The Single Life: Food Court, Kaiser Chiefs & More

A moment’s pause, if you will, for Mikey Young. The once Eddy Current Suppression Ring and current Total Control chap is industrious, to understate it. Basically, if you’ve enjoyed something unselfconsciously indie, just a tad scruffy, but put together with some care and intent, Mikey’s thumbprint could likely be on it somewhere – with a credit for anything from actually playing on it, through producing, engineering, the arcane art of mastering, to probably ordering the pizza. He’s actually lost count as to how many records he’s been involved with – somewhere in the hundreds is a rough guess - so let’s start with a couple of recent items, from a couple of generations of local product.

Food Court decide they should take the title of On The River (Independent) somewhat literally for the visuals. So, we find them boating a couple of inlets from under their local - and already famous in song and story - Glebe Point Bridge. The Mikey-mastered tune has a shamble and a shuffle around Iron Cove in a manner determined to find rotation on community radio. It’s been an unhurried ascent, their enjoyment seemingly not troubled by careerist ambition.

Mr Young’s reputation is now transcending eras, as he also got to press the record button on the first offering from feedtime in nigh on 20 years. Their late-‘70s to early-‘90s output got namechecked by Sonic Youth and various of those boys in flannos from the Pacific Northwest, hence the interest in their return, and signing to possibly the most notable record label of that time and place. Flatiron (Sub Pop) has all the necessary roar and rumble of their halcyon days and suggests if they’ve got the guts to go on with it, there might be some pay-off for them, even if it’s happening in the century after they started making a racket.

A phrase not often heard in this country is ‘prog supergroup’. Frankly, it’s a phrase that might fill many with some dread. But, the presence of a couple of Dead Letter Circus, a Rook, and Producer Govinda Doyle means Three Tonne Deep – you know, that’s heavy AND deep, innit? – know what they’re about. Time (MGM) has the requisite guitar noodling, and big crescendos of angsty bellowing to serious intent. Place a cloth over the lounge-room lamp and nod because you know it’s talking to you, maaaan.

If you’d like your moody atmospheres to come with something prettier hiding behind them, Chromatics offer the mostly self-explanatory Yes [Love Theme From Lost River](Italians Do It Better). The movie in question is the first directing job by the aesthetically unchallenged Ryan Gosling. The ethereal vocals and feeling of foreboding suggest it ain’t The Notebook. Slightly more worrying is despite the fact the flick has his name attached, and features his similarly handsome missus Eva Mendes and our very own Ben Mendelsohn on screen among others, it’s been designated as going straight to video – whatever that means in these digital days – after getting a rousing boo-ing at Cannes. No, they weren’t saying ‘Boo-urns’.

Doing their own nifty line in visuals, Tricot have that wonderful close-to-cliché dichotomy of fragile-looking Japanese girls doing sturdy close-to-math-rock cycling noise. E (Bakeretsu) howls and clatters at you, apparently discussing an all-pervading computer virus, and even though singing in their native language, still sounds a little more meaningful, genuine, and passionate than most of The Veronicas back catalogue.

The Kaiser Chiefs decide to release a stand-alone post-album single to announce they won’t be touring elsewhere than England for at least the first half of the year, as Ricky Wilson has one of those jobs for the not-quite-biggest rock and roll luminaries – he’s judging on the UK version of The Voice, or Luxembourg’s Got Talent, or something. Falling Awake (Liberator Music) rattles along brightly in yer Chiefs typical manner. Which immediately decides whether you’ll need it or not.

The job’s Greg Chiapello has scored means he also has a full calendar over the next couple of months, he being the designated opening act as the exquisite Megan Washington tours the nation being shiny and brilliant. Hot Coffee (Rare Finds) sounds like a handy introduction to what he does, and what got him that rather splendid gig, showing off a vocal range and a bit of whimsy as it skates around being rather charming without getting too twee.

Synth-pop of some warmth got Flower Drums a WAMI nomination last year. Add the vocals of fellow Perthian St South, and Don’t Wait (Independent) washes over you and lodges in your head in a manner where the machines have some emotion. This has some retro feeling to it, but isn’t trading on that as a novelty point. It is pop music of texture and thought – and that’s never a bad thing.

Classy country music of range comes from the dusty plains of Melbourne from the accurately titled Raised By Eagles. Well, maybe not raised, but certainly they’ve listened to Desperado a couple of times. They decide on the old-school double-A side single to show their craft. Jackie (SlipRail/Vitamin) chugs along rather confidently with maybe some Tom Petty in its insistence. The other ‘side’, Honey, is more of the wistful stare into the middle distance with one or more Van Zandts aiding in the thought process. Very nicely done, at both speeds.