The Null Device

Another brilliant band has broken up; I have just been informed that Melbourne post-rock trio Season have split (in fact, a bit over a month ago). Which is a pity, as they were amazing live. They have, however, provided fans with a parting gift, and put up most of their material on their web site in MP3 format.

(via lemh) ¶ post-rock season 1

And now, The Null Device's list of up-and-coming Melbourne bands and musical artists you may not have heard of but should check out:

• BAM BAM. They're somewhere between Transvision Vamp and 1960s garage rock, played really tightly with lots of charisma and stage presence. And they look hot too. They should make it big.
• City City City - About as close as you're going to get to seeing Neu! playing live. A juggernaut of non-stop krautrock-meets-postrock groove, with not one but two drummers. They sound better live than on CD.
• Light Music Club - An all-girl duo doing pop songs, with piano and vocals. Whimsically sensitive songwriting, classy arrangements (in places reminiscent of Coward or Bacharach), and Zoë has a lovely voice.
• The Rumours - Classic indie pop done well, with tight, jangly guitars, sensitive indie-boy lyrics and a groove you can dance to. The frontman is like Morrissey and Johnny Marr rolled into one.
• Season - Post-rock soundscapes you can immerse yourself with, with electric piano and guitars with the whole range of effects (from metal crunch to wah) used judiciously; like Mogwai scoring a David Lynch film.
• Talkshow Boy - A guy with a CD player full of homemade computerised glitch-pop beats, which he then sings stream-of-consciousness lyrics over, about polar bears, eskimos, his LiveJournal friends and the undead. Though he puts on a really entertaining show of it. Also see Service Station Youth, which is him and three other people doing a similar thing.

As this is a list of new bands people may not have heard of, I've omitted from this list many bands worth checking out which people probably know about.

¶ bam bam city city city indie krautrock light music club lists melbourne music season talkshow boy the rumours 0

I went to see Season tonight at the Empress; they were pretty good, in a cinematic, soundscapey sort of way. The processed guitar/bass alternated between indie post-rock, shoegazer and even went metal for a few bars. They brought in a cellist (a woman named Kaz) towards the end for their song Russia, which added a lot to it; it ended up somewhere in the vicinity of New Order meets Black Tape For A Blue Girl; not a bad thing at all.

Anyway, they won't be doing any gigs for a while, but hopefully will have another CD out by the end of the year.

¶ gigs melbourne post-rock season 0