Various Asses – ‘Forever Baby’

Various Asses, or V/A for short, is another alias for Rachel Solier, better known as Fatti Frances. ‘Forever Baby’ is a brief instrumental with a drowsy and ruminative tone. It’s resonant and inviting, much like Fatti Frances’ more pop-oriented work, but without vocals the production sounds cavernous, almost ritualistic.

“V/A is a separate thing from Fatti – and I intend to keep doing both at this point,” Raquel Solier told me when I got in touch. Now a mother, Solier says she needs to go about making music a little differently now. “V/A has a small set of rules – quick decision making, delete at will, no vocals, use a secret sample of a song I love, and put things out there without thinking about it too much.

“[These are] all things I would love to do with Fatti but am to precious about it. In the end I think V/A is a clean slate where I can build more skills and experiment.”

Craün – Analysis

Craün is the work of Sydney-based artist Aris Hatzidakis. Analysis is his first album under this name, released earlier this year on Hush Hush Records both digitally and on cassette. It’s seven tracks of serene drone, reportedly drawing on field recordings of Sydney’s “industrial and natural areas”. There’s a lot of hushed, foggy drone music to choose from, but Hatzidakis is good at sustaining a cosmic, lonely mood across these seven tracks.

Get Analysis here.

X In O – ‘Totally in a Blaze’

‘Totally in a Blaze’ is either about burning to death or getting high. It doesn’t sound like the ideal soundtrack for either experience, because it’s disorientating enough sober and un-ignited. If ‘Bucephalus Bouncing Ball’ were composed by a crazed circus ringleader, maybe it’d sound like this?

This track appeared earlier this year on a small run cassette called RAW, but Kat Martian, aka X in O, aka half of Brisbane duo Brainbeau, assured me it will turn up again at some point in the future. Whether that’s on a new record or a reissue of RAW is yet to be determined. “If my new stuff is drastically different I’ll just release the old stuff as it was on the small run of RAW,” Kat told me. That’s just as well, as RAW originally issued in a run of 15.

In addition to appearances at the Ladyz in Noyz showcases in Adelaide, Sydney and Newcastle (it’s happening in Melbourne this week), X in O is planning a release with Russian artist Fureon Nectarmoon by December. Brainbeau is likely to have a release out in early 2016 as well.

Gravy Baby – Tripped Out Mindstate

This mixtape released back in April but it’s worth drawing attention to now, because Gravy Baby is among the most interesting local rappers I’ve heard of late. I was introduced to the south-west Sydney rapper via the clip for ‘Tripped Out‘, a bleak jewel in a local scene terminally fixated on self-help platitudes and dull social observation. I don’t know much about Gravy Baby personally – I tried to organise an interview but he politely declined – but the tracks on Tripped Out Mindstate mostly speak for themselves, and bring together a bunch of other likeminded Sydney rappers including Sky High and Nter. If you follow their names down the YouTube / Soundcloud rabbithole you’ll find some great material.

Get Tripped Out Mindstate here.

T.Morimoto – Crit Reflex

T.Morimoto is an alias for Sydney’s Thomas William. According to Thomas, the T.Morimoto name is meant to separate this work from his more dance-oriented material, and it’s probably for the best as there’s not much in the way of a ‘beat’ on Crit Reflex. Instead, these are seven short excerpts from longer improvisations using two synths, mixer feedback and an MPC1000.

“With the tape, I just wanted to do something that was totally immediate, had no particular conceptual focus, and had nothing to do with computers,” Thomas said when I got in touch. “I never really intended to release this stuff but he [Ryan Lloyd of label Junk Mnemonic] was keen just from hearing a couple on Soundcloud.”

“I’d describe it as an attempt to escape both the DAW, and any sense of criticality or conceptual intent,” Thomas continued. “I suppose [that’s] still a concept of sorts. I started recording these improvisations without intending to ever release them – as a way of escaping premeditation in terms of genre and avoiding the decision making process involved in using this or that set of sounds, or trying to get it to sound this way or that. I suppose it was a way of suspending the constraints that one inevitably works within when making music for a particular social context or with particular technology.

“Of course it’s impossible to ever transcend those containers, so in that sense this mode of creating music is doomed to instant failure and is inevitably subsumed straight back into a broader musical conversation or has certain descriptors applied to it by other people.  But I suppose that ongoing attempt to do those undoable things is what these recordings are about, if they have to be about something.”

Get Crit Reflex here.

New Grog Pappy tapes

Newcastle noise label Grog Pappy has five new cassettes after nearly a year of silence. They include Pluto, Cone Puncher, a split between ‘Crabby Bogman’ and ‘Moocockcowsafari’ (at a guess, Cooper Bowman and Cock Safari), Silly String and Sick Boy. Based on the samples embedded on the Grog Pappy blogspot Pluto is an early favourite, an eerie meeting point between Ashtray Navigations and The Caretaker. All five are on sale for $20 until the end of September, so you might as well buy them all.

Destiny 3000 – ‘380D’

I first saw Destiny 3000 play at the Imperial Hotel in 2013. There was lots of ’90s-inspired indie rock in Sydney at the time – boofy, emotionally vague guitar music – so I didn’t pay close attention. Two years later, they’ve just released their first 7 inch through RIP Society (they released a live tape on Paradise Daily last year) and it’s as warming as lo-fi guitar rock gets. I don’t have anything interesting to say about this, other than it makes me feel good, but also sad, and that I think you should listen to it.

Get the Destiny 3000 7 inch here.

The Rangoons – A Postcard From Rangoon Island

Lots of people brave enough to go out in public have said The Rangoons are one of Sydney’s best live bands at present. That may be true, but there are some great moments on this Paradise Daily cassette EP, especially the heartbreaking ‘Lunatic / Shadow’, which captures the same wistful melancholy as Garbage and the Flowers at their most restrained. The three-piece are playing at Paradise Biannually 2 (aka the second Rag Rag Festival) in November at Marrickville bowlo.

Get A Postcard From Rangoon Island here.