Big Scary – ‘Daisy’ review: Melbourne indie-pop duo return with their grooviest album yet, Tom Iansek and Jo Syme set aside the guitars and recast themselves as an eccentric disco outfit on their fourth album
Melbourne’s Big Scary have never been an ordinary indie-pop band. Their very versatility has engendered experimentation, flux and transgression. Now, after 2016’s bombastically maximalist ‘Animal’, they’ve returned with ‘Daisy’: a whimsical synth-funk album that ushers in their own bohemian Daisy Age.
A traditionally autonomous duo – of Tom Lansek on lead vocals, guitar and keys, and Joanna Syme on drums and backing vocals – Big Scary have long defied any limitations. Their 2010 EP series ‘The Big Scary Four Seasons’ traversed myriad genres: Bon Iver-y neo-folk, piano balladry, prog rock and garage-punk. They incorporated hip-hop recording techniques for 2013 breakthrough ‘Not Art’, which won the Australian Music Prize. Then, with ‘Animal’, the band revelled in theatrical post-rock, Lansek’s usually supple voice arch as he incongruously assumed a pseudo American twang. Ironically, ‘Animal’ was Big Scary’s most commercially successful album, yielding a hit in ‘The Opposite Of Us’.
Named after an oft-overlooked garden bloom, ‘Daisy’ is the antithesis of ‘Animal’. Lansek and Syme have abandoned grand artifice; indeed, amid the COVID-19 lockdown, Big Scary have conceived a concentrated and enclosed album. It’s also more of a joint effort than previous records: on ‘Daisy’ Lansek and Syme share vocal and lyric duties, ruminating on relationships, authenticity and aspiration in a digital world ‘Daisy’ has zero guitars, as Big Scary fully embrace synths following Lansek’s electronic side-project No Mono with Lowlakes’ Tom Snowdon and Syme moonlighting as DJ Slymewave. Somewhat surprisingly, the pair add buoyant dance rhythms: ‘Wake’, a knowingly melodramatic duet about co-dependence, blends Warpaint and Washed Out’s chillwave.
We worked really hard to bring you our 2020 line-up in 2021, but the world had other ideas. Much has changed since we announced our 2021 line-up in December and some of our pals from across the pond are no longer able to make it.
Determined to bring you the best party this summer, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work curating an exciting new line-up. Feast your eyes on our new additions for 2021 and already familiar names.
Electro-pop heavyweights Hot Chip, anarchic punks Sleaford Mods and sonic explorers Stereolab plus Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, confessional synth-pop starJohn Grant and Malian musical nomads Tinariwen all join previously announced musical polymath King Krule UK rap pioneer Little Simzendlessly inventive tune-yards and many more.
For those of you who were caught unaware by the early March sell out, some more exciting news comes in the form of a Limited Late Release of Tickets. You will have your chance to grab a ticket for this year’s End Of The Road on May 20th at 10am. Tickets have been in high demand, so set aside whatever else you were planning to do that day and head over to our website to make sure you’re one of the lucky few.
We know this is a big change from our original line-up but we’re sure you’ll be ready to party with us in September anyway. In case you’re not, we’ve decided to open up refunds for a strictly limited 10-day window. Many of you supported us by rolling over your tickets from 2020, for which we’re truly grateful, and loads of people are still hoping to buy tickets, so although we have the right to substitute acts under the T&Cs of ticket purchase, in these special circumstances if anyone wants out you’ve got until midnight on the 14th May to request your refund.
Rest assured, we are making plans with all the guidance currently available to us and keeping up to date with all relevant authorities whilst waiting for further advice from the Government come June 21st.
The Brooklyn-based quartet discuss creating their own musical language, whether their songs are fit for hallucinogenic experimentation, and the importance of staying independent,
Crumb, four twentysomethings who sit inconspicuously in the centre of the room. Bassist Jesse Brotter picked the spot he says that his grandfather once came here and ate a full plate of herring after a funeral. Luckily, the mood today is not so morose. As the band peruses the menu, they display a quiet but goofy camaraderie, giggling nervously; they haven’t done many interviews.
The quartet’s ambitions for Crumb were always humble, and on the surface, at least, their music is equally subtle—the type of soulful psychedelia that’s ideal for introspection. Yet without any explicit push—no label, no management, no booking agent—Crumb’s streaming numbers surged with an intensity that countless unsigned bands crave following their 2017 EP, “Locket”. Currently, their most popular song boasts 11 million streams on Spotify, an almost unimaginable number for a new independent rock band. “I try not to look up the numbers because they sometimes freak me out,” singer, guitarist, and lead songwriter Lila Ramani shyly admits.
Because of their streaming success and unobtrusive sound, it could be easy to peg Crumb as just another band churning out “chill” playlist music that is made to lure listeners into easy-going apathy. But while Crumb’s work presents a heady front, little about it encourages actual emotional disconnection; subtle curls of detail—the distant bleat of a saxophone, a quivering synth note, a bowed guitar warble—emerge and ensnare the ear before fading back into the fray, never distracting from the overall mood. “A big part is making things shift in ways that are intentional but that you would never think about as a listener,” says keyboardist Brian Aronow. “I don’t want to do something that makes you think about a choice we made, but hopefully it made you feel something under the surface.”
Ramani’s opaque lyrics, meanwhile, are more haunting and anxious than calming. In a cool murmur, she sings of cracking up or fading away, demons invading her dreams, of dark spirits appearing at shows. “I feel trapped, my mind, the impending doom,” she frets on the group’s debut, self-titled EP from 2016. Forking a pierogi in the restaurant, Ramani attests, “I wouldn’t want to chill to our music.”
Crumb’s elaborate visuals have also undoubtedly helped to extend the band’s reach. Working alongside a Brooklyn-based director who goes by Haoyan of America, their trippy videos translate Crumb’s low-key psychedelia into hallucinogenic odysseys. In their first video, “Bones,” Ramani soaked in a tank of feeder fish for hours. For 2018’s “Locket,” a 360-degree camera warps the band like a funhouse mirror. Crumb are quick to add that though the videos appear incredibly professional, the process behind them is decidedly DIY, with the band often serving as both cast and crew.
The comments on these videos teem with listeners thanking Crumb for making music that gloriously complements certain types of hallucinogenic experiences. The band chuckle when I bring this up. “I wanna call a bluff on that,” drummer Jonathan Gilad says with a laugh. “There’s no way people are just dropping acid all year, all the time—if you are, we wanna see the video proof.” But they can understand why their songs would have such an effect. As Aronow explains, “A big part of the music is about being detached and taking you to a specific place in your own mind.” More than anything, though, Ramani proposes that Crumb’s music is defined by its insular universe. “One of my friends recently told me that she would categorize our music as ‘music you listen to when you’re by yourself,’ which I felt was very accurate.”
With the full band now living in Brooklyn, Crumb holed up with producer Gabe Wax (Fleet Foxes, Soccer Mommy) for a month last summer to record their first LP, “Jinx”. The title feels fated: On the first day of the sessions, Brotter tripped and broke his kneecap. Though Crumb spent an extensive amount of time fine-tuning Jinx’s understated complexities, the record never sounds taxing. As Brotter tells me, “It’s is a culmination of these songs pinging around our little universe for so long.”
In mid-march last year, we halted production of the album. We’d been recording it for weeks and had nine days left to finish. For the next few months, we hunkered down and waited in our spaces far from home – Jesse and Bri in an extended airbnb, Jonathan with his parents, and me in a room I was subletting. That period of uncertainty and deep reflection fed the energy that we put into finishing the record. “Ice Melt” was a rare and precious escape from the idleness and chaos of the year; at times it felt like the songs were the only things grounding us to this earth, a living breathing vestige of our pre-pandemic lives.
Thank you sm to everyone who stuck it out with us and helped us create this thing.- Lila
Toledo-based rock powerhouse Citizen recently released their fourth full-length “Life In Your Glass World“, and today the band have returned with Glass Mix 1: the first in a series of EPs that feature reimagined versions of songs from the new album.
Earning praise from fans and critics alike, Life In Your Glass World is another giant step forward for a band that have spent over a decade challenging expectations and refusing to be easily defined. Citizen recorded the album completely on their own terms in the home studio that vocalist Mat Kerekes built in his garage, and on the Glass Mix EPs the band continue to stretch out in their newfound creative freedom. The first installment includes stripped back versions of “Death Dance Approximately,” “I Want To Kill You,” and “Fight Beat,” highlighting the songs’ versatility and Kerekes’ raw, impassioned vocals.
“Death Dance Approximately” (Alternative Version) by Citizen, from the EP ‘Glass Mix 1’ out now via Run For Cover Records
Los Angeles band Warpaint are back with their first new music in five years in the form of ‘Lilys’, which has already featured on HBO series Made For Love. It marks the beginning of a new era for the band and introduces new music on the way. After spending most of the pandemic on opposite sides of the world, ‘Lilys’ sees them reunite at last on this simmering, synth-driven track. There’s a definite edge to the song, a dark side that draws you in through its hypnotic beat.
The band describe the process of making ‘Lilys’:
“This track started as an experiment. We were messing around with synth sounds and trying for something textural and almost atonal at times. It wasn’t intended to make its way to our album sessions. But after some mining and editing it became a really nice bed for a melody. It’s one of those things that just flows out without much thought. It’s so sweetly satisfying when that happens!”
Warpaint’sStella Mozgawa is one of rock’s most creative and in-demand drummers. But few people know she’s from Sydney, mates with Flea, and was accidentally high the first time she met Björk. She’s one of the most dynamic and fun drummers to watch live. She’s in one of the coolest bands on the planet. And she’s played with some of the most beloved indie acts around today – from Kurt Vile to The xx and Kim Gordon.
Stella grew up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches with her Polish immigrant parents who moved to Australia to perform together as a musical duo. She became a drummer in defiance of her “anti excessive noise” mum, and later moved to New York City, aged 21, with her band Mink.
A few years later she had befriended another Aussie expat – none other than Red Hot Chilli Peppers bassist Flea – who convinced her to move to LA. In 2009, she met Warpaint vocalist and guitarist Theresa Wayman and was asked to join the band to replace Shannyn Sossamon, who left to focus on her acting career. She was living in Flea’s guest house at the time.
“We still stay in touch,” she says of the Melbourne-born musician. “He was so instrumental in me meeting the Warpaint girls. He was the first person to even say their name to me and the first time I hung out with them was around him and around his friends, so he had a huge part to do with that.”
“There’s a lot of people from that era that were raised on certain music that have so much integrity,” she says. “Whether you’re a Red Hot Chilli Peppers fan or not, he really means what he does and he’s a punk at heart. He doesn’t give a shit about metrics or who’s popular, he’s just about the soul of music.”
“Lilys” (HBO ‘Made For Love’ Cut) · Warpaint under exclusive license to Virgin Music Label & Artist Services
Released on: 30th April 2021 Composer Lyricist: Emily Kokal Composer Lyricist: Theresa Wayman Composer Lyricist: Jenny Lee Lindberg Composer Lyricist: Stella Mozgawa
Yonaka are at it once again and this time their new track comes in the form of this self-produced single “Ordinary”. The single is the quartet’s third single since they dropped their smash debut LP “Don’t Wait ‘Til Tomorrow” back in 2019, and it sounds like the new songs are going to be on one heck of an album.
After rising from the ashes this January with the release of ‘Seize The Power’, YONAKA have returned with more kick-ass anthems to satisfy the hunger of their fans. Following a two-year hiatus since their debut the Brighton-based powerhouse today introduce ‘Ordinary’.
It goes without saying that for fans of Yonaka, new music was in desperate need, especially after what most would agree has been a difficult year for the music industry. Finally, January saw the British alternative rockers grace prestigious Spotify playlists once again as the first track since their debut album was released. It seems that even after such an agonisingly long but exciting wait, Yonaka’s new releases could not have come at a better time for their fanbase. During a period of constant confusion and disappointment, this female-lead force has returned once again to save the day.
“We kind of had the beginning of ‘Seize The Power’ in December 2019,” begins Theresa Jarvis, the frontwoman of the furiously fantastic foursome. “So we had the whole of the first verse and we were trying out loads of different choruses. It was actually ‘I’m a believer, I’m a believer’ but at the time it wasn’t right, so that ended up being the outro.” A track that illustrates the sheer magnitude of self-worth, especially during trying times, ‘Seize The Power’ perfectly bridges the gap between YONAKA’s new material and their previous releases, demonstrating everything the band aspire to be renowned for Yonaka know when you just feel a bit suffocated by your own brain and you’re like ‘what am I doing?’ I woke up one day and was like ‘fuck this!’ and I went into the studio and had this melody which is the start of ‘Seize The Power’” explains Jarvis as she illuminates how her writing style has developed since the first album.
Whilst once YONAKA were a band that lyrically touched heavily on mental health, they are now venturing into new writing territory as they aim to empower and motivate their fans and their self-belief. As Jarvis establishes, “I want people to feel strong – like they can do anything – and stop getting overlooked by other people.”
The music video for ‘Seize The Power’ sees a gorgeously ethereal Jarvis placed inside a transparent box, surrounded by blue strobe lights that decorate the video – those who have not watched the masterpiece should not hesitate to view it! Jarvis expounds the video’s significance: “It’s supposed to give the story of being reborn and noticing the power you have inside of you. When you become aware of it, you stop letting other people tell you how to live. It’s kind of like you’re looking at yourself as this powerful entity rather than this vulnerable person.”
Those who have already indulged in the latest release from YONAKA are in for more musical treats as the band today introduce the sensational follow-up track ‘Ordinary’. Aligning with the theme of self-empowerment presented in ‘Seize The Power’, there is no doubt that the track is going to be another force to be reckoned with. “I can’t wait for everyone to hear these new tracks – I think they’re really fucking great,” Jarvis says. “The main thing is just not being able to play them live…that’s probably the worst bit, but it does give everyone loads of time to learn the songs for when we do get to play them live!”
Quite the role model for devoted fans of the band, Jarvis concludes by encouraging her fans and keeping the meaning of ‘Seize The Power’ alight: “Stick with what you love doing and what you believe in and just keep going – keep believing. Keep pushing because there are ups and downs – it’s like a rollercoaster – some things are going to go well and some of it’s not, but just keep going. That thing that keeps you going, and keeps you alive, and gives you that adrenaline is the thing that you’re supposed to be doing!”
DeafDeafDeaf are a Manchester four-piece formed in 2019, creating songs that are packed with venom, hatred and anger. They want you to be mad at the general state of things. Their music is fierce and intense, but also reflective of the modern musings of the working-class.
Their latest new single: “Odes” is an accumulation of all the ideas and sounds we’ve worked on previously brought into what we think is our best song yet, “ says frontman Nathan Hill.
After two stormy rippers “Nothingness” and “Bodies” these up and coming Mancs confirm with new piece Odes they here to claim, rightly so, their space in indie rock land. It’s a different kind of charged vibe. A slow-paced meditation driven byHill‘s poignant vox and puzzling guitar waves.
London’s sharp-knifed engine Shameshould take DEAFDEAFDEAF along on tour. They share the same outspoken edginess and sonic resonance, on record and live
post punk music from Greater Manchester DEAFDEAFDEAF
Beachy Head, the new group featuring members of Slowdive, Casket Girls, Flaming Lips, and more, will release their debut album at the end of the month via Graveface. Here’s a third song off the album, a nice bit of propulsive dreampop.
For many artists, the periods of downtime between album cycles provide a much-needed respite. They can also be a chance for artists to explore creative outlets outside of song writing. But when famed shoegazers Slowdive took a break in 2019, guitarist Christian Savill decided to keep working. His new dream-pop outfit Beachy Head puts an emphasis on introspection over atmosphere.
Recorded with Savil’s long-time collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Ryan Graveface of The Casket Girls, the album is studded with lush performances from the likes of Steve Clarke, Flaming Lips drummer Matt Duckworth, and Slowdive/Mojave 3 member Rachel Goswell. The end result is a record that combines fuzzed-out rock (the Teenage Fanclub-esque “Looking for Exits”), melodic synth-pop coated in keyboards and digital beats (“Hiddensee”) and dewy shoegaze (“Michael”).
Yet the songs on Beachy Head also have a wistful quality. Goswell’s vocals add a haunted, lonely vibe to the album—especially on the desolate “All Gone”—while the lyrics possess a palpable sense of disconnection and uncertainty. Opening track “Warning Bell” starts with the searing line, “Now I’ve touched you for the last time/ Creature of unhappiness.” The slowcore standout “October,” a song specifically set “in the fading light” of an autumn night, captures the ephemeral nature of one specific moment in a romance. Amid a backdrop of brittle guitars and whispery percussion, Savill sounds vulnerable but hopeful as he tenderly asks, “I see your eyes on me so bright/ How do I know your words won’t fade in the night?” Intimate and piercing, Beachy Head is one of the most compelling debuts of 2021.
from the s/t debut LP out April 30th. Graveface Records
Andy Hull is describing his process of sequencing Manchester Orchestra’s “The Million Masks Of God” as he casually notes, “We realized we wanted to make the record almost copy our interpretation of the human experience.” Trying to capture the meaning of life in a 45-minute album, nbd. But Hull catches himself in a highly on-brand moment and laughs. He’s kidding, but definitely not joking — Manchester Orchestra make albums about Big Things, maybe even the Only Things.
The Million Masks Of God is no exception. Like 2017’s A Black Mile To The Surface, it’s both a filmic, fictional concept record and a meditation about faith, family, and the afterlife forged under monumentally life-changing circumstances. But whereas “A Black Mile” was sparked by the birth of Hull’s daughter, “The Million Masks” drew inspiration from his bandmate and brother-in-law Robert McDowell watching his father Chuck fight cancer throughout the writing process; the album was recorded during his last few days before passing in 2019.
The conceptual heft that Manchester Orchestra bring to The Million Masks Of God is nothing new for the band; the process of writing and talking through tragedy has unearthed a lightness and serenity that is very much a new thing. The sound of the album is also new: Scaling back the brawn and angst of their earlier work for Quincy Jones funk guitars, stacked-heavenward harmonies, and tender ballads, The Million Masks Of God is Manchester Orchestra’s most plainly beautiful album. I’d also argue it’s their best — though as a relatively new convert, I’m well aware that diehards might see this as hyperbole, if not blasphemy.
In 2019, Manchester Orchestra did a run of shows celebrating the 10th anniversary of Mean Everything To Nothing, widely considered the apex of the band’s first phase — begun in 2004 as a solo project when Hull was still the teenage son of a Baptist pastor in suburban Atlanta and ending with 2014’s Cope and its acoustic redux Hope. During this decade, Manchester Orchestra were consistent, yet hard to pin down. Frequently compared to Neutral Milk Hotel and Bright Eyes, they were more emotionally raw than most bands of their era. They signed to a major label and achieved enviable success, though they never got much attention from radio aside from the Garth Brooks-adjacent “I’ve Got Friends,” which Hull describes as a “mild hit.”
Their albums could legitimately be considered “critically acclaimed,” depending on who you read. Punk-leaning mags and websites like Sputnik, Alternative Press, and Absolute Punk revered Manchester Orchestra, who were either ignored or mocked by writers at more self-consciously hip publications (myself included). This discrepancy became impossible to ignore even as far back as 2007, when his band was opening for the similarly unheralded mewithoutYou and had to clear out a venue before an indie darling played the late show. “There were 40 people at the Fiery Furnaces,”. “We were looking at all these cool websites that were talking about the Fiery Furnaces, nobody’s talking about mewithoutYou, yet there were 500 kids going apeshit for mewithoutYou.”
But when bands like Manchester Orchestra stick around long enough, the narrative arc tends to bend in their favour. Their spiritualized brand of alt-rock made an immediate and indelible impression with teenagers struggling with their own faith, many of whom would grow up to be writers and artists. The conversation around them had changed by 2017 — Manchester Orchestra had emerged as elder statesmen for a new wave of exciting, forward-thinking singer-songwriters, artists ranging from Julien Baker to Foxing to Phoebe Bridgers becoming Hull’s loudest cheerleaders. And while Hull describes their previous albums as attempts to recreate the leave-it-all-on-the-floor, cathartic impact of their live show in the studio, A Black Mile was created with a team of producers and guest contributors that rival, like, the Game’s The Documentary.
Hull identifies as a forever Radiohead and Wilco fan, and A Black Mile To The Surface sounded like the kind of album meant for people who listen to OK Computer or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and think, “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore” — conceptually and sonically ambitious electronic-rock hybrids that still appeal to one’s inner teenager hitting up Sam Goody with $16 they scrounged together between lawnmowing gigs. “Me and Rob kinda made a conscious decision to not play the radio game at all on Simple Math and Cope even when we were asked,” Hull says. “We were kinda youthful and against the idea of playing free radio shows, the concept didn’t make any sense to us.” Not only did A Black Mile To The Surface become the band’s most critically acclaimed album, after years of frustrating conversations with execs and radio pluggers, they scored an legitimate hit with “The Gold.” “It doesn’t really change anything about our lives. It’s nice to hear it sometimes or your mom will hear it somewhere,” Hull jokes. “There wasn’t a, ‘Oh, hey man we got a big radio song, and we can chill now.’”
Hull did not chill in the past four years. His long-running Bad Books project with Kevin Devine dropped III in 2019, a record that brought Phoebe Bridgers producer Ethan Gruska into the creative fold. Last April saw the release of Born Of You, a collection of 2008-2010 demos. In February, Manchester Orchestra announced The Million Masks Of God at the end of a lavishly produced and free livestreamed performance of A Black Mile To The Surface. Hull also contributed guest vocals on the most recent Tigers Jaw and Touche Amore albums, and is heavily involved with Foxing’s forthcoming fourth LP, which he believes might be their Black Mile-esque popular breakthrough. “They’re in the hunt for that, and that’s really exciting because pop songs are really fun to work on,” Hull reveals. “I was expecting them to be, ‘No, we want it to be weirder,’ and they were like, ‘More Michael Jackson.’ Hell yeah, let’s keep pushing it.” Related: The late King of Pop’s daughter has a Black Mile To The Surface tattoo on her arm and Hull and McDowell produced her debut album.
Still, The Million Masks Of God came together at a luxurious pace. Splitting time between their Echo Mountain homebase in North Carolina and Gruska’s newly built Los Angeles studio, Hull and McDowell took months of time off to revisit songs with fresh ears and establish motifs both within The Million Masks Of God and its predecessor. Hull designed the opening lullabye “Inaudible” as a flipside of A Black Mile To The Surface‘s “The Maze,” a tribute to Hull’s daughter Mayzie that’s been used for numerous film trailers since. On the new intro track, a father is forced to have a painful conversation with his father — “Wheel you down to the old folks’ home/ Are you listening to me?” — and I’d be remiss to not mention the Dipset and Ghostface Killah influence in its clever use of repetitive rhyme.
The album reaches an early peak with Hull’s encounter with the Angel of Death and slowly deescalates with a series of gorgeous slow burns before ending with “The Internet,” a song of mourning that likens a loved one to what Hull deems the most powerful force in existence. “I loved this album representing the angst and anger and confusion and adrenaline of earlier life,” Hull explains. “The hope was as the listener you’re coming to terms with things, you’re feeling healthier, maybe you’re feeling in a better spot, there’s still jabs of real life that come and get you. But can we slowly lay the listener down.”
Tales of redemption are at the heart of many rock n’ roll documentaries — and every episode of VH1’s Behind the Music — but 2005 film “New York Doll” is especially moving. The film follows onetime New York Dolls bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane after he has bottomed out with substance abuse, suicide attempts and other near-death experiences and found salvation and quiet happiness with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (who have also employed him in their L.A. library). Kane has all but given up on his former dreams of rock and roll glory when a call comes to reunite the band via a show organized by superfan Morrissey (who is interviewed here). Finally a second chance is presented to him, just as he’s given the terrible news of a cancer diagnosis. (Kane died in 2004 before the release of the film.)
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The Fat Angel Sings 