New Drones Will Send You Into Near-Orgasmic Tumbles

What is it about The Drones that sends reviewers into near-orgasmic tumbles of superlatives, intelligentsia of a range of disciplines stroke their beards earnestly, or a thousand sweaty drunks in a room smash beers while they sing along to a drowning sailor waiting for the inevitable jaws to close around him, or revel in the second man on the moon pissing himself in his spacesuit? The jagged stuttering shuffle of Taman Shud (Tropical Fuckstorm) is a serrated knife running across your wrists, Gareth Liddiard’s scream a cockatoo landing on a scorching corrugated-iron roof at midday. An unsolved murder from the 1940s cuts across Harold Holt still missing, and the sad fact that Andrew Bolt isn’t. Maybe it’s in those details, little could-only-be-Australian sidebars of history that suggests Gaz has an archive of Australasian Post magazines from 1959 to 1975 under his bed, to delve into between fevered sleeps. It’s beyond visceral: you can taste the sweat, blood, and a southerly buster stirring up the sand on the beach where the body sits propped against a sea wall. So maybe we should stop trying to analyse it, and just feel it. And realise this remains an extraordinary band.

And while that voice is utterly of a place, sometimes a counterpoint is needed. Lanu is yet another guise for Lance Ferguson of ‘hardest working band in showbiz’ contenders, The Bamboos. But under this banner, the underlying tone is embracing his ancestors’ various heritages. Dragon Sun (Pacific Theatre) is a textured thing - part Polynesia, perhaps with some of Malcolm MacLaren’s electro-dance rewrite of Madam Butterfly under there somewhere as well. But the real trump is Megan Washington’s sinuous tones floating in and around it. Her voice, of course, making anything better. Music of softer, but just as real, feeling.

And maybe somewhere between the two, Urthboy’s first item under his own name on the marquee. Long Loud Hours (Elefant Traks) also taking some inspiration from past local headlines – in this case, the now 60 Minutes-fodder of the ‘hijack the helicopter to bust your boyfriend out of prison’ story of around the turn of this century. It’s a yarn almost worthy of being an episode of Empire. But I may be sorry I suggested that. Anyhow, Mr Boy – or may I call him ‘Urth’? – manages to add an element of the desperate love-in-spite-of-itself story to it, with Bertie Blackman adding the other side of the conversation. It becomes a fairytale, albeit one without the requisite happy ending, but results in an interesting bit of myth-making for all involved.

For reasons never entirely clear, The Cops managed to provoke an incredibly polarising reaction in the days when they seemed destined for…something. Seemingly loved and loathed in equal proportion, you’re intrigued that Simon Carter resurrects the brandname, after trying to bill himself as himself for a while there. What must be lineup #137 of the band again has Carter surrounded by some well-credentialed bandmates, and musically dealing in an almost original punk-era rattle on Move Over Money (Independent).

Paul Conrad is quite fitting the Aussie-rock mode either. Although, already being signed to overseas labels suggests that may be the right thing for him. California (Dew Process) furthers the thought he may well be looking more outward and away, but his origins - also in a slightly punk area – have given way to something more of an electronica line, but still allowing itself an occasional sneer at the world, perhaps to hide its own unease. Not sure if the phrase is ‘uncomfortably smooth’, or ‘smoothly uncomfortable’. Both have worked on repeated listenings. Those needing a firsthand descriptions of what’s going on visually are offered: “Ideally designed to exhibit the dichotomous manifestations of circumstances conducive to the upper echelons of societal constructs whereby money, beauty and good fortune waver and acquiesce in the face of insecurity, inner torment & the evil that resides within all of us.” Well, that clears that up nicely, doesn’t it?

Another sometimes puzzling character, Bradford Cox of Deerhunter. Another who wanders off on side-projects before coming back to the fold, and releasing Fading Frontiers – already being called one of the UK’s albums of the year by those mastheads that used to matter. For his part, Cox talked that record up as ”Sounding like INXS…” We all smile good-humouredly, but think with song like Living My Life (4AD), the 20^th century band they’re really echoing is something more in the Talk Talk line, of big ruminations over small things. As above, artists are now offering crib guides to what’s going on in the video – and perhaps to save you from watching it. Mr Cox describe its style as "Macro meditations on geology and botany to observations of afternoon light filtered onto wooden floor". Naturally.

Trouble With Templeton were another of those bands a bees’s dick from making it big(ger). But, like a million before and a million from now, never quite got the brass ring. Hugh Middleton was one voice of it, who has dusted himself off, and now offers music for its own sake under the Mid Ayr name. Letting You In (Inertia) has a quiet jauntiness in an almost Josh Pyke-ian way, before getting a bit bigger and waving cheerily at any commercial FM programmer who happens to be within earshot.

In their unashamedly folky vein Tinpan Orange make a sweetly human noise. Not the least because of Emily’s sweetly human voice. You’re Not There (Independent) marks their return after a middling-length absence. There’s added input in the writing and production from The Cat Empire’s Harry, who seems to make any band he’s involved around sound happy they’re doing what they’re doing. Add this to the list.