The Best 7.5 of ‘15

This is a midyear backslap for the best 7.5 albums (six albums plus three EPs) of the first half of ’15.

1. Best Driving-Then-Pulling-Over For Sexy Escapades Album

Oh Inhumane Spectacle Methyl Ethel (Dot Dash)
Perth polymath Jake Webb shows his bandwidth on this five star debut album. See them this Sunday night at Remote Control’s Label of Love party at Shadow Electric. Full interview with eccentric singer songwriter Webb on the blog.

2. Trembling Tremolos, The Crowds Go Wild Album

Down Time Totally Mild

(Bedroom Suck)

Elizabeth Mitchell wants you to know what it’s like to be her and on Christa, Battleship and the devastating Always Around you feel like she’s dictating diary entries to you. Geoffrey O’Connor’s pop nous shakes hands with the band’s slick ability to write songs that waft around your head for days.

3. T-Rex Lives and He’s Left His Marc Album

Pretend You’re Mine

Pearls (Dot Dash/Remote Control)
Recently, lead singer and guitarist Ryan Caesar went triple denim at the Reclink Community Cup for Pearls’ dazzling early set. Playing their shoegaze twangers first and saving Big Shot until last had crowd members thrusting the air at the lusty climax.

4. The Whole World is Fallon For The Next Bob Dylan

Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit Courtney Barnett

(Milk! / Remote Control)
Rolling Stone just voted Pedestrian At Best the Best Song so far in 2015, which is nice and all but it’s the record’s deep cuts like the Tool-like (!) Kim’s Caravan and Dan Luscombe’s obscenely broad, ultra-squiggly guitar-work on Small Poppies that you’ll be going back to when you require some blue chip catharsis. Do yourself a favour and watch one of her recent shows at The Forum Theatre in full, courtesy of moshcam.com. The sound is just a leeeettle bit better than your tiny iPhone recorder … best you leave that in your pocket next time, champ. NB: Barnett is as much Jack Kerouac as she is Bob Dylan. “I don’t know who I am or the man I am trying, I make mistakes until I get it right,” is puzzlingly on point.

5. Yes He’s One of Ours Now Album

Marlon Williams Marlon Williams (Caroline)

That voice, THAT VOICE. It’s a slice of heaven (thanks Dave Dobbyn) best suited to slow ’n’ ready crooning on I’m Lost Without You, Dark Child and When I Was a Young Girl. Expect him to be able to fill The Forum, too, before the year is out. Baby Boomers are digging it, Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z … even anklebiters stop in their snotty tracks when Marlon hits certain notes. Williams got rave reviews for his launch at The Yarra Hotel. Get around him, Melbourne.

6. You’re Shout Mate, I’m Busy Shouting Album

Headless

Pale Heads (Poison City)
Tom Lyngcoln of The Nation Blue and Harmony assembled a band with current and past members of Batpiss, The Drones and Bang!Bang!Aids! The result: Epic Pale.

They play The Curtin Bandroom this Thursday and the Poison City Weekender.

6.5. scuttling Radiohead at Warp Speed EP

Can I Go With You To Go Back To My Country I’lls (Solitaire)
I’lls do just enough with their hooks and melodies to keep you strapped in as the warm jets fire up.

7. Big Smile, Big Heart, Big Future EP

Naked Howqua (Independent)
Steve Lillywhite (U2) is telling everyone about the earnest-but-not-portentous local folkie. Get Naked.

7.5. Sharing Different Heartbeats in a Night EP

Banquet

Lanks (Mucho Bravado)
Dapper, digital dude who uses analog and an androgynous voice without making a meal out it.

Which Australian artists have I missed? Many, I know. Email your suggestions to michael.cahill@news.com.au

Here’s that interview with 26-years-young Jake Webb of Methyl Ethel, sports fans, he teaches guitar, drums and keys to little kids and works with his dad in the fibre glass industry. The name of his father’s firm is not, as far as I know, Mr Webb and the Glass Spiders, Jake is a Bowie fan though.

The name Methyl Ethel, I wasn’t a fan at first but I’m coming around to it (crowd shrugs). The etymology?

“My dad works in fibre glass. Literally to make the product it’s methyl ethel ketone peroxide, I like the onomatopoeia vibe, it’s an evocative word.”

Where did you put Oh Inhuman Spectacle together and how the heck does it sound so accomplished?

“Wherever I was really, I moved around Perth suburbs, it started at my folks place a couple of hours south of Perth. That was the genesis and then it grew from there.”

What was the kernel of Twilight Driving? It’s one of those songs with a chorus that seems weirdly familiar and crepuscular..

“It was actually on one of those drives south, it’s quite dangerous driving in twilight or early in the morning because it’s dark at dusk and literally kangaroos pose a huge danger. It’s a weird headspace you get into hurtling down the road at 80 or 100 ks an hour, watching everywhere you’re going, it’s a white knuckle feeling, it’s a good metaphor.”

It’s a comment on 2015 too, everyone has that white knuckle feeling to some extent, checking our phones, checking our emails, checking up on each other. Does it tie in with that thematically?

“Absolutely, I’m alive in this world so everything around us exists in that same headspace.”

I can’t pick what the chorus reminds me of, it’s got a late ‘70s, early ‘80s Fleetwood Mac vibe and I swear I know the song but I can’t quite pick it.

“Yeah I’ve been told that. I think it’s just the nature of pop songs over candy chords, they do have a familiarity to them. That’s a nice thing, everything’s a homage, everything is borrowed, everything is a pastiche from a life lived plugged into music and the radio. If it evokes something familiar — even if people seek it out and find what it sounds like — I think that’s a good thing. It’ll be a reward for you when you figure it out.”

Tell me about your background and when and how you decided that making music was the thing that makes you happy..

“Thinking about this more and more I would always wake up to the sound of my sister practising her scales. I got my first guitar when I was 12 years old. I was obsessed with music, listening to it and figuring it out. It was only yesterday that I sat down and sent the whole day figuring out the chords to one of my favourite classical pieces of music and studying up on my contrapuntal and harmonic composition. The stuff between the lines — I like big characters in music, I like to figure out the mystery.”

Recap for me, which classical piece were you nutting out?

“I’m only half way there but it’s this Ravel piece, the Second Movement of the Piano Concerto in G. Yeah, that and a bunch of others. Every now and then when I’m in a songwriting headspace like now I’m obsessed with diving back into classic recordings and oiling the machine up.”

Literally the classics, not The ‘Stones and Fleetwood Mac and The Beatles, more Debussy and Wagner…

“Literally. It’s great inspiration. I love Ravel, the minimalists, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, that’s who I love. I don’t see much classical music, I have this thing about sitting in an auditorium stuck with the bourgeoisie. It’s not the way it’s intended, tickets are so expensive so it’s a shame only the rich are able to go and see this stuff.”

Take me back to the moment when Lorrae McKenna (Remote Control and Dot Dash rep) saw you guys play at WAM Festival and then signed you to Dot Dash…

“That was really nice. She’s so lovely. As far as shows go we just wanted to hit our mark. It was nice to hear they were interested and to go and meet all the crew in their office in Footscray and it was so refreshing to meet industry people who just loved music; we just chatted about bands we loved and that’s when we knew it was a really good fit. Until I held the record in my hand it didn’t seem real.”

Tour stories, go…

“We had a couple of days off in Launceston, we had a raucous evening in Launy. We always kick the footy out the back of venues. It’s funny, as soon as we get to a small town we hole up in the hotel (laughs). I really enjoy the driving across Tasmania, it’s a good sign that when we have days off we miss playing shows. We don’t play the same set twice which is also a good sign. We all get together and decide what we’re gonna do after soundcheck, after we’ve figured out what the venue sounds like. We have a nice spectrum of feels in our songs, we can cater to lots of places.”

I’m hearing a lot of Animal Collective on Unbalancing Act. The way the rhythms and the vocals move like the waves gliding up the beach then retreating. There are some Ariel Pink hues on the album too.

“It’s really nice hearing that comparison, I do really enjoy Animal Collective and of course Ariel Pink is incredible too. I listen to golden oldies radio a lot, anything with a good hook and good melody. There’s a lot of music I’ve got from blogs, DIYorDie is a guy who unearths all these experimental cassettes from all over the world, things like that. It’s nice to take ownership of things and feel ‘WOW, I’ve discovered this thing.’ There’s a thing called Phono Ethic, he has a really good analog synthesiser and he made a whole record with it, LA Mantra 2. Brad Laner who went on to form Medicine, he’s got a song on there. ”

Tame Impala cast a long shadow over bands from WA, do you feel a kinship with those guys?

“Totally (bright tone). We all know them in varying capacities and have seen them in small venues to massive capacities. I love Perth’s local bands, all these bands that probably nobody will ever hear of but they’re special shows in people’s backyards. There’s venues closing down so there’s an underground — like in any city — you’ve just gotta look.”

Also Gesellschaft is like a driving theme, can-I-get-a-segue, what are the driving themes to the record? I hear your lyrics touching on stasis and stagnancy…

“The themes are working against the safety and complacency of being in one spot, the feel of crashing and burning in order to help something grow. Certain decisions will hurt but garner new experience and change. Oh Inhumane Spectacle has that push and pull.”

Shadow Electric, Abbotsford. Sun, 6pm. $ 15. shadowelectric.com.au

MUST SEE THREE

1 THE CHURCH

The Church’s latest tour sees the evergreen band play their 1982 album The Blurred Crusade (home to Almost With You and When You Were Mine) and last year’s Further/Deeper in full plus others. Buy Steve Kilbey’s book Something Quite Peculiar for an insight into a true artist.

170 RUSSELL ST, CITY. FRI, 8PM. $ 55, 170RUSSELL.COM

2 RICE IS NICE: LABEL OF LOVE

We claim Kiwis who become successful, so can Melbourne claim Sydney label Rice is Nice for being a bunch of legends? The answer is yes … for a one-nighter: You Beauty, SPOD, Alex Cameron, Summer Flake and Sarah Mary Chadwick.

SHADOW ELECTRIC, SAT, 6PM, $ 10. SHADOWELECTRIC.COM.AU

3 HIGH TENSION & OUTRIGHT

TENNNN-SHUN! Seen High Tension’s performance at All Good in the Wood in their clip for Sports? Never mind, just go see them launch their Bully album. They’ll make you duck for cover like OG bully Fletcher did in Whiplash and you’ll be a stronger person for the experience. Trust.

HOWLER, BRUNSWICK, SAT, 8PM, $ 15, H-W-L-R.COM

Follow ol’ mate: twitter.com/joeylightbulb

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