection of material documenting their work to date released on Ideological Sounds (Barry’s label).  Its first pressing came in 500 copies featuring long time designer Bill Webb for album artwork, in 1997 Pinnacle reissued a further 500.  

So here we are with SS Record’s 2015 version of the album.  SS have actually had this up their sleeve since the early 90s after finding the album in the back room of a record store, having worn out their copy and worked for many years to get permission, SS got the go-ahead to give ‘Sum Is Greater Than It’s Parts’ a full reissue treatment.  ‘Acid Reign’ is a finely-spun pop number featuring sugary synths, wild rhythms and crispy guitar accompanied by melody driven vocals.  ‘Distant Generations’ is a florid post punk charge playing happy and sad off each other, in a way that might remind one of The Smiths.  ‘We Fade’ has a curious Death Rock feel to it, there’s something definitely darker and more dejected, just in how the scaling  guitars, numbed vocals and agitated synths carry through the track.

With the recent re-election of the Tories it’s an interesting time for this album to re-appear.  Easter & the Totem were true to their South East London roots never venturing far from home turf, getting stuck into supporting local communities and art projects. And I hope they would be happy to know people have picked up this mantle today, I can’t finish this post without highlighting a few collectives, labels and shops in the area worthy of your support:

DIY SPACE FOR LONDON
STATIC SHOCK RECORDS 
BOOK AND RECORD BAR
WOOLF
FRAU

And as for Easter & the Totems I’ll leave the summary to Mike Barry, “There was Mike Barry (age 18), Ian Self (age 18), and a Drum Machine. In those days, all you needed was a couple of long coats, a mutual love of the Fall and Joy Division, a pile of existential books, Kafka, Camus, Dostoyevsky, etc and some lager. They took their name from a Jackson Pollock painting. It was Summer of 1981 and the band was as rough as a bears arse.”  

Dick Diver : Melbourne, Florida

Inspired by disorientated travellers and trivia ‘Melbourne, Florida’ (Chapter Music) experiments with and enhances Dick Diver’s shimmering pop skills.  The band treads new turf by feeling out instinctively where to take these 12 new songs, searching for a more curious and enigmatic state in their music.  To create that atmosphere Dick Diver recorded this album in a large shed at Apollo Bay, Australia with Mikey Young – setting the scene to achieve a more far reaching sound than they’ve ever done before.  ‘Melbourne, Florida’ incorporates horns, synth, piano and pedal steel alongside the band’s core line up of; two guitarists (Rupert Edwards and Alistair McKay), a drummer (Steph Hughes) and bassist (Al Montfort).  

Since forming in 2008 Dick Diver have released ‘New Start Again’ and ‘Calendar Days’ earning them high praise from various worthy sources, so it’s no surprise to see the buzz around their third record for Chapter Music (Australia)/Trouble In Mind (US).  Literature also seems to be a draw for themes in Dick Diver’s songs, just look at how the band name is lifted from a Fitzgerald character in Tender Is The Night – this carries over fittingly to the first track on ‘Melbourne, Florida’ called ‘Waste The Alphabet’ which McKay wrote with poet Michael Farrell.  A heady pop track touched by bracing melodies you might associate with 90s era indie-rock, songsmith-ery doesn’t get more uplifting than this.  Flipping over ‘Competition’ cuts through with its cyclical synths and pastel-ed vocals, a highlight simply for how mesmerizing it is.  ‘Tearing The Posters Down’ is another banger, “Reading all in upper case / reading all the warning labels / and vaguely hoping they’ll be true / empty house / I can be true – tearing the posters down / from the walls” doubled vocals muse, as the song pushes on and goes up a gear it lets loose, it makes you want to let loose.  It could be the intoxicating harmonies or the repetition of “Tear the posters down” but it musters this reckless, carefree force in the song that makes it jump out on every listen of the album.   

‘Melbourne, Florida’ yields a naturalness and feistiness that makes it a lot of fun – maybe it’s in the way it’s made, it certainly feels like an album written by friends hanging out, not taking things too seriously, questioning everything along the way and in that informal approach created something really accomplished.  Dick Diver have followed their guts making this record and in doing so have harnessed their own distinct interpretation of pop music.  It’s this approach that makes Dick Diver an exciting band to watch out for – this is your alternative to today’s alternative music.