Idle Cranes, Aheadphonehome, Blue Carousel, Axxonn @ The Hangar (14.03.09)

This review has been sitting in draft form for about two weeks, so I figured I should finish it off and post it...

This was my first real Hangar experience of 2009, as I've been unable to attend any of the shows held there since last November (with the exception of seeing Re:Enactment play the Mr Maps EP Launch afterparty). While it may not have seemed like one of the venues strongest ever lineups on paper, there was still enough of interest to ensure I wouldn't be missing it. Plus it's The Hangar, so it was almost guaranteed to be an enjoyable night out.

First up was local two-piece laptop ambience act Axxonn. I've written about their live show fairly recently, and this show for the most part offered more of the same, only better. The band played a longer set and threw more variety in terms of melody and texture into the music, while the added volume they could utilise at The Hangar (especially in the low end) added an extra layer of physicality to their music. Laying in a beanbag on the floor of the venue, the sensation of the sound moving through the room was a very pleasurable one. It was almost enough to send one to sleep, if it wasn't for the continually shifting aural textures keeping the audience's interest. It's just a shame that only a handful of people turned up early enough to witness the band (luckily this wasn't the case when they played Ric's about a week later, where they played an even better set).

Blue Carousel are one of my favourite local pop bands, with the ability to bring good vibes to pretty much any location (and they do seem to have played a whole bunch of different venues). On this particular occasion they needed to dig deep into this wellspring of positivity, as the band had barely gotten into their third song when an overly enthusiastic / overly inebriated fan ended up trying to start a fight right in front of stage (luckily for him he was stopped before being successful in this attempt, as he was literally half the size of the person he had provoked). A fight at The Hangar? That has to be a first. After a brief break while people were calmed down / lead outside the band continued, but they were obviously shaken and kind of struggled to recover their momentum. Knowing what Blue Carousel are capable of I was a bit disappointed that they couldn't display their full quality on this particular night, but they seemed to win over the majority of the crowd regardless (most of whom I imagine would have been largely unfamiliar with their music).

I had seen Aheadphonehome just a few days earlier at the Troubadour, and I have to admit that I was left somewhat wanting after my first experience of the band as a live entity (I'm a bit of a fan of their more electronic full length release 'In The Static' from a few years back). Things seemed a bit too smooth and a little bit 'Adult Oriented Rock' for me; it seemed like the band were trying to mix ambience with ragged indie rock, but the ambience wasn't enveloping enough and the indie rock was too tempered. This Hangar show painted them in a different light: the vocals were further back in the mix, the guitars melded together much more effectively and the whole thing just seemed to gel a lot better, and as such held my interest throughout their set. I think the prior show may have been a case of a mix that wasn't flattering to the band's aesthetic. They're quite a new band in a live sense, so we'll see where they take things from here.

I hadn't seen Idles Cranes in quite a while, in fact I had no idea that they'd changed from a quartet to a trio. One of the guitarists has since switched to bass and they have a new drummer. The new lineup works much better - previously there had been a disconnect between what the band seemed to be attempted to create (hazy, distorted psychedelic rock) and what they were actually putting across. The new lineup (and I dare say some new songs with a stronger sense of direction) seems heavier, groovier and more intense. By the time Idle Cranes hit the stage the room was hot, humid and mildy oppressive, but with the entire audience standing right at the foot of the stage the atmosphere was totally conducive to this sort of suffocatingly loud, druggy rock'n'roll. Previously the band had struck me as a pretty decent psych-rock act, but after this Hangar set I was seriously impressed. They're now on my 'have to check these guys out again soon' list.

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Review: Blue Carousel - Mussee EP

Blue Carousel have been playing their mix of synth and guitar driven indie-rock around Brisbane venues with pretty great regularity for the last couple of years, and have now dropped their first proper release in the form of the Mussee EP. With a sound that contains equal measures synth-rock grooves and sinewy guitars, the band have less in common with the indie-dance fad of a few years back than they do with such bands as Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips and Sunset Rubdown. The comparisons are extended when the high-pitched, breathy (and usually double-tracked) vocals of lead singer Valdis are thrown into the mix. He has one of those 'love-it-or-hate-it' voices, much like the singers from the three previously mentioned bands.

Compared to the band's demos which have been floating around (you can hear some via their myspace, along with the first four tracks from this EP), the recordings on Mussee are very dense; there's barely a moment where there isn't an extra synth (or three) burbling away in the background. They're a five piece band so their sound is going to be relatively busy in any situation, but I often find myself thinking that perhaps some of the recordings on this EP are slightly overcooked. Additionally, in many cases the guitars have been relegated to backing the synths instead of the other way around - their lead guitarist, Adam (last name unknown) is an especially interesting player, so I would have liked to have heard more of him. Listening to the demo of 'Kanashii Uta' the band sounds like a band, while on the EP it's much more of a synth-rock exercise (except for a noisy effects-laden guitar in the breakdown, which is admittedly very cool and probably suits the band better than the previous guitar solo, which always came across as a little too 'smooth'). The following track, 'Portrait From Memory' is similarly keys-dominated, though much mellower - it does feature some interesting instrumental additions, such as glockenspiel and what seems to be a banjo joining about halfway through the song.

Things change up for fourth track 'Mr Zian Is A Lonely Boy', definitely the most aggressive song on the EP and probably also in the band's overall repertoire (and the only song that sounds vaguely like The Killers et al). Starting with reversed feedback and other assorted sounds, soon enough the song proper punches through with guitars buzzing around the central synth hook, with some nu-post-punk-esque guitar stabs filling the choruses. It's an energetic, exciting track but as a song it seems somewhat slight (or maybe it's just that I want the band to keep rocking out for another minute or so). Fun live, in any case.

EP closer 'Snappy Tom' has been a live staple for Blue Carousel for a good while, frequently closing their sets. With its steady build from plodding atmospherics to eventual guitar cacophony and woozy synth climax, it certainly ticks the 'epic closing track' box, and numbers amongst the band's best songs - it's certainly my favourite on the release. The moment where Valdis sings 'I see the river up ahead / jump in' as the band crashes back in after a brief pause is one of the more effective dynamic shifts produced recently by a local band.

Blue Carousel are a good band with a developing ear for pop hooks and an interesting musical vocabulary. Similarly, Mussee is a good EP and well worth a listen. With that said, I expect that their next release will likely be a considerable improvement. I would like to see the band either produce a really good recording of how they sound in a live context or go all out in the studio. Mussee kind of sounds like the band had some good songs that they had been playing for a while and wanted to spice up in the recording, but that they didn't have the time / resources / experience to do so to the extent that they wanted, and as a result there's something indefinably messy about it in parts. The good news is that the band have a number of songs up their sleeve for a second EP / album, and from what I've been able to gather it seems that they've saved their stronger material for that. I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

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Weekly News - July 7th

• Jangle-rockers Mr. Rascal will be launching their debut album, A Pocketful Of Smoke, this Saturday at QPAC's Cremorne Theatre. If the first single, 'Let It Roll', is anything to go by, A Pocketful Of Smoke will be one of the most promising albums to be released in Brisbane this year.

• It seems to be EP season at the moment. Blue Carousel, Hungry Kids Of Hungary, and Nikko have just released their debut EP's, while Wind&Brackets are getting ready to release their's this Saturday at Valley Studios.

• New Music:
• Tragic/Athletic - Three Months At Sea/Make For The Hills: I couldn't get these two tracks to play on myspace, but, having heard 'Three Months At Sea' previously, I can say it is a beautifully epic track from the band, complete with a soaring brass part towards the end of the song.
• Willows - Locus
• The Revolutionists - No Warning
• Sirinival - Happiness Is A (Live)/Fortune Favours The Brave (Live)
• Marl Karx - Spout
  

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Blue Carousel, Rialto Decibel Choir @ Rics (12.6.07)

I (being Cam) went to a whole bunch of gigs this past weekend. However, this particular gig is the only one I attended where I was present for more than half of the event, so it's the one that I'm going to write about. Luckily for me (and for you), it was really good.

This was actually the first time I'd seen Rialto Decibel Choir live (which is somewhat embarassing to admit). I'd heard some recordings and the continuous praise for the band in certain circles, so I was definitely keen to check them out. This show was one of the band's final shows as a two-piece (as of their show on Wednesday they will be a four-piece, adding bass and drums to their current guitar-and-vocals lineup). As a counterpoint to Gav's previous review, personally I think they're one of the better bands in Brisbane's (very talented imho) folk-inspired indie scene. James is quite an accomplished guitarist and Ashleigh can really sing; I've heard of her voice being likened to Joanna Newsom's, and while the comparison is somewhat warranted I find Ashleigh's voice to be much darker and more gothic in nature - there's certainly very little about her voice that could be described as 'girlish' or 'pixie-ish'. It's a deep and dark sound that lends the band a sense of gravity that other similar bands perhaps lack. Admittedly their set at Ric's was quite short (and I missed a few songs at the start... since when do bands at Ric's start before 9:30?), so perhaps their music might become somewhat one-dimensional over a longer period of time, as Gav mentioned a fortnight ago. Personally I could have listened to them for twice as long as I actually did, but for those who find their music somewhat 'samey' I would imagine that the expansion of the band will add some diversity. Seeing as I'm pretty smitten with their music as it is, I'll certainly be very keen to hear how their sound progresses over the coming months.

As opposed to Rialto, I'd seen Blue Carousel twice previous to this show. After the first show I was pretty much in love, but after the second show I was unsure if they really were as good as I had initially thought. This show proved to me that my instincts were correct - they're a pretty great band. Imagine Mercury Rev's love of bombast and synths combined with the noisey lead guitars and oblique songwriting of Sunset Rubdown. The band managed to put on a quality show despite a faulty bass lead and an aborted attempt at a new song (or perhaps because of these things - I'm a sucker for bands triumphing over adversity). The keys to Blue Carousel's sound are singer Valdis' high-pitched, other-worldly voice and the way their lead guitarist's trebly, scratchy, noisey melodies back the smooth synths. The band have a well developed sense of drama that (at least to my ears) never descends into melodrama - the best example of this being the epic closer that features a tense four-chord progression that eventually builds up to falsetto vocals, wailing synths, crashing drums and two guitarists wringing some glorious noise from their guitars, before disintegrating into a wash of white noise to finish. It can be pretty affecting stuff. If the band can manage to tighten things up ever so slightly (ie: tune those guitars and tighten that rhythm section) without loosing that slightly ramshackle energy they could grow into something really great.

My personal highlights for the night:
- the way that Blue Carousel's drummer would count the band into every song:
1 2 3 4 *half a beat pause* *band starts*
- the nu-metal Axl Rose (dreadlocks era) and David St. Hubbins lookalikes in the front row who seemed rather unimpressed by Blue Carousel, and left with a shouted "you're shit!" and middle fingers pointed at the band (which was received with hearty laughter from both the band and the rest audience).

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