New Order Prove They Can Still Stand Beside The New Kids On Their Own Terms

Customers, I do really sometimes suffer to entertain and inform you. You wouldn’t believe the amount of bad music that’s out there, as I wade through it to find things worth suggesting you listen.

Actually, ‘bad’ isn’t always ‘bad’. That at least suggests there’s some effort being put in. ‘Ordinary’ is worse – songs designed by committee for talent contest winners, or some douchebarrow who finds GarageBand on their old Mac and decides the world should hear their experiments.

This gets balanced when something appears in the Inbox unbidden that is genuinely right. What Jack River offers is modern, original, and individual. Holly Rankin’s back story of growing up out of the big cities in the kinda splendid isolation of Forster, an element of loss to focus and develop the art, a musical false start that she’s now tried to remove every trace of. And so to Palo Alto (I Oh You). The cascading guitars of the intro suggest pop music, certainly – but with a balance of humanity and technology. It’s an assured creative voice, but with a feeling she’s still going to find more in the layers of her sound, and a range of music across her EP that she can be different, and will end up impressing you (and me) even more. 

Then there are those who have been working a certain level for an age. Some folks have even asked just what is so special about New Order? That argument seems based on the fact that now there’s a lot of bands with programmed constructions and a voice that perhaps isn’t technically just right, but somehow gets the humanity across. Point is, they did it first. A long time ago. And can still stand beside the new kids on their own terms. The churlish (ok, me…) can still be disappointed about the ongoing family feud with Peter Hook, whose low-slung bass noise was such a part of them, but they’re still punching. And People On The High Line (Mute) has them still trying something different – adding the empathetic vocals of LaRoux to the affair, as the kids breakdance on patches of lino and cardboard – wait, people still do that?

And let us salute our own proud #Strayan boys off to scare the world, or significant elements of it. The estimable DZ Deathrays are off on tour, but leave behind a farewell note in Pollyanna (I Oh You), apparently one of the last creations to emerge Sydney’s almost-legendary Troy Horse rehearsal studios – still say it should have been declared a world heritage site.  You can almost smell the International Roast instant coffee seeping in, as the DZ’s messy, scowling, but somehow oddly joyous and energetic noise comes at you like that guy at the pub who’s yelling at you over the racket, making you nod enthusiastically even if you have no idea what he’s actually on about. 

Also along the faster and scruffier local line, Mesa Cosa make ‘house party thrash’ – whatever that phrase actually means. There’s an odd intensity of stumbling through the woods to immolate musical instruments through Stone Bone (Off the Hip), which kinda fits with the King Gizzard-related credits to the recording. And then you find their December party/gig in Sydney will honour no less than Neighbours survivor and a woman who managed to sit next to Lawrence Mooney for a couple of series of Dirty Laundry without actually punching his fool head in, the luminous Brooke Satchwell. Whether she’s actually at said occasion, or is being honoured in absentia, it just feels like somewhere you’d want to be.

Further to those who deserve honouring, let us consider Jonine Standish of the often grimly arty HTRK. Obviously a very special woman, she already has one certifiable classic tune expressly dedicated to her in the late Rowland S. Howard’s ode, I Know A Girl Called Jonny. Now sometimes techno producer and label owner Powell presents the even more simply titled Jonny (XL Recordings/Remote Control), with the added bonus of it featuring the eponymous subject’s presence on it. It’s more approachable than some of his previous club-aimed work, but played loud enough the scribbling of guitars has almost punkish edges to it, eminently suitable to soundtracking the headbutting of watermelons as illustrated. Although we should advise you not to try this at home, and certainly not in the fruit and veg aisles of the local Woolies or Coles.

It’s going on four years from the last new noise from Dirty Projectors, but David Longstreth’s ‘band’ guise returns pretty much out of the blue with Keep Your Name (Domino). It is music that can be a little difficult to approach, as it opens with his near-uncomfortable - but strangely aching and real - deep groan of a ‘singing’ voice, as a relationship cracks into slivers. It drags you in as it unfurls, even as he self-samples his own previous track, Impregnable Question, before careening into a rap outbreak. You remain off-balance – it’s like any one of those musical ideas might have been enough, but he just piling more in, almost overwhelming you. Or maybe that’s the idea.

After that, you almost need to take a breath. And Sparrows offers a slightly other-worldly meandering electronica to make you follow her into the forest. Get To Know You (Rare Finds) has a lilt, but retains a slightly uncomfortable detachment to the feeling that are being expressed - or not. But that might just be the recreational pharmaceuticals kicking in. It is oddly beautiful. Or perhaps just beautifully odd. 

And you can be melodic, but just a little deliberately fucked up. The self-described ‘twisted cabaret’ of Mild High Club on Kokopelli (Stones Throw/Inertia) here comes with Native American spirit animals, hand-made animation, childbirth and – again, their provided words – a touch of ‘psychedelic jazz funk fusion’. Their dry wit somehow places them on a line that runs through both the aforementioned King Gizzard to Steely Dan. Which really isn’t quite so silly a connection when you think about it.