New Pesky Bones Project Has Paul Kelly Pondering Empty Nest Syndrome

Sometimes you can get an idea of an artist just from the company they keep. Work down through the credits of the new Hiss Golden Messenger release and you’ll find Bon Iver’s drummer, Tift Merritt – who was so magical in her own right when with Jason Isbell on his tour before last – and a couple of Megafaun and sylvan vales of alt.folk with some country are suggested. But then you factor in Messenger main guy M.C.Taylor’s own history of punk bands and the somewhat more proggily reflective The Court & Spark. Yes, they named the band after a Joni Mitchell record – that’s a brave move in itself. Then Biloxi (Merge) comes at you with a helluva lot of Dylan in the vocal inflections, and a traditional richness in the backing – more Nashville Skyline than Shadows In The Night, for those needing a Zimmerman reference. But somehow it ends up being its own thing. And a rather good one.

Similarly, Sarah Belkner’s two most recent touring companions have been Sarah Blasko and Olympia. We are in the realm of distinctive female and human voices here, although that ‘chamber pop’ descriptor some want to place on it maybe undersells her grasp of technology that she merges with her sometimes honest and/or self-doubting words. Time (MGM) is both clever and approachable, and Brendan Maclean’s counterpoint male vocal adds another dynamic to the emotion in what Belkner does. 

The Pesky Bones project is being built – crowd-funding permitting – on having different voices to serve each song. That idea could fall over in a couple of places, but they’ll be an inherent quality in the songs – they being the work of Pete Farnan (Boom Crash Opera, etc) across a range of styles, as he can call on friends across that range of styles such as Deborah Conway, Paul Capsis, Tim Rogers and Tinpan Orange’s Emily to look at life from a number of angles. Now That Our Babies Have Grown (Independent) has no less than Paul Kelly and Rebecca Barnard pondering empty nest syndrome, and actually having to talk to each other again. Which can be an issue, even when as well-crafted as this. 

Or maybe you just want to hear a different voice. It seems like only last week Nick McCarthy announced he was bailing on Franz Ferdinand after over a decade, for ‘family commitments’ but the emergence of Cracks In The Concrete (Lost Map) after such a short interval suggests things may have been in train anyway. The ‘family’ element is in the name, Manuela is actually Mrs McCarthy, but her voice comes with some of that choppy guitar noise that he provided for that other band. Perhaps relatedly to his exit, song ponders money, success, and such things. It maybe loses its way a bit on the way through, but ends up different and familiar enough.

Me, I like a big bald bloke yelling angstily while the guitars have a dogfight around him. In this case, that’s Black Francis as part of the again-reconvened Pixies, and Um Chagga Lagga (PIAS Australia) a perfectly brutish cartoon, right down to the title. The words tend to disappear as the volume and howling increases, but if you listen closely enough it’s likely to be something about paranoia, disaffection, and possibly UFOs. You know the drill. Actually, some it sounds like a drill. Which in this case is a good thing. 

And sometimes the sound and vision just falls together, surprising even the participants. Fabels make a sometimes intriguing music that owes more to art than pop as guitars meander and then soar as loops and found sounds sometimes seep in or can stab like a migraine. Ah (Rabbit Releases) is modern certainly, but overlaid on a 1928 Soviet neo-realist documentary it somehow fits. Humanity struggling with mechanisation, maybe? But getting to rights to use clips from the original Metropolis is probably beyond an indie budget. 

With maybe a little less chaotic fear and loathing than their previous Axolotl offered, The Veils’ Low Lays The Devil (Footstomp) is more approachable, but still has some psychic threat to it. This is more about restrained menace, but equally fitting with his Finn Andrews’ new career move as part of the Twin Peaks reboot. The organ and guitar slink through the shadows of the forest as you take the shortcut to Grandma’s House, as Finn wrestles with what he can and can’t see but you can hear. They remain one of the most visceral bands, and the link with Mr Lynch’s new production may see them finally more appreciated. 

Hopefully, there’ll always be a place for reverb-drenched noise that here seems to somehow straddle a line from surf to shoegaze. Morning TV add a little ‘90s dream-pop to the formula, and with Turquoise (Habit Music) offer something of worth and intrigue that makes you want to hear more and investigate them further. The clip has them almost revelling in their suburban ordinariness, which makes the almost mystical sparkle in the music all the more appealing.