Blank Realm 'Go Easy'

Australian quartet Blank Realm have returned with a new full length called 'Go Easy' (Bedroom Suck/Siltbreeze).  This new album follows up 2010's well loved 'Heartless Ark' (Not Not Fun) which was a bleak, improvisational piece recorded in a barn on the fringes of Brisbane suburbia.  In contrast 'Go Easy' delivers rich, bright sounds with a more high-fidelity approach drawing from a spectrum of genres explored through Blank Realm's tilt for noise.  At the crux of the songs are guitar, synths, drums, bass accompanied by girl and boy vocals against sheets of distortion.  Opener "Acting Strange" surges with guitar fuzz in full force alongside delay heavy vocals -- with things cooling off right after with curiously serene number "Cleaning Up My Mess", featuring otherworldly keys that continue to breeze through the album.  Standout track "Pendulum Swing" features oscillating beats at the core steadily gathering momentum through swells of distortion from swirling guitars before brilliantly collapsing.  This album pursues rock, pop and punk coloured by the experimentalism of psychedelia.  Blank Realm's ability to transforming sounds we know and love into something fresh and exhilarating attests that, they are one of the most compelling bands around today.

Blank Realm Facebook

Mad Scene 'Blip'

Mad Scene have a new release on Siltbreeze called 'Blip' featuring; Lisa Siegel, Georgia Hubley, Hamish Kilgour, Brian Turner, Steve Thornton, Gary Olsen, Josh Feldman, Cassie Tunick, Danny Tunick, produced by Sonic Boom. This all-star line up is comprised of restless musicians, constantly hard at work with a variety projects so it's no wonder it took 17 years for things to fall in place to make a follow up to 'Chinese Honey' (Merge). These twelve foggy songs are modeled on woolgathering vocals, a constellation of eventide guitars transmitting hazy delay and echo alongside sugary keys. 'Blip' is delivered with daydream wanderings reminiscent popsters Television Personalities married with the finesse of Flying Nun sounds and a DIY kick. Over the course of the album the songs steadily gather momentum from track "Cat Burglar" offering up gusts of fuzz and aerial vocals, to the sanguine tinged "T.Rex" playing out razor like guitars, rumbling bass and spirited beats. Already a favourite of the year Mad Scene have certainly set the bar very high, 'Blip' wonderfully captures the incredible chemistry within the group and is a treasure chest of beautifully crafted pop songs like nothing else around.



Find copies in the UK here US here

Kitchen's Floor 'Look Forward to Nothing'

'Look Forward to Nothing' (Siltbreeze) is the highly anticipated follow up to universally loved debut 'Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress' (2010 RIP Society) from Australia's Kitchen's Floor. The trio pick up where they left off with their bleak and noisy garage-art rock but flip it on it's head by creating something more lush. "116" best shows off the introduction of bright pop melodies tangled into the amalgam of cacophonous instruments. A personal highlight is raucous track "Regrets", the accelerated guitars played alongside rattling rhythms is where the album really feels like it gains full momentum. From the outset there are curious jolts in rhythm creating an unhinged feeling complimenting the consistent unaffected, mono-toned vocals. Instrumental track 'Every Day' sustains a repetitive, buzzing state for three and a half minutes brilliantly capturing the humdrum of daily life. There are parts of the album that bring Pink Reason to mind especially on 'Kidney Infection' which mirrors a similar solemn/lone wolf attitude. Brimming with angst this primitive second album hits all the noise-punk pleasure centres, 'Look Forward to Nothing' could very well see Kitchen's Floor make it into Top Ten lists for a second year in a row.

Kitchen's Floor - Regrets by Gilded Gutter

Find the record at Siltbreeze
Kitchen's Floor Facebook

Pink Reason 'Shit In The Garden'

Four years on from his debut LP Pink Reason is back with new album 'Shit In the Garden' on Siltbreeze. These six new songs clocking in at around 30 minutes show a new side to Kevin DeBroux's writing. Sublime melodies are polarized through a dark underbelly that sites at the core of his songs. Tracks about fighting demons are delivered with DeBroux in conversation with himself, personifying the figure of a lone-wolf troubadour.

Head turning opener 'Holding On' is peppered with frenetic electronic rhythms that lead into radiant fuzzed out guitar, poignantly DeBroux's sings through the fogged recording, "I don't want to see this place again". Lofty, lush melodies at the crux of the song are obscured with muddied distortion and this concept is explored further through the album. "I Just Leave" descends into the abstract with layered strumming patterns accompanied by light chiming which consistently wafts through the six tracks on 'Shit In The Garden'. Folk-esque, "You Can't Win" is a cumbersome instrumental piece featuring a banjo and bewitching wind arrangements. My personal favourite thing about this track and probably on the album is the empty-bottle-rattling sounds acting as rhythm in the song making the track curiously cinematic. I'm mean to employ no sort of hyperbole when I say this is one of my favourite records of the year.

You can buy directly from him on Pink Reason's Facebook page (scroll down a little)

The Doozer 'Great Explorers'

Originally released here in the UK on Pickled Eggs Records, (Le Bleu, Daniel Johnston)
Cambridge's The Doozer has found a new home across the pond aptly at Siltbreeze following an introduction to the label from Matt Valentine (Tower Recordings). The one man act has already earned accolades from Byron Coley and Thurston Moore for second album 'Great Explorers'. The Doozer has drawn many comparisons to Syd Barrett, and sure it totally makes sense, for me though the first artists that came to mind were Tommy Jay and Ron House. But you get the idea nevertheless. His loner psyched out folk is completely hypnotic, full of drum machines accompanied with assuaging vocals and seamlessly incorporates spoken word passages throughout the songs. 'Great Explorers' is an outsider artist psych folk gem. Limited to a 500 pressing with download.

U.S Girls 'Go Grey'

Megan Remy (aka U.S Girls) is back with 2nd album 'Go Grey' on Siltbreeze.

Remy translates her muses; R&B and British 60s pop, into oblique New Wave with a pop flair. Sure, sometimes it seems like a natural progression to clean up the recording on a follow up record when time and resources maybe on the artists' side. However, Remy embraces the stark noise so don't be surprised to find songs even more abrasive than before. Vocals remain a prominent role in 'Go Grey' and nihilism fiends won't be disappointed as this new record is equally as morose as her first. Stand out tracks lined up back to back on the album; 'Red Ford Radio', 'Sleeping on Glass' and 'I don't have a mind of my own'.

U.S Girls first album 'Introducing U.S Girls' was recorded in Portland 2008, where another album was also being released; Grouper's career defining third record 'Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill'. These two records arguably helped propel contemporary solo female artists in today's music underworld. Thinking about the success of Sacred Bone's Zola Jesus, it's fair to say a niche had started with U.S Girls and Grouper to allow artists like Nika Roza to grow. All three have definitively unmatched voices but tied together with their unique interpretations of isolation. I will be spending the rest of my summer scouring the internet for new blood in female soloists, there's more right? Tell me there's more...