stillsingle reviews

Low Life – Sydney Darbs 7” EP (Negative Guest List)

RECOMMENDED

Four blasts of weatherbeaten downer punk from a Sydney trio that gives “a special thanx to anyone who embraces the 9-5, day in day out, mundane, soul destroying, mindless, clock work thinking because you are why we do this.. and we fucking detest you.” That kind of attitude is still needed in punk/the seething world, and the music of Low Life suits it, all dirgelike chords, flange pedal and space-absorbing vocals that suck most of the air out of this recording, like putting a plastic bag over your head and drawing deep. Sounds like it crawled out of a pit to harass shopping centre patrons with hopelessness, blight, and demands for cigarettes. Nods to dark early ‘80s UK punk are evident, if not necessarily intentional; it all adds up to a hissing, nasty, bruising music that has nothing but disdain for the outside world, and an inner sanctum held together by symbols and mythology. In the wake of Brendon’s passing, I do hope that their album will be coming out regardless, and that this single will not be any harder to find. A real day-ruiner, and not in an easy or obvious way. Put your shoes on, dump water in them, then go about your day, and you’ll probably be upset enough to make this kind of record yourself. Visit this link for reference only: (http://negativeguestlist.blogspot.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
1 day ago • 1 note
Skyneedle – Creepertown 7” (Independent Press)

RECOMMENDED

Brisbane’s Skyneedle plies a refreshing stripe of avant “rock” that relies not on earsplitting electronics or feelbad atmospheres. Driven by an incessant hooting from some kind of pump-driven horn, “Howlway” shambles along in an odd danceable mode. Singer Sarah Byrne juxtaposes a sultry vocal with the mutating caveman rhythm, tunelessly plucked slack-strings and an intermittent low-end grind produced by something else entirely (presumably the “Speakerboxbass” as operated by one of the quartet of noisemakers, Alex Cuffe).vWith instruments like the “Strungpanel,” and the “Latex Leghorn Drum Machine” credited, part of this record’s fun is in imagining what these homemade doodads even look like. Owing to their design and the resulting arbitrariness of the pitches produced, they evoke a crude junkyard/industrial version of far-eastern folk music. And the instrumental B-side “Creepertown” has that in droves, accompanied by a stumble of sheet-metal percussion and more of that rhythmic two or three-note hooting that alternately recalls some of Elliott Sharp/Carbon’s early large ensemble works and/or Canada’s pep-peps of noise, the Nihilist Spasm Band. It would be tempting to pigeonhole this (inaccurately) in some kind of no-wave or even neo-primitive revival, but Skyneedle’s atavism is less ritualistic/confrontational and much more playful. It might be the influence of the medium here, but the unit also deserves credit for keeping these tracks brief, wrapping them up after ideas are explored with sufficient thoroughness and before they would meander into self-indulgence. The whole limited-to-200 copies shebang is packaged in a jacket screenprinted with high-contrast, retina-confounding patterns, only adding to its mutant appeal. http://www.skyneedle.org)
(Adam MacGregor)

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