Drummer and sometime lyricist Julian Patterson has form when it comes to unhealthy obsessions with domestic minutia. His is a world of gardening, whiny front gates and messy bedrooms—small beats big, old and familiar trumps new and untested. Patterson’s other band Minimum Chips released an album last year titled Kitchen Tea Thank You—he knows that when the big bad world gets scary, unwashed dishes and laminex begin to look tempting.

Of course, there’s an intrinsic appeal to domestic stasis—who hasn’t fantasised about burrowing inside the immediate and familiar, surfacing only to tend to pot plants and conduct fleeting small talk with the postie?

But it’s not really the subject matter that appeals on “Non-Commercial Life”, the band’s predictably positive spin on independent living. Melbs has said it before, but it’s Kes’ (nee Karl Scullin’s) completely impossible-to-pin-down vocals. Hazy and freewheeling, but rarely following through on what must be a nagging compulsion to throw off the introspection and explode in sun-drenched histrionics. He’s perfectly content to wander daggily from unsteady melody to antsy, almost creepy, side-of-mouth cooing. Where contemporaries the Crayon Fields embrace an irresistible climax in their similarly-paced “Living So Well”, Mum Smokes eschew the bombast for something more uncertain, more introverted, more deliberately ambivalent.

Actually, Kes could be saying anything here—like a 7 year-old da da daing absent-mindedly while their parents fret about petrol prices and Ikea opening hours.

The half-assed whistling à la fin seals the deal. Deliberately out-of-it obscurantism’s never had a schmicker poster boy.

Right. I ducked into the Tote the other night to check out the Melbourne’s fresh-faced, self-proclaimed ‘Harmony Kings’, Little Red.

Actually, I was a bit curious whether the Tote’s tweeters were even capable of emitting harmonies, after years upon years of serving up the crunch and wail for which the back room is renowned. But Little Red found the range, and produced chorus (in the original sense of the word) after chorus of astutely nostalgic harmonies.

I think you should know that it’s totally unfair how much fun these guys and their fans are having. I reckon I have at least a handful of years on most of them, and the music of my late adolescence was mostly heartfelt or ferocious or maudlin. Even the pop was usually saccharine or psychedelic or both. And I loved it of course, and furthermore it meant that that you only needed two moves in your dancing repetoire: the mosh and the rock-back-and-forth. It was all very serious.

I guess the angstiest excesses of this music eventually coalesced when a name was given to it, and thus we have the perplexing genre of emo. To which, in being about as un-fun as music can possibly get, we should be thankful — because the backlash is producing some genuinely enjoyable music. The tuneful, informed retro of Little Red (and, in a different way, Panda Bear’s Wilsonesque harmonics, and arguably the melodies of the better garage revivalists) is really unlike the retro of the entire fifteen years before it: it’s not music-nerds-only, and surprisingly, it’s not kitsch.

Not that there’s anything especially serious about Little Red (or their limbo-ing support on the night, Magnum Gumbo Detonator). But their music never succumbs to heavy-handed Irony, which might just be the scourge of our entire generation. There’s no strutting pretensions to cool: but they are pretty cool, and it just blossoms outta the fun they’re having, from an ebullient shout: “we’re getting a kick out of this, we sure hope you are too!”

You can hear a bit of it in ‘Coca-Cola’, though recording it has given the fun a bit of liposuction. Lyrically, the song’s like a sonorous, hipper, all-ages response to the Andrews Sisters’ Rum and Coca Cola. It’s got a rollicking bassline and a very fifties croon is peppered with ‘Woohoo“‘s of a more contemporary aesthetic. But to be honest, you’re better off heading to the Tote tonight, because they’ve got the May mid-week residency. Get there early for the BBQ, and wear sensible shoes — you might have some fun.

If ‘Green Coloured Grass’ is any indication — and it’s the only one I have right now — then Ainslie ought to outperform that increasingly super-slick lyric mangler.

A heartbeat for a rhythm; a tangle of synth notes and bedroom-choir for melodic backing; half-forlorn, half-defiant delivery. It’s addictively subtle stuff. If there’s any criticism to be had of ‘Green Coloured Grass,’ it’s that the song loses its way a little in the second half. As if unsure of where to go from the plaintive, spare opening, it adds a few bits without really adding anything. If you know what I mean.

Certainly keen to hear more…

P.S. Hi. We’ve been slack, even if the spambots have been keeping the comments box busy. Sorry. More content soon. I hope.

If pressed to characterise Karl Smith’s lyrical style – perhaps for those handful of curious folk who might yet discover Sodastream in the wake of their sad break-up – I would call it elliptical. He leaves clues for the listener but never provides an entire story. Always, he writes and sings from within the story – he’s never the omnipotent narrator – but it’s generally hard to tell just which character he might be in any given song. Even from the inside there’s a certain distance he keeps up, an understated calm, however much the words sound as if they were written in the aftermath of startling violence. And they often do.

There’s elliptical, and then there’s elliptic, which is the shape of Sodastream’s music. Pete Cohen’s double bass moves so unhurriedly from finger-by-finger plucking to a back-and-forth sway – the distinctive, measured curve that a bow traces in the air – like the stepping-stones of a pond transformed into a boat’s hull. His bass lines give the duo’s arrangements buoyancy but also pull, an inexorable momentum. Smith’s acoustic guitar ripples out in repeated patterns, and his vocal melodies curl with his phrases.

‘Cause you got away
The way it turned on your wedding day

I’ve been listening to “Wedding Day” for more than seven years and I know that I’ll never get to the bottom of it – I’m still not even sure whether the lyric is ‘away’ or ‘a way’; whether the refrain is about watching somebody escape or about being transfixed by their stubbornness. All I know is that when Smith sings it the melody folds under and then over like page of a book, drawing the story onwards. Then there’s a pause while the bass switches texture, and now viola joins in too: long, drawn-out notes – so much drama from so few elements.

Of course, a wedding is an inherently dramatic event: loaded with symbolism, laced with fervid emotion, played out by a big cast – rich pickings for the observant writer. But “Wedding Day’ is barely about a wedding; it’s about what such a compressed, heated event might leave in its wake: emotional fatigue and claustrophobia and - cruelly, paradoxically - an aching loneliness.

There’s blood on the toilet seat
And heaven is coming down to hold me

That’s the opening couplet, ushered into a sonic space that’s close to empty, a mere brush of drums and muted bass strings played with the pads of fingers; a guitar part yet to blossom into full chords. Twice the arrangement rises and falls, building in urgency and falling away again; twice the lyric holds out a dark shard:

I know it’s late but I can
Still hear them fucking in the other room

And so we move from bath to bed of an unlit house, from blood seen to breath overheard, and both sound as violent as each other – the profanity delivered with just enough pressure from behind the teeth to make the tone contemptuous – yet by the time the songs winds its way to a coda a certain reverie has taken over. It’s forty seconds of exhaustion, rather than contentment, dream-like, as if waking from bad sleep. Cohen’s bass has moved into a higher register, tremulous and scraping, and the acoustic guitar is in a holding pattern. It’s as if the whole arrangement is dispersing on a wind, changing element from water to air, but at the last moment a sudden, deep bowed note from Cohen anchors it back again, underlining Smith’s final lyrical question, a plea for context and certainty that could as easily be asked by a listener, seeking an answer to this unsettling, mysterious, very beautiful song:

On your wedding day
Don’t you want to give me anything?

And then it hangs, and watching Sodastream live over the years, waiting for “Wedding Day”, this was always the moment that I would enjoy most: a fractional pause before the audience’s reaction during which all the tension and promise of the song was still wholly unresolved. It was a mood that suited them. I hope that they play it at their final show; I only wish that I would be there.

Last year, I saw Kes twice. The first time, in January, he was a solitary bird-like man playing gently transfixing bits and pieces in the support slot for Brooklyn-based, opera-meets-playground sister act, CocoRosie. And, because I am an impressionable sort, this meant that I devoted a substantial part of the rest of 2006 listening to two things – CocoRosie’s Noah’s Ark, and Kes’ The Jelly’s In The Pot. On reflection, diligence to this combination of albums has primed my brain for only one possible reaction to Kes 2.0 - joy. Watching him in December with band in tow and brandishing the new sounds of The Grey Goose Wing, well, it all made an immediate and exhilarating kind of sense from where I was standing. Indeed, I have convinced myself that Kes and I are kindredly like this in that our intervening months have been informed by the same realisation: playing what look like children’s plastic toy instruments and making barnyard animal sounds are exactly the sorts of things we need more of in serious music.

Now, it must be admitted that probably, I am not intended as the sole beneficiary of The Grey Goose Wing. So, let’s consider what you people might like about it.

Firstly, it’s still a Kes album. So it retains his distinctive vocal tendency to slide into atonality and out again with purposeful precision, as well as his peculiar mix of sustained song craft punctuated by floating bits of musical bric-a-brac and those undeniable pop moments, like the latter singalong half of “The Recipe” (which reminds me of “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners), or the vocal riffs that stick in your head for days (currently, the squeaky “be-ware, be-ware, be-ware” from “Irritating Gift” is doing the rounds in mine). So it’s definitely for Kes fans, but it’s also Kes with benefits. The Grey Goose Wing differs from previous releases because it sees Kes embracing a sense of fun. And I don’t just mean the obvious fun stuff, like the yelping and goose-y “ha-ha-ha-ha, whatchoo wah” on “Limit Me”.

Even songs that would seem to fit just as well on The Jelly’s In The Pot are made distinct here for sounding like they’re sung by a relentlessly grinning Kes. And I put this discovery of abandon down to the band. Listed as “additional players” on the album sleeve but very much indivisible from Kes 2.0, its members include Laura Jean and make contributions with recorders, harmonica and, most importantly, experimental enthusiasm. Song titles helpfully track some of their specific work, see “Paddy and Laura’s Vocals” or “Oliver’s Harmonicas”, but it’s my view that playing well with others was vital to The Grey Goose Wing’s eccentric and convivial achievements.

In a recent conversation, I told a man that I was trying to write a review of Laura Jean’s album Our Swan Song. ”I love her music!” he exclaimed at the mention of Jean’s name. We were seated in a Melbourne pub where displays of enthusiasm are generally avoided, but such is the eruptive nature of a genuine response to good music. He followed up by saying that his partner can barely bring herself to listen to Jean’s songs because they are so emotive.

There is definitely something in this. “The Hunter’s Ode” found its way into one of my dreams, and “Paradise Lost” reduced me to a teary state on the way to Foodies. Over the past few weeks, Our Swan Song has stayed with me in much the same way as does the residue of a dream or love. It seeped in slowly, certain phrases fading in and out of my thoughts ever since I first heard them. In the “Hunter’s Ode” I lingered on the comment, ‘you outsmarted me, so we began a courting based on outsmarting’ – a charmingly awkward reminiscence of those early stages of love, which are complicated in their own way, but also unrepeatably new and wonderful. And I felt particularly haunted by a beautiful line about solitude in “I’m a Hunter, I’m a Fox,” ‘there’s something very, very sad about a girl who wants to put on all her fur, alone forever’ – a wistful acknowledgment of the interior world we easily retreat to and sometimes struggle to return from.

Our Swan Song sounds like a collection of stories that have been retold without guile but with a good deal of skill. “I’m a Rabbit, I’m a Fox” stands out as an example of this. The instrumentation is beautiful: an extra guitar picks out a lovely, descending melody in the opening of the song, a thundery drum interjects at all the right moments, an oboe and clarinet part and meet through complementary melodies, a buoyant voice navigates intricate melodies with tranquil ease and a subtle double bass supports it all.

I intended to limit myself to just one song from this album; I’ve been lucky to mention only three.

The Assassination Collective perceive no such conflict. ‘If footy were free’, (or perhaps if the concession price was wound back to the early 90s bargain of $1.70), a half-time people’s revolution apparently wouldn’t be out of the question. Unrest at AFL games isn’t unprecedented. Who could forget the spontaneous ‘riot’ half way though a Round 10 Essendon v. St. Kilda clash a few years back? If only TAC (not the Collingwood sponsor) could siphon all that revolutionary zeal in the right direction! Not convinced? It really doesn’t matter.

With The Message obvious from the start, the subsequent ranting on ‘If Footy was Free’ might seem like filler. But listen hard.

“You try so hard to be a trouble-making creep, muffled conversations put the AFP to sleep.”

In fact, I’m sickeningly in lust with all 7 couplets here (including an unprecedented reference to “People’s War” as a preposition-less animate object). There’s even tacked-on crowd noise for fuck’s sake. And doodling, fun-time keys. And a ballsy bottom end which roughly aligns them with acolytes Jihad Against America and True Radical Miracle.

Now, deep in Melbs’ cricket season, shivering through another light-beer assisted 3rd quarter at the ‘G is all but a distant memory. And even if oiled-up willow hasn’t completely commandeered the weekend, the Australian Open/Ugly Betty cross-promotion bubble most definitely will. But TAC are gigging regularly and while I’m unsure about the guitarist’s enthusiastic endorsement of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as a general rule, any self-depreciating piss takers on the non-orthodox Left deserve both hearty encouragement and heavy audience participation.

And while your understanding of rootsy authenticity is probably different from your neighbour’s, it seems uncontroversial to suggest that rawness is part of the roots deal. If so, James McCann is a man who, in 2006, can surpass The Great Bob as a purveyor of authentic roots and blues.

On his debut record, Where Was I Then, McCann brings the blues raw and pretty unadorned. It’s blues besotted by the drunken hedonism of rock, to be sure—we’re a long way from Leadbelly here—but it’s recognisably roots-based and knows a thing or too about the tradition.

“Knowing Smile” opens the record with the set’s catchiest moments. A slide guitar moans in an upper-register throughout the song, swimming in a sea of reverb and distorted to unnatural bouts of sustain. It’s the most prominent feature of a song otherwise muddy in its tones: the guitar soars where the band does its best trade in Neil Young & Crazyhorse-style lowdown rock; unobtrusive but important for its contrast, like a stout man standing next to Luc Longley.

And I heard your mother sigh and joke
It’s all in the bag the bleeding hearts are back

This shuffling pop song continues from here, Atkinson bemoaning the perceived decline of the ALP. We get a search for the light on the hill, noteworthy speeches, rage and agitating types. Meanwhile the band, containing members of The Lucksmiths and Mid State Orange, plays on, mixing an alt.country melancholy with Atkinson’s signature pop smarts.

“Where’s the reassuring word for the branch members dismayed,” Atkinson sings in a particularly inspiring finger-pointing, apparatchik-despising moment. (It’s worth wondering if branch members would be dismayed given that most of them seem to be spectral presences with inordinate strategic importance. But perhaps I’m being too cynical.) The song’s a summation of Atkinson’s apparent aim on his new record, Loyalty Songs: stretching his parochial narratives beyond the bedroom, kitchen and Fitzroy Gardens; encompassing tales of lives beyond the familiar Candle milieu.

For all its topicality, “Bleeding Hearts are Back” isn’t the best song on the album. That honour goes to “What the Answer’s Under,” a bittersweet track that mixes Candle favourites The Lucksmiths with one-album-wonders The Small Knives.

“DLTD” is a track where good headphones are necessary for complete comprehension. You’ll need them to note all the trace elements that go into this deceptively sparse composition.

The programmed bass rolls around lazily, like a ball moving over undulating hills. But it’s also the propulsion of this track—the beats are secondary to the force of this insistent bass, ballooning and expanding with a relentless thrum. Wilkinson is helped out here by Steve Law. He’s a chap known for experimental work under his own name, but also the earth(core) rumbling techno of his Zen Paradox moniker. This pedigree makes sense. The rise and tumble of that bass recall both dubstep and purveyors of Euro micro/minimal house/techno/electro—names like Vladislav Delay (and/or Uusitalo and/or Luomo), Trentemoller, Pole, Mikkel Metal and those around the Basic Channel label. “DLTD” is dubby, but not as Byron Bay knows it.

It’s a dark track. The stabs of Anthony Pateras’ prepared piano which hang heavily over the start of “DLTD” give it the sound of industrial landscapes at night. When the synths march out, they’re draped in black veils, their shrill cackle diffused by gauze and lace. The batch of synth sounds which emerges halfway through the song sounds like a Welsh choir on morphine, all droopy vowels and barely-there consciousness.

It’s a track in movements too. Deconstructing it would take an essay and footnotes and specific time-codes to direct you to precisely what is under discussion. So it’s best to let your ears roam over its supple landscape. Each time I’ve listened to it, I seem to have followed a different path through the track. Find a favourite path. Then listen again.

See Post launch this album at Horse Bazaar on Thursday the 30th of November. Melbs witnessed him recently at a show alongside the wonderful and Melbs’d Qua. A sense of humour was unabashedly displayed. There will likely be toy dogs and toy guitars involved at the launch – what else would you expect from a man involved with Snuff Puppets?