Another wet day in Sydney, a day on which an estimated 100,000+ of us walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge to protest Israel’s starvation and genocide of Gaza, the occupation, the killing of children, and Australia’s complicity. It was clearly more than the police had expected, because as the front of the march was pouring into Milson’s Point and North Sydney, the tail end was still on the other side, and they freaked out about the number of people and made us all turn back around. Mass confusion and outrage, but we made it back in an orderly fashion it must be said. It was a truly heartening thing to be part of.

LISTEN AGAIN to these sounds specially collected for your pleasure. Stream on demand on fbi.radio, podcast here.

Editrix – The Big E [Joyful Noise Recordings/Bandcamp]

Editrix – Another World [Joyful Noise Recordings/Bandcamp]

Last year’s Viewfinder album by Wendy Eisenberg was one of my albums of the year, and their “In The Pines” will be up there in songs of the decade I daresay. A guitarist’s guitarist, Eisenberg is a master musician, also playing tenor banjo and working with electronics, and playing in ensembles ranging from jazz and free improv to, well, what we have here: just brilliant avant-garde punk. I’ve seen Editrix described as math rock, and OK maybe, but really it’s just great, knotty, melodic punk to me, with Eisenberg joined by a great rhythm section: Steve Cameron on bass and Josh Daniel on drums. Our opener, their third album’s title track, has one of those melodies where the intervals are all bent out at angles, making it catchy as hell. The whole album’s perfect riffs, noise sections and top-of-the-lungs vocals. They’ve just signed to Joyful Noise Recordings, and this is absolutely a joyful noise.

Laurén Maria – Conversate [Warm Winters Ltd./Bandcamp]

Laurén Maria – Filled Up Smile [Warm Winters Ltd./Bandcamp]

I first heard Berlin-based Laurén Maria on a 12″ from Yu Miyashita‘s label The Collection Artaud, two tracks of deconstructed electronics with processed vocals hidden within. Her second album, You’re Beautiful, is a masterpiece of deconstruction, in which guitar-led songs jostle with glitch-noise and the subs and fractured beats of the club lurk around the edges. Whether it’s indie-emo songs, screamo tangents or abstracted electronics, Maria somehow makes it all hold together into a strangely affecting album. Also notable, her duo with Diamantista, LICITIR.

Lovers – Could I Expect Love No Matter What [Thanatosis/Bandcamp]

Forthcoming in mid-September from Alex Zethson‘s Thanatosis is the debut from Lovers, the duo of vocalist Linda Oláh and guitarist Giani Caserotto. But “voice and guitar” this ain’t, any more than Laurén Maria above is… The two singles both inhabit a glitched, transformed space of electro-acoustic experimentation – although the duo have modelled Lettres d’amour on the tradition of love serenades, performed by troubadors accompanying themselves on lutes. If so, this is the past seen through a crack’d mirror. Looking forward to the rest of the album.

On Diamond – Downslide [Eastmint Records/Bandcamp]

Here’s the second single from the long-awaited new album from Naarm/Melbourne’s On Diamond. On “Downslide” singer Lisa Salvo evokes a feeling of being lost and helpless. It’s a lovely song, lifted higher with the harp of Genevieve Fry, and ending with some deranged synth/guitar soloing (an On Diamond special).

Bird Battles – Overgrown [Sleep In The Fire Records]

Earlier this year I was pleased to play the incredible debut “Bird Battles” from the duo of the same name – in fact there I am quoted on the Bandcamp page! I expressed hope that more was to come, and here is the album announcement! Bird Battles features the voice and other sounds of London-based Scottish musician Euan Millar-McMeeken, better known as glacis and also one half of Graveyard Tapes with Matthew Collings and of Civic Hall with Craig Tattersall. Here he’s working with visual and sound-artist Jesse Narens, whose love of birds is all over his visual art and audio work. This promises to be emotive, raw songwriting, delicate and noisy, touching through abstraction.

Juanlu Barlow & his Love-Fi Recordings – Red lights [Oigovisiones/Bandcamp]

Juanlu Barlow & his Love-Fi Recordings – Beat street [Oigovisiones/Bandcamp]

This is not a new Three Broken Tapes album declares the new album credited to Juanlu Barlow & his Love-Fi Recordings. Those of us not acquainted with the Spanish indie scene (specifically Málaga) may not understand the reference, but Three Broken Tapes was a project started by Juanlu Gutierrez in 2009, who was then joined by Fran Barrionuevo until the band’s last release in, as far as I can see, 2018. Gutierrez is usually known now as Juanlu Barlow, and has for some years been releasing masses of music via “my private underground“, mostly under the electronic alias Lüüü and the more indie rock Little Bradley. Both musicians from Three Broken Tapes are also visual/film artists, and while the Oigovisiones label is much more focused on experimental music, they’d long wanted to put out a Three Broken Tapes release of some sorts. This isn’t it, but it has the indie rock basis, with krautrock and lo-fi electronic seams running through it. It’s super-quirky, experimental by definition, and it’s always great to discover a weird music scene from somewhere new!

Tutu Ta – Evil Cry (Ft. Lady I) [Tutu Ta Bandcamp]

Tutu Ta is a UK producer otherwise known as “Nomad the Shadow Dancer”, and nothing more identifying as far as I know, although there’s a connection with the Accidental Meetings crew somehow. His music is often dub or dubstep/grime/jungle based, but just as much can float towards some kind of arcane folk or postpunk jazz thing. He’s now released an 8-track album, Pepper, and this dancehall-ish, grimey track is the opener. Not sure who Lady I is!

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