Tyvek's Origin In The Red

There is a moment every six months or so that I remember how much I fucking love Tyvek. It's a weird one - Ill hear a chord, a droned deadpan drawl, some cathartic clatter, and the lightning bolt hits - "Shit, Tyvek do this so much better. Now, where are my records?" And I am not the only one - both Parquet Courts and Protomartyr have recently stated the Detroit trio as being one of the most unheralded bands in the US (calling them "the Michigan Talking Heads", no less). Hell Ill meet you and raise - in the world. Brisbane was incredibly lucky to have Tyvek play at Greenslopes Bowls Club a few years back, after they had brought out last LP On Triple Beams - a true live highlight.

Now after four years, and Kevin Boyer having moved to Philly and formed The Intended (who have also recently released an album), you might think Tyvek have hung up their spurs. But no - they are prepping to release Origin of What through In The Red Records, and the songs off it so far have been great. 'Girl On A Bicycle' is a 90 second blast of about as close to pop as these guys are likely to get that isn't breakneck, despite its brevity. The title track is a lurking in the gutter dirge, something darker and desultory, Boyer's lyrics both a fear of the changing of the world and his beloved Detroit for the betterment of the 1%ers, and a clarion call to identify where we come from, if from anywhere at all - the more recognisable Tyvek then. Grab Origin of What here.

Up In The National Parks

Brooklyn's Big Ups keep amping the excitement factor for their incoming record Before A Million Universes. New off the ranks is 'National Parks', sonically feeling like a brooding Slint bender that explodes in a punk howl fury. The anger rises, the power multiplies, the noise amplifies. Their voice only grows louder, more disenchanted with what the have's are handing down to us, constantly blindsided by expectation and reality, but refusing to lie down and take this confusing fucked-up world in a cage of confusion. Can't tell you how much I am looking forward to this one. You can pre-order Before A Million Universes from Tough Love/Exploding In Sound here.

Bastard Boys Are Giggling Through Their Teeth

NY crooked losers loose in the Big Apple Giggly Boys have launched their debut album Bastards Of Young, and it is great - weird, beguiling, cracked. I was a big fan of their EP . (the cover my fiancee claims looks like me - she's on fire tonight, gloves are off), and the album veers into Spray Paint territory on opener 'The Hall', a track seemingly equally indebted to Ranaldo's Sonic Youth left-field takes on straighter rock. 'Crazy From The Heat' continues the cavernous production and Mike Zorman's moaned, quasi-barked and clipped vocals, yet there is a coldness here that evokes Scandi goth punk (the juxtaposition is in the name...) 'Butter Banquet' is more diseased, a (C)ramped sense of humour infiltrating these darker riffs and claustrophobic rolls, albeit with some slowed art-rock interludes and a glammed up lead back to the fever. 'Weird Lie' and 'Tiny Taste' again take a Ranaldo hue, but also evoke mid-career Blank Realm (possibly in the Daniel Spencer-esque vocal delivery). You can tell that I haven't made any Protomartyr references here, although you can hear echoes in 'Midnight Ones' or the similarly-named 'Darker Shade Of Pale'. Maybe because Bastards Of Young is so kaleidoscopic in sonic range that the references are spread far and wide. 'Country Lee' is something I wish Brisbane band-in-hiatus Nova Scotia had written. Now I doubt that Giggly Boys are into those guys - but the connections to Australian and American bands that flirt with mainstream composition before dragging them on wider, weirder slipstreams is clear. The throwback closer 'Whatever' is great too. Let's hope that these Bastards Of Young never get old - this is great stuff.

Grab the record through This Ain't Heaven Recordings here. If you are in New York tonight, head to The Gateway where Giggly Boys play alongside another new SM fave, Frog.

Martyrdom Over Festival Blues A Big Deal

One of my favourite albums and shows of 2014 was by Detroit post-punk evangelists Protomartyr. The album – Under Colour Of Official Right. The show – their August gig at The Lexington here in London, supported by Feature and Sauna Youth. The heady combination of seemingly disparate physical presences, a hyperliterate cynical worldview, militaristic guitar tension and a tight-as-fuck rhythm section coalesces into a performance that is both amusing, deafening and electrifying in its droll tautness.

The four-piece have a newish song off the leash as part of a 7” split, aptly titled A Half Of Seven, with Kelley Deal’s new outfit R.Ring called ‘Blues Festival’ (which also features Deal on backing vocals). It has been out in the ether since mid-April so I’m slow on the uptake, but seeing as this only came out through Hardly Art on Tuesday I don’t feel so slow. It’s either a dour diatribe against young upstarts or a brittle how-to for those floundering in the shallow end of the rock music pool; either uttering to heed these grizzled journeymen’s advice or smash against the shaggy crags of your own head/cloud devising; keeping feet firmly entrenched on the earth, or else get anchored there by weary cynicism or derisive disdain. The thing is of course that there is ambiguity here, just as there always is in lead man Joe Casey’s delivery and demeanour – is he serious? Does he even care? Is he compassionate, or are hopes and dreams just more things that grind his gears? The ambiguity and slight smile that lingers after Protomartyr have exited alludes to the humour in it all, but the presence of Deal, someone who has seen each side of the industry sword, and come out the other side, colours this song with even further depth. At the end of the day though, ‘Blues Festival’ is just a killer rollicking song, regardless of social context and subterfuge, and that’s what ultimately matters.

Grab A Half Of Seven here.

Featuring Feature

Another excellent release from Ruined Smile Records is this lil EP from London trio Feature. I got to catch these girls when they opened for Protomartyr in London back in August, and they really held their own. Featuring members of Sauna Youth and Slowcoaches, the band have put together this five-track number to combine their Tie Dye Records cassette Culture Of The Copy from last year, while the last two tracks are about to feature on a split EP with the aforementioned Slowcoaches called Tourists (out soon on Unwork Records). The first three tracks are rawer due to the initial two piece configuration, so there are spaces in the songs that are well and truly blown out in the live arena here. Set staple 'Psalms' is a particular track that has ramped up since this recording, yet there is an undeniable growl and bluster that underpins it all. 'Wisdom Teeth' (which we see the new film clip for below) and 'Tourism Fiction' show the rambunctious new dynamic, but still holds dear the insidious pop melodies that have always been the band's strength. And we are only likely to have more evidence of this burgeoning power with two new releases in the wind (including one through SM fave Soft Power Records) as well as a full length targeted for 2016.

Pre-order Tourists here. The band just played a free gig with Leeds noiseniks Super Luxury last Friday, but there is more fun to be had with these ladies:

Saturday 2nd May - Odd Box Records Weekender, The Shacklewell Arms, London w/ Slowcoaches, Joey Fourr, The Fish Police and more 

Friday 8th May - Gullivers, Manchester w/ Gorgeous Bully 

Monday 11th May - Oslo, Hackney w/ Cheatahs & No Joy 

Friday 29th May - Berlin, Germany w/ DIÄT Saturday 

3rd October - The 9th Annual Nottingham Pop All-dayer, The Maze, Nottingham w/ Witching Waves and more 

Some Missed Posts from 2014 - Big Ups

Last month got hectic, and I wrote a bunch of posts that I didn't get around to actually posting. So because I want to clean house and I actually spent time doing them and want them out there - this Sunday will be post that slipped through the cracks day!

New York four-piece Big Ups are starting to become a common fixture on my playlist these days. Ever since Paul and Ani, two good friends and past writers/co-founders of Sonic Masala, mentioned seeing them earlier this year (and they were one of the many acts that fell foul of ATP with THAT festival back in August), the band’s abrasive, literate, garrulously visceral punk offensive has been a minor obsession for me. (Seeing as one of my favourite albums of 2014 has been Detroit maulers Protomartyr’s Under Color Of Official Right, this shouldn’t surprise you really) I’ve attempted to write about it and them a number of times over the past four months, but like a great many half-concocted ideas, it has languished, falling farther down the totem pole, getting crisp on the backburner.



Then I heard ‘Not Today’, and my mind slipped another gear their album from the beginning of the year, Eighteen Hours of Static, was a maelstrom of ferocity and exorcised humane vitriol, a diatribe aimed at the world at large, spat out in all manner of obtuse and lugheaded ways, and this universality proved its searing, charismatic throughline. Like Protomartyr frontman Joe Casey’s baritone barbed-yet-acerbic lyrics, or Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson’s evangelised gutter gnashing, or Parquet Courts’ Andrew Savage’s slacker ennui spun as ocular literature, Big Ups’ Joe Galarraga seemed in tune with the 21st century intelligentsia, literati, proles and serfs – not just proffering a self-aggrandising roar for self-purification and perceived entitlement then, but an angular attempt to connect, to reveal, to revel.

Stopping The Mysterious Giggly Boys

Music is a funny ol thing. I wasn't going to write about New York punks Giggly Boys. My bro-from-another-mo sent their EP to me, the bafflingly titled .. That is a full stop. As the title. That is not the reason I wasn't going to talk about it. No. He sent it to me because he heard that I liked Protomartyr (and if he bothered to read Sonic Masala he would have known that before now. I kid, you're alright mate!) and these dark and mysterious yowlers have been playing shows with them of late. But we couldn't really decide whether we liked the songs or not. He decided he didn't; so did I in fact. I even labelled them thus:

It's bog standard. I enjoy it, then forget about it 

Then I woke up this morning, hopped in the shower - and really felt a need to listen to second track 'Sick Joke'. I wanted a Murder City Devils track to soundtrack the opening of my day, but had this at hand instead. I plugged it into the speakers (yes my new shower has speakers) and let fly. Then I let the EP play out. And now it is Tuesday afternoon and I'm still listening to it. Everything is played to a concise manner, with nothing forced (which I originally thought) nor overly original being put in play - there are howls a la John Dwyer to punctuate certain elements from the warbled, just hinged enough vocalist; there is a bridled anger simmering away, drenched in monochrome and baked vitriol. 'Model Behaviour' feels retro, with kraut rhythms permeating throughout; 'Joel's River' has the barked lo-fi mayhem that ...Trail Of Dead embraced early on; closer 'Acid Fight' turns full circle to that Murder City Devils feel (and could be the best some on the EP). It's burning into my synapses. In short - I like it. It needs to be blasted on speakers though, pushed to its limits. I know nothing more about them. If you do, point me in their direction. I'm hooked.

Official Prototype Of The Martyred

I had no idea what to expect when I picked up Under Colour of Official Right, the sophomore record for Detroit post-punks Protomartyr. The cover of the snarling mongrel dog gave me a sense of what to expect. Except - this isn't a metal throwback, a punk bile purge, or a wailing slur of misbegotten angst. No. Protomartyr many be the smartest band of their ilk going round for a number of reasons. Firstly, the lyrics are overly verbose and literate, referencing novels, news stories and diatribes; the vocal are delivered in a mixture of distanced confidence, barely contained anger, and feigned disdain that barely masks the chagrin at life's opulent disgraces; but its the instrumentation here that slays me. Everything is so tempered, bled out in increments, fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle made out of sinew and bone, a boiling machination of tension and sweat-drained intensity. If Interpol could just have a bit of fun, and read the papers once in a while, listened to a glut of 90s Chapel Hill bands (and Alice In Chains...) and watched The Sopranos for kicks, maybe they could have followed Turn On The Bright Lights with something akin to the braced aggression in silken throes that is Under Colour of Official Right. But they didn't. Protomartyr did. Not afraid to tear things asunder nor fly brazenly for the stadium sun - this has been a long time coming.

Pick up Under Colour of Official Right through Hardly Art here.