You can trust Louder
It’s always a pleasure to find a new Amorphous Androgynous comp in the record racks, and having remixed Syd Arthur at the end of 2014, the Brit duo have now groove-mined Down Under for this double disc of Aussie and NZ cortex-ticklers.
The MSB series exists to dig the crates that we can’t possibly reach (or afford), so alongside names most people know – Tame Impala and Pond – are a wealth of new ones to discover. Disc one is the most immediate, with instant grats in the Wolfmother-like Doug Jerebine, a Tull/Bowie hybrid in Melissa’s Getting Through, and a bit of mod-fuzz action from Sons Of The Vegetal Mother. Disc two is deeper, more textural and a bit annoying if you’re playing it in public, in daylight, sober. But on headphones, late at night, this headier brew takes the soft-rock 70s psych of SJC Powell’s Governor Lane and steers us deftly through Rob Thomsett’s Moogy blues, Leong Lau’s cosmic jams and the Gong-like electronica of Steve Maxwell Von Braund. Madder Lake ransack Donovan’s Superlungs and Mandu tackle Gimme Shelter before the slightly scary didgeridoo cut-up Wandjina sends us on an extrasensory trip beyond the black stump. Bewdy.
Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer who joined Kerrang! in 1999 and then the dark side – Prog – a decade later as Deputy Editor. Jo's had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson's favourite flute (!) and asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit. Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London and can be occasionally heard polluting the BBC Radio airwaves as a pop and rock pundit. Steven Wilson still owes her £3, which he borrowed to pay for parking before a King Crimson show in Aylesbury.