Bands have been referencing and taking inspiration from their own record collections from time immemorial. But few take such heat about it as DMA’S. A band so utterly Australian in nature that happily and unashamedly dips their collective lid to the generations of Northern English music they obviously love. You won’t have to go far down any Faceo thread reviewing them to find the “They’re just ripping off Oasis!” grumble. That’s probably not going to happen as much with For Now (I Oh You) – it’s bigger, beatier, baggier, and slightly lysergic nature already getting the “They’re just ripping off The Stone Roses!” whinges. But somehow it’s not simple, not that cynical. It’s not merely apeing, or even pastiche. If you were trying rip whoever off - you just wouldn’t be this obvious about it, would you? So, is it homage? Simply an unselfconscious reflection of their influences? Or a simple bloody good pop tune whose audience might not even recognise the history. Or care about it.
His recent tour that turned stadiums into living and breathing political billboards reinforced the thought Roger Waters still considers rock'n'roll a most serious business. But sometimes you don’t need the messages written to you on the side of a giant inflatable pig. Although, it’d probably be really neat if you had the budget to do so. Protest poetry can also be a difficult business – there’s a memory burnt into my synapses of The Stranglers’ intro on one tour was a half-hour of blank verse from a Russian soldier in Afghanistan – ok, it was the ‘80s – which may have more effect on a beer-fuelled #Strayan audience if some sort of subtitling into English may have been involved. Anyway, on Supremacy (Randana) Waters boils things down to a single close-up, the gravitas of his voice, and some subtle backing from the Palestinian Trio Joubran for poetry that speaks to and about not just the towering diplomatic and cultural stupidity of a superpower declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, but could relate to so many oppressed peoples across the world – including the one very close to hereabouts.
And then there’s the band forced to change their name because it was ‘too political’. Taking more steps toward wider acceptance, the band formerly known as The Viet Cong. Preoccupations make Disarray (Jagjaguwar/Inertia) a far more approachable thing. There’s always been the angular (There, I said it!...) taut guitars and dry drums of early ‘80s post-punk to them, with this adding the angst and pondering-while-wandering, staring at the horizon on a deserted beach which always seemed to serve bands like The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, and their ilk so well. That’s not a bad thing – and this is a definite shot across the bows of commerciality.
And thankfully, not everything has to be so damn moody and studied in the approach to the popular music. The dag-core of Alex Lahey has so much dorky charm – particularly if you’ve ever been in the sharehouses and bedsits that inform a bunch of her work. But here it’s about the family you’re forever stuck with, regardless of whatever inner suburb you’ve found yourself in. I Love You Like A Brother (Nicky Boy/Caroline) is beautifully gormless affection for that guy who used to steal your Coco-Pops. Will – the actual sibling genuine article referenced in the title - gets the cameo in the clip, showing a shared slightly cockeyed view of the world and each other. And the near mystical ability to find the only working phone box left in Newtown.
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In a genuinely constructive twist to the orthodox way things usually work, Alison Wonderland flips the producer/performer axis, with her being the musician building the skittering electronics underneath High (EMI), and makes 19-year-old rapper kiddie Trippie Redd the main voice and human element of the track. It’s a bit too energetic to be called the ‘ambient’, as the press release would have it. It’s oddly uplifting, allowing it’s basically about the ingestion of not-yet-commercially-available-here substances, and watching the world go by.
Maybe it’s always just been about Acting (Mexican Summer). Although not many take it as far as dragging up as Liz Taylor in that recent collaboration with SSION. So, Ariel Pink back under his own banner hides himself with perfect irony on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame as ‘80s plastic synth funk burbles away beneath. He’s in character still – maybe somewhere on a line from Lou Reed to Father John Misty, with a side-order of Scritti Politti’s pale soul in the soundtrack. It’s an odd business, but your liking for it might depend on how much sincerity as opposed to tongue-in-cheek with which you can cope.
In these days of starting your music career as a ‘Youtube sensation’, the trick is to work out where it goes next. Are you Lily Allen, or Keyboard Cat (RIP)? Clair Cottrill, aka Clairo to those increasing numbers tuning in is taking the music out of her Boston lounge-room, currently as far as being opening act for Tyler The Creator. Which means you also have the budget to illustrate one of her tinkling R&B-ish jams as literally as possible. Yes, Flaming Hot Cheetos (Fader) now comes with a chorus line of dancing snack food. This, customers, is of what teenage dreams are made.
