LOST ANIMAL : Ex-Tropical

 

 

Those that know me will tell you that I've been banging on about the Australian music scene for a couple of years now. Some of the best stuff I've heard recently has originated down-under, and one or two (Tame Impala immediately springs to mind) are starting to break through in the northern hemisphere.

 

 

This album was released in late 2011 and, shamefacedly, I admit to only recently discovering it. Very glad I did.  Lost Animal is the project of Australian musician Jarrod Quarrell, whose hypnotic songs sound utterly suspended in time and free of genre - an album that’s a strange mix of electronic pop and global influences reimagined on Quarrell’s keyboards

 

Each track is stuffed with ideas, the music itself sounding like something David Byrne, Brian Eno, and Beck might come up with, while Quarrell’s vocals sound like a cross between early-70s Lou Reed and Tom Petty speaking, rather than singing, enigmatic lyrics

 

 

By using almost exclusively keyboards, Quarrell could’ve easily dug himself into a musical hole, but he’s able to avoid most of the pitfalls of keyboard-heavy albums—at no point does this sound like a synth-pop album, or an under-produced set of demos. While the strange sounds and lyrics may initially turn off some potential listeners, the songs themselves are strongly structured, with the experimentation serving mostly as a way to keep things interesting rather than being the focus.

 

 

Ex Tropical is a unique album that combines a lot of sounds you wouldn’t think could work well together, making for a compelling, if sometimes challenging, listen. But stick with it, for suddenly you realise you are hooked!

 

You can get the album here

 

Say No To Thugs

 

 

 

 

Lose The Baby

 

 

 

 

Greylands (Live)

 

 

 

 

THE GO - Fiesta

Everyone appreciates a comeback, even one that perhaps wasn’t requested in the first place. Detroit’s The Go were among numerous also-rans of the fairly brief late-1990s garage-rock sweepstakes, which found bands such as The Strokes and The Hives eating expense-account sushi and bathing in the limelight, apparently all in the name of the true rock gospel or whatever.

 

The Go debuted in 1999 with the Sub Pop-released Watcha Doin’, and despite a Motor City pedigree, a seemingly firm grasp of all the "correct" influences, and even a little help from that era’s ultimate shooting star Jack White, The Go never seemed to capture the attention of its would-be fan base. Yes, it had plenty of fuzz guitars, and the boys certainly already had the look, but Watcha Doin’ seemed both too familiar and easily forgettable.

 

Undaunted, the band has hung together for close to two decades and prove that while time and perseverance don’t necessarily guarantee commercial success, they can certainly lead to commendable artistic breakthroughs.

 

Fiesta is a 20-track collection of snapshots from one band’s very large, fastidiously curated record collection. The ability to synthesize one’s influences - to honour them, have fun them with, but avoid unimaginatively cloning them — isn’t easy, but the band succeed in spades on this album

 

Beyond The Beyond

 

 

 

 

Inside A Hole

 

 

 

 

So Let's Pinch

 

 

 

I'm A Dot In Place

 

 

 

 

THE BESNARD LAKES - Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO

Have been a fan of this lot since their first album, but nothing they have done previously led me to expect this would be the masterpiece that it is!  The eight tracks, running anywhere from five-and-a-half to seven-minutes long, follow the Lakes’ well-established approach of shaping gigantic crests from a variety of sustainment effects, ranging from textbook shoegaze to synth drones that might as well be sampled from actual flying saucer engines. The hikes to the summits are long, but the views from the top are always worth it.

 

It’s rock music, folks, but not as we know it. So take your protein pills, put your helmet on, and join Canadian husband and wife duo Olga Goreas and Jace Lasek into interstellar overdrive

People Of The Sticks

 

 

And Her Eyes Were Painted Gold

 

 

 

 

The Spectre

 

 

 

JOHN GRANT - Pale Green Ghosts

 

When I first saw the cover to this album, I thought I'd bought the wrong one. Was this a country album? A folk album? The track that I'd heard - moody electronica with very wry lyrics - did not seem to fit with the album cover.

 

But, by all accounts, that is John grant down to a tee!  It has been said that is almost impossible to unpick John Grant's music from his personal life. He has suffered homophobic abuse, parental rejection, agoraphobia, depression, drug addiction and alcoholism, and was recently diagnosed HIV positive.

 

A collaboration with Birgir Thórarinsson of ace Icelandic electronic experimentalists Gus Gus, it's undoubtedly a dark and, at least initially, harsh-sounding album but it gets right under your skin after a few plays.  I find I am playing it more and more often. 

 

 

Pale Green Ghosts

 

 

 

Vietnam

 

 

 

 

Glacier

 

 

 

GMF