Ausmuteants

(Melbourne, AUS // Goner, Agitated Records)

AUSMUTEANTS started life in late 2011 in Geelong by Jake Robertson and Billy Gardner. Both had been playing since teenagers in trad garage bands The Frowning Clouds (Jake) and The Living Eyes (Billy). Being good looking rebels who play by their own rules, they soon cracked the shits, broke loose with just a synth and drums and in early 2012, knocked out the Split Personalities tape. By the time that was out they’d added Melbourne loose-unit Marc Dean on bass, and soon after, ex-Canberran hardcore non-guitarist Shaun Connor on guitar.

Their second album Amusements (note: not self-titled) came from this fledgling time as a full band, with a heavy dose of the duo’s songs. Since the runaway international success of that record and playing every second weekend in Melbourne, they’re rocked-out full-tilt with all four members writing and singing new songs. 23 of these were recorded live with vocal overdubs in the basement of an old Geelong ice cream factory by Mikey Young, then mixed and mastered in his idyllic coastal abode. Again the band and their Australian label Aarght Records strained the friendship with song picks, agreeing on 13 to make up Order of Operation.

This record is better than Amusements any way you cut it: songs, lyrics, delivery and sound. The album opens up with Shaun’s forehead- and thigh-slapping musical and lyrical debut, Freedom of Information. His girlfriend suffers the indignity with panache. From there, songs range from balls to the wall punkers (Felix Tried to Kill Himself; Boiling Point), well-considered workouts (Family Time; Tunnel Vision) and unguarded tenderness (Wrong; Looney Bin; Depersonalisation).

It’s not just the band and label singing the album’s praises; it’s the people who couldn’t stand their juvenile bullshit before. They’ve ditched the toilet humour, gotten nasty and written songs about other people’s problems, terrible bands, fighting crime and trading sex for porn. Mikey after a vocal take: “You deserve to be bashed for that” (the song’s on the record; you guess which one).

Order of Operation is now their defining moment. If you don’t like this record, you pretty much won’t ever like Ausmuteants.

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Brigid Dawson

(Los Angeles, USA // Castle Face Records)

Announcing the debut LP from Brigid Dawson & The Mothers Network – “Ballet of Apes”. Tip-top of our osmosis list is the first quiver of tunes from Brigid Dawson and her newly minted Mothers Network: wise warnings dyed in dark hues, knotted and hard-won torch songs from the edge of a turbulent sea, bittersweet balladry spun in defense against evils familiar and unknown.

Lovely though it may seem from a distance, the striation of loss quicksilvered throughout provides weighty balance to her contralto lilt. Those familiar with her harmonic counterpoint from her time in Thee Oh Sees or in OCS know she can belt as well as lullaby but there’s a fresh and smolderingly heavy swing in her step on display here that we mightily dig.

“Ballet of Apes” tapestries together sessions that read like a who’s who from outside our own castle walls – in Australia with Mikey Young (Total Control/Eddy Current Suppression Ring), in San Francisco with Mike Donovan (ex Sic Alps), Shayde Sartin (ex Fresh & Onlys/lifetime ringer) and Mike Shoun (ex Oh Sees/Peacers), and in Brooklyn with instrumental heavy-weights Sunwatchers – and the results are spellbinding. At the focal point of this maelstrom, our lady, as if illumed by candlelight, intones, pleads, consoles – white magic perhaps but it carries with it the anodized tang of blood. This is thrillingly potent stuff and it’s out on Castle Face May 22 .

Matt from Castle Face Records.

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Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band

(Austin, USA // Castle Face Records)

The wizard’s gaze cast over a distant landscape bits of ash and motes of incinerated earth float in the air the smell of ozone and fried metal sting the villager’s noses. But hope’s bell rings eternal! A flower of beauty is standing up in the sole ray of sun the clouds are withering away, retreating back to dark cloaks behind crusted-over frost-fractal windows. Darkness cannot usurp the crown light is king and will eliminate the darkness, chase it, out of the unfathomable corners and brush away the webs of evil…remnant factions will always remain but they will be hunted with pure magical riffage. These are the peaks and valleys of the mighty Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band, conceptual in feel and flow a lovely lilting ride and then, up through the floor boards, a warrior incants into the frothing night a huge band, heavy and tumultuous like a war machine rumbling thru the ash clearing the way for folks to continue their idyll. Dreamy and lucid keys, strings, drum corps, slippery guitar and buff bass, ripe flutes and breezy vocals. For fans of Embryo, the Mothers, Pink Floyd, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Moody Blues, the Stark Reality, and Placebo. They’re from Austin, Texas but you’d swear it’s from 1972 Europa-Mothership. Like their vodka it surpasses expectations and fucking crushes.

– John Dwyer, Oh Sees

If the Silvan elves of Mirkwood had a house band, Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band would hold residence. Too cerebral for trolls and perhaps too dynamic for hobbits, the Nightmare Band is what you’d stumble upon around a fire deep in the forest, with a dozen or so of its creatures and elves equipped with everything from organs, bells, and flutes to electric guitars and synthesizers.

Like any conceptually ambitious creative project, the inception and launch of Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band is one built on tenacity, timing, and kismet. Finding almost ten people in Austin, TX who want to be part of a large-scale prog-rock/jazz fusion project evoking the spirit of Middle Earth? Easy. Finding those same talented people who simultaneously have the time it takes to do it justice? Not so much.

It’s the fortunate cohesion of these resources and the group’s enrapturing live performances that led to the overwhelmingly anticipated and well-received release of their debut LP Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band’s Nightmare Forever, out on John Dwyer’s Castle Records. Honing a sound nostalgic for several eras among several realms, the group features Nolan Potter himself on flute, vocals, and guitar; William Grover on guitar; Max Prudhomme on Bass; Reno Feldkamp on piano and organ; Doran Rawlinson on drums; Everett Bergstedt on percussion; and Charles Anderson on violin.

– Taylor Wallace, KUTX

LISTEN & SHARE : Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band – “Elf Curse”

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– The Austin Chronicle “From labyrinthine compositions to galvanizing live performances, Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band never falls short of epic.”

– The 405 “Making use of an eclectic assembly of instruments — double drumsets, flutes, strings, keys and ripping guitars — Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band makes for a wild listen.”

E.T. Explore ME

(Haarlem, NL // Voodoo Rhythm Records)

Far Out Mind Expanding Psychedelic Punk from Haarlem in the Netherlands whom Squeeze you into a Organ grinding Fuzz Overdose Fest and Fly you to unknown dimensions.

Underground heroes of Haarlemtown in the Netherlands – saving the sewers of garage rock from the same old riff rock 15 years of distorted organ fuzz stripped down snare bare essence boogie thump of a bassline pumped out of mangled monster of an amp. From the gutted churches of the Spanish hillside to the cigarette stench beer belch glorious gutterstreet rock n roll holes of Holland, Germany and France, ET EXPLORE ME has been leaving beer soaked, sweat stained smiling and stinking rock n roll fans begging for more since 2002. Finally deciding to get their shit together and make a full album, ET EXPLORE ME delivers on wax exactly what they do live. Full on FUZZED out Freaks unleashed. You wanna party, you wanna dig deep into the trenches of treble and bass, you wanna – oh I know you wanna just have a good time don’t you! Don’t you now! Of course you do fool. And ET EXPLORE ME has got the rocknroll sniffin glue to get you higher than daylight. So buy this album, see this band, pour a beer over your head and shake your ass, pump your fist and whatever you do, when you get home after the show, don’t fall asleep in a puddle of your own piss.

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Ex-Cult

(Memphis, USA // Goner, In the Red Records)

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