Jerry and Dom

But this time was different: there’s a mechanical and exact quality to Keigo Oyamada’s music that easily lends itself to description, and instead of rendering it predictable makes it unexpected, dangerous and exciting. My personal favourite, ‘Breezin’, blends shimmery synths with staccato drums, a track that should feel busy but actually sounds spacious and vibrant, like a realtor’s description of a studio apartment. The way Cornelius gives new context to these vocal samples gave me my first ideas in production and drove me to play around with sounds before I’d written any songs. It’s like she’s saying “Try and fall asleep now, motherfucker”.

Beautiful pink galas and native flowers, framed in soft pastels, the chorus breaking into a scene from Summernats – a car festival that seems to attract an especially rabid kind of rev head. Personally I love a good old fashioned rally down a mountain, but what’s happening here, either in fact or in clever editing, is something that seems about to boil over with violent excitement. The refrain of ‘let sleeping dogs lie/ no comfort in this home’ will be familiar to anyone who’s felt the extreme discomfort of broad, hyper-masculine Australia. This is one of the most commanding tracks I’ve heard in ages, and I can’t wait to hear more from their new LP Doomsday, out April 4 on Black Wire Records.

Attempting to write a few words about a festival you know and love—but this year didn’t attend—is damn right awful. If you didn’t get along to the 12th Golden Plains Music Festival held at the Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre, I suggest closing your browser right now, as these photos are about to pour a lot of salt into your fomo wound. We sent Tessa Mansfield-Hung along with her camera and great eye for capturing the good times in the ridic balmy sunshine. so I’ll let Tessa’s photos do the talking:

The flittering thrum of the electronics still provides the pulse, while the piano and cello parts gently inhale and exhale giving the controlled frenzy of Evan Dorrian’s drumming freedom to explore. As the track approaches a mid-point this balance soon shifts as Bown takes control, the drums swallowed up and spat back out in pummelling drum n bass rhythms, while the band paints in wild brush strokes across the musical canvas before a sputtering dissolve. As with ‘Stents’ the piece gradually morphs into something altogether different, in this case slowly building to a blissful, hypnotic crescendo as a perpetual drum loop and floating piano collide until neither is recognisable against the enveloping milieu. Arteries’ feels similarly sparse to begin, the undulating piano, subtly affecting guitar, and almost celestial atmospherics giving an air of euphoria, a mood that suits the bands sound perfectly.