Bench Press play a unique brand of Post Punk which draws inspiration from the taut wireyness of Devo and early Talking Heads, along with heavier elements of 80s post hardcore. Put these influences into a blender with a heavy splash of Australian garage, package them into hook filled, three minute doses of noisy pop and you have an idea of what to expect from this four piece.
Formed in Melbourne in 2016, Bench Press built their name locally on their dynamic, nervy live show and quickly signed to Poison City Records to release their self titled debut in 2017, leading to extensive tours of Australia, New Zealand and Europe including the famed Binic Festival in 2018.
The last 12 months has seen Bench Press release their follow up album, ‘Not the Past, Can’t be the Future’ to acclaim including nomination for the prestigious Australian Music Prize, as well as keeping up a relentless gig schedule including multiple Australasian tours and high profile supports for Idles.
The last time drummer Brendan Canty and bassist Joe Lally were in a band together, they were the rhythmic architects for Fugazi, an organization whose decade and a half of disciplined progressivism provided a necessary bridge between the zenith of late-punk expression and everything alternative in rock that followed. In 2016, the two were enlisted by guitarist Anthony Pirog in a conspiracy to subvert and reimagine the power trio, bringing fully into the 21st Century a form that may have reached near perfection with Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys on the very first day of the 1970s.
With a self-titled recording scheduled for release in the Spring of 2018 on Dischord, the Messthetics will widen the reach of a decisive instrumental music that so far, they have only shared with a privileged handful of east coast and southern audiences. Across its eight original compositions and one cover, Anthony guides the sound through complex changes and harmonic densities that might compound, but never confound or muddy its connection with the listener’s body. Recorded by Brendan in their practice space, the group’s debut gives Anthony ample opportunities to swap guitar textures and styles as freely as an octopus changes patterns.
Brendan’s kit has a big heavy bell that he brought back from the Fugazi days. He maneuvers through this rhythmically shifty music with a fluid briskness that is periodically disrupted by the clang of his bell. Joe spent 8 years in Italy, among other things, woodshedding on eastern rhythms counted in 7 and 13, perfect preparation for the oddly-metered work of the Messthetics. He brings a rock solid foundation to the groove at the same time playing a harmonic complement as ambitious and interesting as Anthony’s lines.
Bands can be dangerous when their members have accrued enough mileage to see their chops season into something like musical wisdom. When that understanding has the rare opportunity to percolate through a collaborative environment founded in love and anchored in gratitude, well, then shit can get rather intense. Anthony Pirog writes difficult music because original music usually is. Yet the ideas that he feeds through the Messthetics, are embraced by the Canty-Lally time machine, not just with precision and nuance, but with soul, joy, and groove. These last three are, indeed, the big guns in this spiritual war that music must become in the post-Trump era.
Their performances and this debut recording have a lift and buoyancy that reflect back into the audience the love and gratitude at the foundation of this trio’s journey.
Spirited and blazing, rough and bitter, wrapped up by the sun that disappears behind a column in the sky, cut with a stone, half opened by his isosceles look. In the disorganised folklore, a dehumanised dance, the heating of the riff riding the coldness of the beat. An orchestrated blackout that defies the limits of your heart that beats ten times too fast. Eyes park is a triangular vision of which was,is and will be our past future. A crossing face after face, worse and worse, without losing the story line of his life, without knowing or understanding the erratic impaction ever. Eyes park, that sways like an untroubled and wild cat, that comes back like a bottle thrown in the sea. Sink or swim.
14th July they released an album on Castle Face Records and John Dwyer is talking about them : « The couple that slays together, stays together : Looch Vibrato and Aggy Sonora, like the moniker of an infamous killing duo, the fucking butchest band from Bordeaux. Looch, with hands like bunches of bananas and songs like flaming arrows. The lovely and tough-as-hell Aggy, crushing the kit. Heavy weird attackers from our sister country. Sludge drips—murder the guitar, usurp the amp, fry the mic, howl like beasts, melt the crowd: Magnetix. We were lucky enough to grab them on one of their rare U.S. shows, recorded in a basement in San Francisco. Here it is in all its gory glory. Let’s go tripping… »
Remember how a certain T. Segall has been dropping some coarse post-punk nuggets, with a heaping helping of Mikal Cronin squalling on the sax? Seems like perhaps those choice moments might have found some incubation in Segall’s collaboration and production of Lars Finberg’s new LP (on IN THE RED). The first solo outing from Finberg comes late into a career as a noise-pop and garage go-to – holding down time in The Intelligence, A-Frames, Wounded Lion and Thee Oh Sees. However, he seems perfectly at home with his name above the marquee and hunkered down with his cadre of collaborators. The LP isn’t wholly absent from the space that The Intelligence has occupied, but Moon Over Bakersfield certainly hits its own marks, spreading roots into alien punk and acerbic post-punk with equal zeal. Finberg feels like he’s sinking into a comfortable relationship with discomfort here, doing his best to unseat pop’s stranglehold on indie as often as possible. The record revels in acid-washed sax, dissociated vocal effects and claustrophobic atmospheres, but it also locks down a serious addiction to groove. Finberg rides the bass like a guiding light, peddling rhythm grunged by a heaping helping of distortion as a daily fix. He’s peeling back the skin on his past and letting the sulfur burn away at the tissues of 2017 in a way that’s as addicting as it is unsettling. If you’ve only met Finberg tangentially prior, it’s time to hit him head on.
Red Mass is a gathering of musicians, agent provocateurs and artists, from around the globe. Created by Roy Vucino as part of the ‘Free Creative Enterprise’ TA DA arts collective, its goal is to create music and art, in various mediums while incorporating techniques of automatic creation as well as chaos magic. To do so, the Mass forgoes any allegiance to a specific genre or sound and works outside of the standard band format. This allows the Mass to work with as many international collaborators as it likes regardless of their experience or musical background. The present core of ‘Red Mass’ is comprised of Roy Vucino and partner Hannah Lewis. Eager to explore new soundscapes and to collaborate with musicians all over the world, the band has amassed more than 100 participating artists and musicians in its ranks. Collaborations with some of our idols, our friends, our family members and with strangers who want to create something subversive. As above, so below. We welcome you to the Red Mass.
