Three Monkeys

A family is dislocated when small failings become extravagant lies. The film opens as a wealthy businessman, Servet, running a campaign for the upcoming election, is driving in his car alone and sleepy, struggling to keep his eyes open. Seconds later he hits and kills a pedestrian in the middle of the road. Servet panics when another car with a couple inside approaches. He sneaks away. Eyüp, a man living in a slum at Yedikule neighborhood in Istanbul, with his wife and only son, is the driver of Servet. He wakes up in the middle of the night with his cell phone ringing. It's his boss, telling Eyüp to meet him immediately. Shivering in shock, Servet explains the current events to his driver. His excuse is if the fatal accident comes out in press it would terminate his political career, so he proposes Eyüp to take over the penalty and stay in prison for a brief period of time in exchange for a lump sum payment upon his release, whilst still paying his salary to his family so they can get by. Eyüp accepts the deal.

An unspecified time passes, summer arrives, and Eyüp's son Ismail fails to enter college again. His mother, Hacer, who works in the catering division of a factory, starts worrying about her son after unpleasant events, and tries to convince him to get a job. Ismail suggests driving children between home and school but of course they don't have any financial source for this kind of an enterprise. Ismail asks his mother to request an advance payment from Servet without consulting Eyüp. Hacer meets with Servet, in his office after the election (which he lost), and requests the money. After Hacer leaves the office and starts waiting for a bus at the stop Servet persuades Hacer to accept a lift from him back to her home.

More unspecified time passes, and Ismail intends to visit his father. Things take a poor turn when he finds his mother having an affair with Servet. Ismail stands passive. More time passes, and Eyüp has been released from prison. He senses things are "a little peculiar" inside his home. Hacer is in love with Servet and insists to maintain their affair. Servet disagrees. That night, Hacer and Eyüp are invited to the police station and informed that Servet has been murdered. Police officers interrogate the two and Eyüp finds out that Hacer was cheating on him. He denies knowing nothing about it. Ismail confesses that he murdered Servet. Eyüp calms down when he pays a visit to a mosque. Afterwards, Eyüp goes on to speak with a very poor man who works and sleeps inside a tea house in the neighborhood. Eyüp makes the same proposition to the poor man, Bayram, that Servet made to him: to claim the crime committed by his son. Bayram agrees. The last scene shows Eyüp at his home's balcony, staring at the Marmara Sea, and along with thunder it starts to rain.

Three Monkeys, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 109 mins, 15

Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has turned his innovative talents to that old cinematic favourite, the crime thriller

Reviewed by Jonathan Romney

When is a thriller, strictly speaking, a thriller? There's a fascinating cinema tradition in which directors associated with art films will take a stab at crime material.

This lets them tackle the extremes of human experience without the taboos imposed by mainstream fiction; it can also let highbrow auteurs prove that they, too, can keep viewers on the edge of seats (as opposed to nodding off in them). The results have often been fascinating, if not always classifiable as thrillers. Luchino Visconti took on James M Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, in his 1943 film Ossessione: the result – unmistakably – worked as a genre thriller, but it was also a lot more, an acute psychological study and a founding text for Italian neo-realist cinema. But Almodovar doing Ruth Rendell in Live Flesh? Not remotely a thriller: the director is far more interested in making an Almodovar film.

Such distinctions are ultimately subjective, so I'll leave you to decide whether Three Monkeys, by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, is a thriller or an art film disguised as one. Either way, it offers an intriguing new angle on typical noir material, as well as a new perspective on Ceylan's style. This brilliant director made his international mark with the 2002 feature Uzak (Distant), about a disillusioned Istanbul photographer; his follow-up, Climates (2006), was a painfully intimate drama about a couple splitting up, all the more uncomfortable because the leads were played by Ceylan and his wife, Ebru Ceylan.

Three Monkeys retains the emotional concentration of Climates and the plasticity of time that Ceylan developed in Uzak. But this study of tensions between three family members and an outsider also tells a bracingly tawdry crime story, albeit in extremely pared-down fashion.

The film begins with a middle-aged man driving at night, then running away from the scene of a hit-and-run. He is Servet, a politician standing in a Turkish election; he doesn't want his crime to endanger his chances, he tells his driver Eyup (Yavuz Bingol), and offers him a large sum of money to take the rap. Eyup accepts the deal in order to provide for his wife and son, then disappears into prison – and disappears temporarily from the film, for while we expect this to be Eyup's story (especially since Bingol is a well-known singer in Turkey), he's off-screen for the best part of an hour.

Ceylan then leaves us to puzzle over what is happening in Eyup's absence. We learn that his teenage son Ismail (Rifat Sungar) is getting into bad company, but we don't know exactly what trouble he's getting into, any more than does his mother Hacer (Hatice Aslan). Early on, there's a long take of Servet carping on the phone about his thrashing in the polls: it is only after a while that Ceylan reveals that Hacer has been sitting opposite him, having to listen to all this. Given the churlishness of this unappealing bald pudgy man (played by one of the film's co-writers, Ercan Kesal), it comes as a surprise to learn, but only after some time, that Hacer has fallen for him.

Three Monkeys is a sombre slow-burner, but with a thread of black comedy running throughout: the ringtone on Hacer's mobile phone starts off as a running gag, before you realise how much it foreshadows the bleak denouement. The intrigue coalesces into a murder story with a last-minute twist – a very sobering and ambivalent twist, at that. You may leave the film uncertain about what exactly has happened – or about which of the four characters are the three monkeys of the title, with its allusion to seeing, hearing, speaking no evil. But Ceylan withholds the answers: he'd rather you came out of the cinema and debated it, maybe over a strong Turkish coffee.

The film displays Ceylan's trademark visual finesse: the close-ups linger on the characters' faces as their emotions shift, not always readably, while he applies his panoramic distortions not only to the cityscapes but also to the enclosure of the family flat. After using high-definition video for the fine-grained naturalism of Climates, Ceylan here puts it to very different use, shooting in colour but bleeding the image to metallic shades of grey. Decide for yourself whether Three Monkeys classifies as a genre thriller – but in terms of intelligence and cinematic invention, this tantalising film carries a thrill entirely its own.

Three Monkeys an Exemplary, Deadening Exercise in Malaise
By Nicolas Rapold

You can imagine frame grabs from Nuri Bilge Ceylan's art noir Three Monkeys popping up in a Bordwellian film-studies textbook (or blog post). Observe the jack-in-the-box close-up (against deep-background action) for a politician hiding after a hit-and-run; notice how his fall guy's family apartment is shot from unsettling heights and at angles slightly askew to the walls; soak up the digitally manipulated jaundiced palette, like watching an entire movie through the shades that eye doctors give out. The Turkish director's shifting story of guilt—the politico's flunky comes back from serving time and confronts his wife and son over infidelities—does not lack for carefully engineered technique, which is as stringently orchestrated as in past acclaimed films Distant and Climates. But Ceylan is essentially talking past his characters, whose thoughts are treated as secondary to DP Gökhan Tiryaki capturing their faces with the right hope-curdling hue. The heavy mood of indolence and rage, calibrated with ellipses in action, is stifling—everyone seems to move in a queasy haze. The climactic landscape shot—storms brewing over a harbor streaked with tankers and a distant man in silhouette—is suggestive of broader, communal malaise, yet confirms the film as an exemplary but deadening exercise.

When Self-Interest Clashes With Unruly Desire

At least since 2003, when his third feature, “Distant,” won two prizes in Cannes, the Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has been a star of the international art-film circuit. “Distant” and its successor, “Climates” (a Cannes selection in 2006), are distinguished by careful framing, minimal camera movement and a mood that combines deep ennui with erotic longing. Though the films occasionally glance at modern global and Turkish social realities, they have a studiously abstract, timeless quality, a style that seems intended to soothe gloomy late-born cinephiles with intimations of Antonioni.

The mood of “Distant” is pretty well summed up in the title, and while “Climates” begins in warm sunshine, it feels most at home in the wintry landscape of its final scenes. Mr. Ceylan’s latest movie, “Three Monkeys,” which earned him an award for directing at Cannes last year, is in some ways a departure. The long takes and exquisite compositions are still there, but this time Mr. Ceylan trains his cool, detached sensibility on a ripe and pulpy melodrama that might have originated in a James M. Cain novel. The emotional weather is unusually hot and sticky, and the themes of class antagonism and sexual cruelty are overt, even if the literal depictions of sex and violence remain oblique and understated.

The basic story is as tight and simple as a slipknot. Servet (Ercan Kesal), a politician in the midst of a re-election campaign, is involved in a hit-and-run accident on a dark country road. He persuades his driver, Eyup (Yavuz Bingol), to take the fall for him, which will involve serving a relatively short prison sentence in exchange for an unspecified but large sum of money. Eyup, who lives with his wife and teenage son in a small apartment with a mind-blowingly cinematic view of the Bosporus, furrows his brow, shrugs his shoulders and accepts the offer.

Complications, as the saying goes, ensue. In Eyup’s absence, his son, Ismail (Ahmet Rifat Sungar), who can’t seem to pass his university entrance exam, drifts from adolescent idleness toward something potentially more dangerous. Hacer (Hatice Aslan), the boy’s mother, motivated at least partly by anxiety about her son, seeks out Servet’s help and ends up having an affair with him. What follows, while not exactly predictable, fits squarely within the logic of classic film noir, where cold-eyed self-interest quickly becomes entangled with unruly desires and the primal imperatives of honor and obligation.

All of it unfolds in hushed tones underneath a livid green sky, almost as if the clouds had been bruised by the emotional brutality the characters inflict on one another. Mr. Ceylan, a photographer as well as a filmmaker, at times falls prey to the pathetic fallacy, letting rain and lightning and mocking bursts of sunshine do too much of the dramatic work. And at the end he proves so besotted by his own prodigious ability to produce cinema with a capital C that he keeps the film going even after the story is effectively over. Good pulp depends, above all, on a ruthless sense of economy, and “Three Monkeys” is just a bit too profligate, too fancy, to be entirely convincing.

Which is not to say that it isn’t interesting. Somber as Mr. Ceylan’s films are, each is leavened by a bit of deadpan, minimalist comedy: an errant hazelnut skittering across a wooden floor in “Climates”; a maudlin pop song used as a cellphone ringtone here. And what Mr. Ceylan does with his actors is close to uncanny. Their dialogue is almost entirely literal and pedestrian, in keeping with their resolute ordinariness, but their equally ordinary faces become masks of mysterious, almost sublime feeling.

This is especially true of Ms. Aslan, whose face, with its wide, downturned mouth and dark-rimmed eyes, would be at home in Noh theater or silent film. Without her charisma, the movie would feel much more like an arch formal exercise. But Mr. Bingol, brooding stoically behind a dark mustache and heavy brows, and Mr. Sungar, pouting and gaunt, also impart their share of poetry. Only Mr. Kesal, playing a man in dubious possession of a soul, is a creature of pure prose.

The title of “Three Monkeys,” which Mr. Ceylan attributes to Confucius, raises a bit of a mathematical puzzle, since there are, after all, four main characters. Which three are the monkeys? Who is the odd man out — or, as the case may be, the lone human being in the primate menagerie? Does Servet make monkeys out of the other three, a working-class family at the mercy of a rich and powerful man? Is Ismail the innocent young victim of a morally obtuse older generation? Is Eyup a decent guy undone by monkeyshines perpetrated by his boss, his wife and his son? Or is it the men who are beasts, menacing Hacer and driving her to the brink of madness? Her husband and her lover both threaten to kill her, her son slaps her face, and she can’t seem to escape any of them.

The film’s shifting, elusive point of view is evidence of Mr. Ceylan’s skill. But he keeps himself, and the audience, safely outside the cage, while the four hapless beings inside suffer and struggle, beyond the reach of our compassion, as if some coldhearted creator had made them for no purpose beyond his own amusement.

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Disgrace

David Lurie (John Malkovich), twice-divorced and dissatisfied with his job as an English professor in post-apartheid South Africa, finds his life falling apart. When he seduces one of his students, Melanie (Antoinette Engel) and does nothing to protect himself from the consequences, he is dismissed from his teaching position, and goes to live with his lesbian daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines), who shares a farm in the Eastern Cape with trusted black worker Petrus (Eric Ebouaney). For a time, his daughter's influence and natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. In the aftermath of a vicious attack by three black youths, he is forced to come to terms with the changes in society - as well as his disgrace.

Review by Louise Keller:

Desire and its consequences are at the heart of this complex drama that has the power to shred us emotionally. Based on the Booker prize winning novel by J.M. Coetzee, this is the kind of film that knocks you for a loop. It surprises at every turn, takes you where you least expect to be taken and twists a knife into your heart just after you think you have endured the worst of it. Directed and adapted by the husband and wife team who brought us the quirky and accessible La Spagnola in 2001, Steve Jacobs and Anna-Maria Monticelli have a profound grasp of the subject matter, resulting in a mature, thought provoking work that resonates. Subconsciously, the film throbs with truth as we find ourselves sinking deeper and deeper in a quagmire of redemption, acceptance and reconciliation reflecting the South African divide.

When we first meet John Malkovich's lust-driven University professor David Lurie, we quickly understand his philosophy that there are more important things in life than being prudent. He teaches romantic poetry and listens to classical music, while lust fuels his leisure time. Disgrace is the result of his liaison with his student Melanie (Antoinette Engel). But that is just the beginning of the journey. We take a sharp right hand turn as David drives through the distinctively barren South African terrain to the remote farm where his lesbian daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines) lives. The harsh reality of daily life begins, where desire is examined from a converse point of view. Rape and the confrontation of an unfathomable cultural mindset start life spinning as fast as the hubcaps of the pickup trucks on the desolate, dusty roads.

Malkovich is one of those actors who cannot help but carry loads of gravitas. Here, as always, he is brilliantly credible as a severely flawed man forced to learn the reality of the poetry he teaches. ('One who goes to teach learns the keenest of lessons; one who goes to learn, learns nothing'). Haines gives a staggering performance as Jessica, the strong woman who makes tough decisions as her comfort zone crumbles as she loses everything, while Eriq Ebouaney is striking as Jessica's neighbour Petrus, whose life philosophies must be accepted. There are two especially devastating moments in this film and they arrive unexpectedly. The first is the scene in which Malkovich is crying: we see him as from the back of a car carrying unusual cargo. The second is at the animal shelter, where David helps Bev (Fiona Press) in the heartbreaking task of dealing with unclaimed dogs. Special mention to Antony Partos' exceptional score which accentuates and tugs at our emotions and Steve Arnold's splendid cinematography which captures the starkness of the landscape. Disgrace is a powerful work and one that is not easily forgotten. Sadly, the resonance of life in South Africa feels only too real and familiar.

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
In 1999, Disgrace won the second Booker Prize for Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee. That is both an accolade to admire and a mountain to climb if you're going to adapt the novel into a film; such a different medium. Astonishingly enough, Anna Maria Monticelli and husband Steve Jacobs have pulled it off. There may be quibbles about some aspects and some scenes, but the film works as a piece of cinema, whether connected to the book or not. And as I haven't read the much lauded book, I can only respond to the film.

The saturated self awareness that John Malkovich brings to his roles is perfectly suited to the character of David Lurie, a man whose love of literature, especially the romantic poets, contrasts with his unromantic personal style. When he seduces young Melanie (Antoinette Engel) it is only superficially romantic. (Here is one of my quibbles: I'd like to have seen the precise nature of this seduction; how Melanie succumbed is so crucial to our view of David's actions and thus his character.)

But that's just the start, in a work that jolts us to attention with the vicious attack against David and his daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines) at her remote flower farm, where David has gone after his forced resignation from university. It is here that we are confronted with the demons of post apartheid South Africa that J. M. Coetzee writes about with evident heartache. It's a complex story with uneasy and uncomfortable truths; and it is Lucy - in a wonderful performance by Jessica Haines - who delivers the symbolic and also tangibly real progeny of this traumatised state.

Malkovich and Haines aside, Disgrace features remarkable performances from both Eric Ebouaney as Petrus, the man who shares farming land with Lucy, and whose history sows the seeds that grow the plants of the new South Africa; and Fiona Press as the Animal Welfare League vet who provides a haven for abandoned dogs - and David. She, too, is a symbol, a representative of people of good heart who try to make a difference, often in vain.

Africa plays its soulful, bitter sweet self as the continent where nature's wild beauty is a helpless witness to atrocious actions by mankind, and provides some soul-searching images thanks to Steve Arnold's splendid cinematography. The score is another valuable contribution by the multi awarded Australian composer Antony Partos, and for all its sombre notes, the film is a rich, textured and emotionally engaging experience that challenges our ethical and moral views about South Africa - as I suspect does the novel.

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Public Enemies

Every great director has at least one truly bad film in him, and Public Enemies is Michael Mann’s. It is not just a failure, but one of those movies in which the gap between its quality and its maker’s talent is so immense as to be nearly inexplicable. To be fair, it is possible that my expectations for Public Enemies, which chronicles the 1933 FBI manhunt for legendary Midwest bank robber John Dillinger, were unfairly high. But from the man who made Manhunter, Thief, Last of the Mohicans, Collateral, and the masterpiece Heat, a film this empty, dull, lifeless, and—most shocking of all—crudely made cannot be anything other than a major disappointment. This may not be fair, but it is a fact. We expect bad films from the likes of Brett Ratner. We expect great ones from Michael Mann. Such is the price of genius, and in Public Enemies, Mann pays it.

In all fairness, however, it must be admitted that Public Enemies is not just Mann’s failure. It is also another in a long line of equally inexplicable failures to successfully translate the myth of John Dillinger and his eventual demise to the screen. I use the term inexplicable because if the Dillinger legend is anything, it is unquestionably a great story. It has love, violence, friendship, irony, and death. It has a charismatic antihero and, in the person of straitlaced FBI agent Melvin Purvis, who led the manhunt, the stoic nemesis who eventually takes him down. It is a quintessentially American story featuring two classic American archetypes—the free-spirited outlaw and the upstanding sheriff—locked in a duel to the death in a world not unlike that of the Western but much more recognizably ours. In other words, it is a story that seems tailor-made for the movies. And yet, Hollywood has proven consistently incapable of doing it justice.

This is not for lack of trying. Almost from the moment he died in a hail of police bullets outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago, Dillinger has been an object of Hollywood’s affections. Over half a dozen films have been made about him, with John Milius’s Dillinger (1973), produced by legendary B-movie mogul Roger Corman and starring the much-underrated Warren Oates, probably being the best of them, but none have even approached the heights of the great gangster films like The Godfather (1972) or Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Most of them have been, at best, forgettable. It seems that something about Dillinger and his tale eludes the powers of cinema, and the best retellings of it have been in books like John Toland’s fascinating if sometimes inaccurate The Dillinger Days (1963).

The reason for this is probably Dillinger himself. Profoundly evil and, by all accounts, profoundly attractive, he is too complicated, schizophrenic, and disturbing a character for any mainstream film to accurately capture. A violent, charming sociopath, Dillinger was a rapist at thirteen, a convict before he reached twenty, and by the time he was finally cornered and killed by the FBI, a murderer many times over who counted several police officers among his victims. If anything distinguished him from his fellow thugs, it was his unnerving self-awareness, coupled with what seemed to be an instinctive understanding of the role that mass media was coming to play in American life. Decades before Charles Manson and O.J. Simpson, Dillinger was the first American criminal who succeeded in turning himself into a cultural icon. Accordingly, he cultivated a Clark Gable-style mustache, went out of his way to charm the press, never missed a chance for a photo opportunity— especially if it made the authorities look foolish—and became a specialist in such baroque gestures as vaulting gracefully over bank counters and refusing to steal money from poor farmers. He understood, probably because he shared it, that particularly American sympathy for outlaws, especially when their efforts are directed at the vast unknowable systems that seem to govern so much of modern American life. And like most sociopaths, he had a keen sense of what people find attractive, and quickly learned how to exploit it to his advantage.

The real skeleton key to the Dillinger legend, however, is probably the fact that while his chosen profession was somewhat unorthodox, he was very, very good at it. Americans have never much sympathized with Balzac’s observation that behind every great fortune lies a crime. They love a success story, no matter how tawdry the details (witness the recent sickening genuflection before the memory of the odious Michael Jackson), and Dillinger was unquestionably a success, robbing banks with seeming impunity, eluding the best efforts of law enforcement for months, and escaping from jails advertised as impregnable. For a brief moment, he was rich, good-looking, and famous, which is usually all Americans need to at least grudgingly admire someone. In this sense, he anticipated modern American icons like Simpson and Jackson, whose transgressions, however horrendous, are endlessly forgiven in the name of their celebrity.

The Dillinger of Public Enemies is both much more likable and far less interesting than the original. Played by perennial teen heartthrob Johnny Depp, he is both dull and a pretty nice guy, of which Dillinger was most certainly neither. Depp channels none of the sociopathic joie de vivre which so endeared the outlaw to a bruised and cynical American public. Instead, he remakes the outlaw as a sort of emasculated Byronic hero. Sensitive, sentimental, damaged, and driven, this Dillinger rarely speaks above a monotone, and seems more like a shuffling, drug-addled rock star than a gangster. All of the outlaw’s most legendary moments—jumping over the bank counters, letting the farmer keep his money, joking with the press, having his picture taken with his arm on the shoulder of his prosecutor—are portrayed in the film, but Depp’s performance is so woefully blank and uninflected that they pass by with barely any impact. While Mann has often used understated, affectless performances to his advantage (witness Robert DeNiro’s tour de force of underacting in Heat), in this case it serves only to empty Dillinger of what made him interesting in the first place.

Christian Bale’s vacant portrayal of Dillinger’s pursuer Melvin Purvis is equally woeful. Purvis has generally been portrayed by historians as either a stalwart lawman or a bumbling incompetent, and Mann tries to provide us with a little of both, resulting in a character who is both totally incoherent and just as uninteresting as his quarry. As with Mann’s portrayal of Dillinger, the reality was far more compelling and far more disturbing: Purvis was a puritanistic southerner who got the credit for killing Dillinger, though historians now believe there is a strong chance he never fired a shot (Mann’s version of events implies that this was in fact the case, though the climactic scene is so bizarrely edited that it is almost impossible to tell who is firing at who). Some thirty years later, the ex-lawman committed suicide, supposedly using the same gun with which he may or may not have shot Dillinger. The conflicting forces that must have been at work in the psyche of such a man ought to make for great drama, perhaps even great tragedy, but Mann more or less ignores them, and by the end of the movie one is simply left wondering what Purvis is doing in the film in the first place.

The only truly persuasive performance in the film belongs to French actress Marion Cotillard, who plays the ostensible love of Dillinger’s life, Billie Frechette. Cotillard depicts her as an innocent in love, which is probably inaccurate (before she hooked up with Dillinger, Frechette had already married and left another convicted criminal), but nonetheless touching, and at certain points she displays a ferocious carnality sadly lacking in the portrayal of Dillinger himself. She alone seems to be alive in the way legend demands. Billy Crudup, who plays J. Edgar Hoover, is also effective, though his character rarely rises above the shallow caricature which has become the standard Hollywood portrayal of the late FBI director. Nonetheless, there is an eccentric ruthlessness to Crudup’s Hoover that locks him immediately into the mind of the viewer, which cannot be said for the ciphers portrayed by Depp and Bale.

The acting, however, is the least of the film’s problems. Most troubling of all, especially for those familiar with Mann’s earlier work, is the cinematography, which must be one of the most wrongheaded stylistic decisions in cinema history. Put simply, Public Enemies is the ugliest big budget movie ever made. Mann shot the film on high definition video, and while films like the last two Star Wars prequels and Superman Returns have managed to get a reasonably film-like look out of digital cameras, Mann seems to have opted for a more primitive version of the technology, perhaps in imitation of the execrable Lars Von Trier’s equally execrable Dogma movement. The result simply bears out Roman Polanski’s opinion that Dogma films look like the cameraman is masturbating while stricken with Parkinson’s disease. The images have no depth, movement tends to blur in confusing and disorientating ways, even the night scenes feel overlit, and there are endless shaky-cam shots, every one of which ought to have been filmed on a dolly track. The final effect is to induce nausea in the viewer, and total incomprehension as to why Mann would lavish such expense on costumes, production design, and period detail only to photograph them as if he were making a 1970s no-budget BBC drama.

This becomes even more baffling when one considers Mann’s previous work. A notorious perfectionist with a fetish for architectural compositions and modernist styles, the crowning glory of most of its films is their visual beauty, which together with his use of ambient music draws the viewer into that vicarious fugue state which always constitutes cinema at its best. The opening shot of Heat, for example, features an LA commuter train slowly approaching the camera as it pulls into an enormous modernist train station, the train’s gleaming exterior echoing the architecture surrounding it, so they both appear to become part of the same metallic topography. Throughout the shot, a single ominous note plays on the soundtrack. The viewer has no idea where the film is set or what is happening at this point, but by the time Robert DeNiro steps off the train Mann has us in his pocket. We are all asking ourselves: Who is this man? Why are we watching him? What is about to happen? This is pure filmmaking, holding the viewer spellbound with nothing more than cinema’s own wordless, hieroglyphic language.

The worst sin of Public Enemies, however, is that it not only fails as cinema but, in making itself unwatchably ugly, actually seems to be at war with it. Whatever his motivations might be—and I suspect Hollywood’s fetish for digital technology is one of them—Mann appears to have been stricken with a violent hatred of his own medium. This may eventually lead to something of value, but if Mann continues in this vein, there is a strong chance that we will have to evaluate his career as that of wayward master whose ultimate contribution was, sadly, to the degradation of cinema itself.

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Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British drama film directed by Danny Boyle, co-directed by Loveleen Tandan,[3] and written by Simon Beaufoy. It is an adaptation of the Boeke Prize-winning and Commonwealth Writers' Prize-nominated novel Q and A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup.

Set and filmed in India, Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a young man from the slums of Mumbai who appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Kaun Banega Crorepati, mentioned in the Hindi version) and exceeds people's expectations, arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of law enforcement officials.

After screenings at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, Slumdog Millionaire initially had a limited North American release on 12 November 2008 by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, to critical acclaim and awards success, and later had a nationwide release in the United States on 23 January 2009[4] and in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009. It premiered in Mumbai on 22 January 2009.[5]

Slumdog Millionaire won five Critics' Choice Awards, four Golden Globes and seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Film, and has been nominated for ten Academy Awards. The film is also the subject of controversy concerning its portrayal of India and Hinduism as well as the welfare of its child actors.

Danny Boyle's well-earned reputation as one of Britain's most versatile directors will be further cemented by his latest feature, a distinct change of tack from his recent films such as Sunshine and 28 Days Later. Based on Vikas Swarup's best selling novel, Q&A, and adapted for the screen by Full Monty scriptwriter Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire is a vibrant, modern love story set and shot in India. Jamal Malik, an 18-year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's Who Wants to be a Millionaire. But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating: how could a 'slumdog' know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life – tales of the Juhu slum where and his brother Salim grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each picaresque episode holds the key to the answer of one of the game show's questions.

Intrigued by Jamal's story, the jaded Police Inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is doing on the show. The revelation of Jamal's story, and the role of television in it, are fascinating and funny, and are well served by Boyle's confident direction, which brings an energetic, contemporary feel. The kinetic, visceral flashbacks to Jamal's life on the streets are stunningly composed and beautifully atmospheric, and exquisitely photographed by Anthony Dod Mantle. The cast brings together the acting talents of Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor and international cinema's highly regarded Irrfan Khan (The Warrior, A Mighty Heart) and marks the first big screen roles for British actor Dev Patel (Skins) and newcomer Freida Pinto. Neatly balancing humour and drama, and making inventive use of its eclectic, multi-cultural soundtrack, this European Premiere of Slumdog Millionaire promises to bring the festival to an upbeat, cheering close.

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Gigs of the Week - December 3rd

Thursday 3rd:
Ernest Ellis (NSW), Carry Nation @ The Clubhouse
Skinny Jean @ Musgrave Park (10:30pm) - Free & All Ages (with guardian)

Friday 4th:
Incremental Records Xmas Show: Velociraptor, No Anchor, Lion Island, Mt Augustus, Ambitious Lovers (EP Launch & final show), Monster Monster @ The Clubhouse - Free, with Little Scout and Running Gun Sound DJs
Hits, Giants of Science, Sweet Dreams, Daddy Long Legs (Vic), Lords of Wong, Mercy Beat, Pretty Boys @ Step Inn
Anonymeye (Tape Launch), Thankless Plum (Vic) Nova Scotia, Ambrose Chapel, Brutal Hate Mosh @ Book Nook (West End)
Loomer, Kitchen's Floor @ Ric's Bar
Texas Tea @ The Powerhouse
Tara Simmons, Scott Spark @ The Powerhouse Visy Theatre
Scott Matthew, Heinz Riegler @ X&Y Bar

Saturday 5th:
Idle Cranes, Carry Nation, Mr Rascal, Moon Jog, Restream Vs Aheadphonehome @ Jugglers Art Space (4pm)
The John Steel Singers @ Gossip (Club 299)
Mt Augustus @ Borders CBD (1pm)
Browning St Garage & Bake Sale @ Browning St Studios - Raising funds for Browning St Studios to take their music education program to remote areas.
The Boat People, The Paper Scissors (NSW), Dan Parsons & Band @ The Clubhouse
Ball Park Music, Sweet Fawn @ Ric's Bar

Sunday 6th:
DIY Turnstyle #2: Ghost Notes @ 10 Laura St, Highgate Hill
Andrew Morris, Timothy Carroll, The Sunburys, Scott Spark, Georgia Potter, Lucie Thorne, Sean Sennett, Jody Haines, Madeleine Paige, Chloe Turner, PJ Weston, Steve Grady @ The Powerhouse (3:30pm)

To farewell the (imo amazing but somewhat divisive) Ambitious Lovers, here's the full set from their show last month. They're playing for the final time at 8:30pm on Friday at The Clubhouse for free:

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Fiesta Roundup

Three days of predominantly local music this past weekend made up the best Valley Fiesta I've had the pleasure of experiencing, bolstered by some fantastic sets from Japan's Limited Express (Has Gone?) along with Jack Ladder, Alex & The Ramps and more from interstate. Some prior years have featured lineups that haven't quite justified the bother of dealing with the crowds associated with the event; this year not only was the lineup pretty damn strong throughout the entire weekend (it was a rare moment when there was nothing of interest to see), but the crowds seemed to be more pleasurable to be a part of. I can barely think of a set that I didn't enjoy. The following gives some brief thoughts on most of the local acts I managed to catch.

Early on Friday evening, Monster Monster started the festivities with a set of his usual indie-rock inflected hip-hop. Joined by frequent collaborator Saint Surly, the two traded brief snippets of music back and forth throughout their half-hour set. It's an act that they've been performing for about 6months now, but this Fiesta slot was certainly the most natural they've made it sound. Previously they've had some difficulty pulling off the transitions between each act's turn in the spotlight, making their sets somewhat erratic at times (though the actual pieces of music they've played individually are usually pretty great). They must have been working hard on the flow of their set, as the changes generally seemed very natural on this particular evening. At times it was actually difficult to figure out which of the two artists was providing the basis of the track and which one was providing accents. This was probably furthered by the fact that neither act played many of their recognisable songs, which would indicate that the set contained mostly new material (perhaps from their upcoming collaborative record).

Lion Island have been building up a bit of a buzz over the past few months. Having recently released their debut EP, Berlin, the band have been expanding their sound from its somewhat Beirut aping beginnings. Many of the newer songs in their repertoire add an almost post-punk rhythmic quality to their gypsy folk, without turning the band into yet another Arcade Fire wannabe (so far). Some of their earlier songs hinted at this mixing of influences, most notably the EP's title track with its delayed electric guitar and soaring arrangement. Now the band is taking these ideas further, with more varied instrumentation and more complex arrangements. While you can still hear the band searching for their core sound, they seem to be getting closer with each show.

Having recently gone through some fairly significant personnel changes, Mr Maps returned on Saturday from a few months' worth of downtime with a slightly different slant on their kaleidoscopic version of post-rock. Gone are unpredictable drummer Sangdae Yang and guitar effects guru Nick Smethurst, respectively replaced by Jacob Hicks (otherwise known as the frontman for Re:Enactment) and Shem Allen (of Skinny Jean, although his was apparently a one-off appearance, with Smethurst's full time replacement being cellist Briony Luttrell). The end result is a leaner, rockier sound - at least for this show, things might change again once the cello is introduced. Most significantly, Hicks is a more traditional and harder hitting drummer than Yang, although he shares the previous drummer's frenetic style. The band are every bit as entertaining as they used to be, and have thankfully used the downtime and lineup changes to introduce some new material into their set.

DZ earned a place on the Fiesta bill via TripleJ Unearthed (along with Drawn From Bees whom I missed because... well, I'm not really much of a fan). Having last played in Brisbane at the launch of their Ruined My Life EP last month, at Fiesta the two young men were in substantially more cohesive form (thanks to a 3pm start time at an alcohol free event). While they were still probably the most ragged band to grace any of the three Valley stages over the weekend they have their own form of tightness, careening along with their groove-punk riffs, threatening to fall apart but instead crashing back together when the big moments come. And boy, do those big moments come. Every single song has at least one point when that immense riff enters and the drums start pounding even harder than before. They're an incredibly entertaining live band, but the songs are catchy enough to remain in your head after the live spectacle has been forgotten.

Having recently released their debut full length Set Your Bones, Butcher Birds took to the SAE stage around the middle of Saturday's festivities. They started their set with the same one-two combo that opens their album, displaying their muscular 'sludge-pop'. I haven't seen the band very often since their new drummer, Donovan, joined their ranks, but it's clear that he gives the band an extra degree of punch. His brief cameo on lead vocals halfway through the set also helped to break up the rest of the sludgier material, providing a welcome blast of punk rock. The rest of Butcher Birds' slot was filled with their usual slow-burning riff rock, with Stacey Coleman's gruff, smokey vocals meandering around the edges. Most of the time their music isn't especially melodic or hooky, being mostly reliant on the physicality of raw volume and the sluggish mood that it all creates. As such, late-afternoon on a bitumen street probably isn't the most conducive of settings for the band to be performing. Still, they put on their standard solid performance.

Although they've been around for a decent amount of time I'd never actually seen White Mansions before, despite the fact that I'd heard a lot of positive things about the band. I figured I should remedy this, and so I made sure I was in attendance for at least part of their Fiesta set. I'm glad I did, as they're a good band - classic sounding songs that remind one of 70s AM radio, but played through distorted garage rock and with a vocalist (Dave Ross, ex-kt26ers) who splits the difference between John Darnielle's stand-and-deliver approach and Dave Grohl's recent full throated bellow. A friend of mine mentioned The Replacements as a possible reference point, and such a comparison makes as much sense as any other.

Disco Nap is the new vehicle for ex-Iron On co-frontman Ross Hope, and much like Kate Cooper's An Horse (and very much unlike Ian Roger's No Anchor) his new music sounds a lot like his old music, with a couple of minor tweaks. Where Cooper paired things back for her new project, Hope has gone in the opposite direction, adding a handful of new textures to his fairly comfortable indie-rock. I must admit that for the first few songs I wasn't really into Disco Nap, it felt like a less successful rehash of Iron On that kept many of that band's more annoying aspects but without the quality of songs. As the set went on this feeling gradually eased and I began to enjoy the music, though it's certainly true that Hope is yet to write anything for his new project that is as good as 'Playing Hard To Want' or 'Fifty-Four Equals Two Hundred' (though there were some songs that showed some promise). It's only early days for Disco Nap so we'll see how it all develops.

Returning that morning from a show in Sydney, Little Scout launched their new EP Different From A Distance as the sun set on the valley. It was an enviable time to be performing, with the low ambient light mixing with the colourful stage lighting to wondrous effect (although the possibility of rain threatened to cut things short at any moment). It suited the recent developments in the band's sound, with their old pseudo-folk pop gradually giving way to a slicker indie rock sound, positing them as the middle ground between twee-indie bands ala Belle & Sebastian and the stadium sized atmospherics of U2 (or, if you were inclined to be less kind, Snow Patrol). They played a largely laid back set that drew equally from both of their EPs, finishing with their JJJ hit (and still best song) 'Dead Loss'.

There's very little to say about SixFtHick that hasn't already been said. The twin vocal attack of the Corbett brothers generally makes a strong initial impression, but it's the music behind them that holds your attention. The label they've given themselves, 'cane punk', is as apt a description as any, appropriately conjuring thoughts of Queensland's deep north. The music has a rough, brutish post-punk edge, calling to mind bands like The Birthday Party and The Jesus Lizard. The Corbett's don't have that same tortured howl of those bands' Nick Cave and David Yow, but they certainly attempt to create the same level of on stage intensity of the aforementioned frontmen (or at least as close as they can get at an outdoor, family event).

As the night closed on the outdoor stages, inside The Troubadour newly formed folk group Epithets provided a bit of a comedown for those present. Rising out of frontman Nick Smethurst's solo act Let's Not (But Say We Did), the new band presents the singer's songs in a more fully fleshed form. The added strength of the band suits Smethurst's music, as the restrictions placed on him by having to interact with three other musicians seem to give him direction and confidence. No longer are songs interrupted by apologies, while both the guitarwork and singing are stronger. The intricately finger-picked folk is given more weight and a clearer structure by the addition of bass guitar, Simon Reynolds' drumming finds the perfect blend of complexity and understatedness, and the violin fills in any remaining sonic gaps.

Playing under the Sunday midday sun (and wind), Carry Nation perform their threadbare folk to a small crowd who are mostly standing in the shade provided on the sidewalks. Starting out as the solo project of Jessie Warren, they've gone through a couple of incarnations before arriving at their current point of a second guitarist and two doo-wop style female backing singers. It's about as minimalist a sound as you can get from four musicians, leaving the songs as the central focus. Jessie's songs are memorable enough to be able to withstand this spotlight, with her voice coming across as a blend of the breathy Holly Throsby and the 'quirky' sultriness of Beth Gibbons.

Texas Tea are probably Brisbane's most recognisable country act and genuine local favourites, and so returned to a similar slot as the one they played at last year's Fiesta. They mostly stuck to their more upbeat numbers, such as 'Billy' and single 'Macy & Me', ignoring more introspective tracks like 'The Daredevil's Lament' and 'Cane Farmer's Song'. Generally I prefer their darker songs so I was slightly disappointed, but I can understand why they chose to do such a set when large portions of the audience would have been unfamiliar with their music. Still, a few more downbeat songs might have helped to provide a little bit more variety to their performance, which was a little bit monotone. Despite that, their songs are always strong and Kate Jacobson's voice is always a joy to listen to.

Dot.AY was certainly one of the more 'out there' acts performing at Fiesta this year, with his Gameboy created chiptune music. I was looking forward to hearing Alex Yabsley's 8-bit beats blasting through a sizable PA, and for the first half of the set this is what the crowd was treated to. It was effective and the gathering crowd seemed to be enjoying it, with a healthy amount of dancing occurring in front of stage. Unfortunately in the second half of the set things started to fall apart, with the penultimate song featuring vocals that were mixed at about double the level of the backing track, robbing the song of its energy. This was followed by a long break caused by both of Yabsley's Gameboys crashing when trying to load the sequence for the final song. By this stage a good percentage of the crowd had lost interest, resulting in a frustratingly lopsided set from one of Brisbane's more interesting musicians.

Playing the final slot of the Fiesta, Brisbane's garage soul supergroup The Horrortones brought an appropriately fun filled close to the weekend. By this stage I was almost dead on my feet, and I was likely not the only one. Something special was needed to get the crowd's attention at the end of Sunday evening, and The Horrortones did as good a job as any at providing it. With a set consisting solely of covers, the band ploughed through the songs with infectious enthusiasm. At that point of the weekend their music was the perfect blend of familiarity and celebratory energy.

Thanks must go to the organiser's of this year's Valley Fiesta. It was without a doubt one the most enjoyable event of its type that I've attended. With any luck they'll be able to reproduce it next year.

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Review: BigStrongBrute - We Can Sleep Under Trees In The Morning

Paul Donoughue (aka the man behind indie-folk 'band' BigStrongBrute) is a son of a bitch. He makes things look so easy. First off, he was part of the great band Tragic/Athletic, a band that started out as a snot-nosed noise-punk band seemingly highly indebted to Turnpike (no bad thing) before maturing into something much more 'adult' and yet somehow just as - if not more - interesting. Now he's continued that musical growth even without the help of his old band. BigStrongBrute has existed in some form for many years now, but its original incarnation as a mid-naughties electro-clash performance piece has now been completely replaced by exquisite folk-pop songcraft. Donoughue takes the same simple song structures and basic open guitar chords that thousands of people have used to create a million songs, and yet manages to create songs that are not only memorable, but somehow unique and individual. Paul Donoghue is a son of a bitch.

I suppose a large part of the reason for the success of We Can Sleep Under Trees In The Morning is the maturation of Donoughue's voice. It's always been a rough instrument, straining for pitch and range, but these days it's managed to strike that wonderful balance between roughness and musicality. The notes might be slightly off, but it's always in a way that makes things sound better, not worse. Donoughue's voice is full and rich and warm and contains a weariness beyond his years. It's the same kind of perfectly flawed voice that makes people fall in love with singers like Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum or Okkervil River's Will Sheff, acts that BigStrongBrute are often compared to. Those are comparisons that are understandable: all three bands feature strong frontmen with 'rough' voices surrounded by a slightly tweaked and modernised version of traditional folk instrumentation. The passing similarity is just that though, there's no simple aping of a somewhat popular sound. Even if there was, there are worse musical ideas to steal; thank God that Donoughue didn't attempt to create yet another over-rehearsed, bloodless 'folk' act like the Mumford & Sons of the world (as an aside, I must have heard that band's hit song - whatever it was called - a bunch of times, and each time it's ended I've been completely unable to remember a single thing about it). We already have too many dudes who thought it would be a cool idea to grow a beard, strap on an acoustic guitar and get half-a-dozen other musicians to fill out the sound with a bunch of 'obscure' instruments. I'm sick of supposed 'folk' bands who are all slick, filled with multi-part harmonies and super fast finger-picking. Be raw! Be out of tune! Stop trying to be Grizzly Bear or Fleet Foxes! Anyway...

Of course, the songs are what make any record. My personal favourite here is the closing title track, a 3-minute song that feels as though it's a 1-and-a-half-minute song. When it finishes I find myself wishing it were a 6-minute song that felt as though it were a 3-minute song. The final wordless refrain leaves me completely devastated in a way that few local acts can manage (the dearly missed Ambitious Lovers being the only other that immediately springs to mind). 'Supply & Demand' is the obvious radio single (well, obvious to me. My friend thinks that the upbeat penultimate track 'You Were Always Right' holds that title), but even it can create a lump in the throat in its final, solo bridge before the band kicks back in for the rocking outro. Then there's the beautiful build of opener 'Hands', the minimal 'In My Own Mind' and the epic centrepiece 'Industrial Town'. As you'd hope from a 6-song record, there's not much fat on here.

Engineer Todd Dixon has given the record a somewhat timeless quality, doing a commendable job of mixing together the wide array of instrumentation; flute, trumpet, piano, organs, guitars ranging from nylon stringed through to distorted electrics, all manner of vocals. Some might call it lo-fi. It's not, but neither is it a modern, polished stitch-job. Like many things with this record, it's wonderfully balanced but not hyped. I wonder if this balance might actually end up being to its detriment, as the record's lack of immediacy in both sonics and songwriting gimmicks might mean that it doesn't grab ears in the same way that, say, The Middle East did last year. BigStrongBrute just don't have that show-off element that the more hyped 'folk' acts do (which isn't to say that they lack a sense of drama). It's a shame, because Donoughue's songs are as good (I'd say better, in fact) than those of that band; they're just simpler, rougher and more subtle. Hopefully this means that they'll have more staying power.

I want to say something vaguely negative about the record so that this isn't a glowing puff piece, but I can't really think of much. It's the best local record I've heard in some time, certainly the best folk record to come out of Brisbane for a while (right up there with McKisko's debut and the previously mentioned Ambitious Lovers' farewell EP, Winter Got Warmer). It's not perfect, but anything I can think of to criticise sounds exceptionally petty (eg: sometimes the backing vocals are mixed higher than Donoghue's lead vocals). I know it's a cliche to say this when reviewing an EP, but I really hope we don't have to wait too long for a full-length. Actually screw the rest of you, I just hope *I* don't have to wait too long for a full-length.

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Review: To The North - To Work And Not Feed 12" EP

To The North are, and have been for some time, probably the best so-called 'post-hardcore' band in Brisbane. Other dubious hyphenated terms that could be (and have been) used to categorise their music would be 'math-rock', 'jazz-hardcore' and 'tech-punk', all terms that might turn various people off of their music. Such labels might seem to paint their music in an over intellectualised, bloodless light, but anyone who has seen the band live knows that this would be a huge mistake, as the band are a hugely passionate, emotive force. In fact, an equally as apt term to describe their music might actually be 'emo', but in the original use of the term from when it described various bands from the early days of Washington DC's hardcore scene that grew around the Dischord label.

To Work And Not Feed is not the debut release from To The North, but it's the most substantial in a while (they released a split 7" with the similarly minded Ohana last year, and an EP called Landscapes before that). The record features four songs spread over two sides of vinyl (with a download code included), and was recorded almost 18months ago by a friend of the band (Dave Williams) and mixed by the ever present Bryce Moorhead. The record captures the band with a raw honesty; there are very few overdubs, the sounds are left without a huge deal of polish, and as such the band's musicality is left as the sole focus. It's a sound that is unadorned and uncluttered. This is probably the best presentation for the band as their songs are complex and non-linear, and would probably become impenetrable with a more dense mix. If a song like 'If Knowledge Were A Right Of Passage You Would Be A Fucking Genius' was filled with more instrumentation it would likely collapse under its own weight, as it's already stuffed with more riffs and chord progressions than a lot of bands put together throughout an entire album. As an aside, it's probably also the best track on the record.

The star instrument here is certainly Errol Hoffman's guitar. It winds its way around all of the other instruments, alternating between extremely intricate melodic runs and dynamic chordal work. Almost stealing the show at times is the muscular yet dexterous drum work from Simon, while Josh's bass provides a solid foundation for the music (also displaying its own inventiveness from time to time). The instrumental base is likely strong enough to invoke interest even in those who are not particular partial to this style of indie rock, but the vocals might be a turnoff to any who are averse to the genre's somewhat ubiquitous speak-singing. Singer Cam Gillard's style is fairly common amongst post-hardcore bands, and those who don't particularly like other vocalists of his ilk probably won't be won over by his efforts. That said, he's a particularly passionate, anthemic vocalist who provides a needed centrepoint in the middle of his bandmates' controlled chaos. Lyrically he seems to mostly deal with conflicts and relationships (though not necessarily of the romantic variety), and does so with an inclusive, non-accusatory tone - there are a lot more 'we's on this record than 'you's.

For a band who have for a long time been fairly irregular in their gigging and releases, it's encouraging to see To The North playing out more consistently. In recent times they've become a more constant presence in gig guides, and have been on multiple tours with another one about to begin in support of this release. With any luck they'll become more than the highly respected but inconsistently seen heads of a local scene. With a bit more luck we'll get another record from them soon.

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Review: Idle Cranes - Fur Release

Post-punk band Idle Cranes have been been playing around the traps for a few years now, but have just recently released their debut record, Fur Release. The band seems to think of it as an EP, but with nine tracks and a running time of around 40minutes it's equally as valid to think of it as a full length album. With a production style that hearkens back to the post-punk records of the late 70s / early 80s (ie: not much low end, LOTS of reverb and feedback, buried vocals that are largely indecipherable) it's not an easily digestible piece of music either, but it's not without rewards for those who persist with it.

The record starts of with the instrumental 'L'Amour', a spiky piece of down-tempo post-punk that somewhat sets the template for much of the record in its minute-and-change length: trebly guitars, distant thundering drums, monolithic distorted bass that somehow stays in the sonic shadows despite its volume. 'Frigate' introduces vocals into the mix, with both of the band's singers sharing the mic on the song - Jon's languid, British sounding croon laying the foundations while Jakeb's more colloquial bark cutting through the middle, his speak-singing sounding more like the vocalisations of your average post-hardcore vocalist than a post-punk one. 'High Heels Low Brow' closes off the more accessible first third of the record with the most immediately likable slice of music on the disc, disco drums and all. If Fur Release were to have a single, this would be it.

In it's live incarnation, 'Ghost Train' is an absolute monster. Slow, menacing, oppressively loud. This recording doesn't capture that side of it at all, instead the song comes across as monotone and repetitive, with pretty much no dynamics or significant changes in its 7minute span. Drums are reduced to a metronomic tapping in the background, the bass is neutered of any power and the song is reduced to an exercise in mood and texture. Strange, then, that it's not a total write-off (though cutting a minute or so out of the first half might have done the track a favour). The song is probably the biggest challenge on the record, almost as if the band is daring you to make it to side two. Those who do will be greeted by the somewhat schizophrenic 'Discotheque' (cool riff at the 2minute mark) and the relentless, tribal 'Tetrahydreen'. In combination with 'Ghost Train' this trio makes up the decidedly strange middle third of the record.

The final third of Fur Release is probably the strongest, but also the most oblique. 'Mexico' takes the murky atmospherics to their logical limit, slowing things down to a introspective crawl and, in the process, becoming the most successful recording on the album. 'Two Horse Race' is probably the Idle Crane's finest live track, and though the band's chosen recording style has sapped the song of some of its oppressive power from the live setting (much like 'Ghost Train'), it still stands out as one of the highlights of the disc. The verses are propulsive, while the choruses increase the intensity by just enough to highlight the epic nature of the chord progression. 'DFD41' finishes things off with some more atmospherics, utilizing some found sound loops, an acoustic guitar and some droning vocals to bring things to a soothing yet disquieting end. It's one hell of a comedown to a record that doesn't give an inch over its entire running time.

By taking such a strong stance in terms of creating a uniform, highly stylised sounding record, Idle Cranes have created a somewhat more divisive record than they perhaps might have with a more 'true to life' presentation. Such conviction is to be applauded, especially in such a young band, even if the results are perhaps to the detriment of individual songs. The band has obviously wanted to create a real record, as opposed to a collection of loosely linked tracks. Some people have labelled the record as 'lo-fi', but that's not really accurate. This isn't something recorded on a cassette four-track in someone's garage, it has been intentionally constructed to sound a certain way and create a certain mood. In this respect the record is a success (extra credit also needs to be given when considering that the band pieced the record together from multiple recording sessions at a variety locations, although four of the tracks were recorded at the (new defunct?) Valley Studios by Glenn Agnew).

There is certainly a consistent mood that runs through the entire record - often this can create a sameness to the music, and this is arguably the case here. However, after living with the album (or EP, whatever) for a bit of time the listener is able to get past the murky sounds and hear that there is actually a remarkably wide breadth of music on display. Strangely enough, it's easy to imagine that with a more orthodox production style Fur Release could actually seem a little bit scattered. The fact that it instead comes across as quite cohesive would indicate that this is a band with a fairly strong idea of where it's headed, even if at this stage it does seem to occasionally get lost . Still, their success rate is high enough that this record (and their live show) comes recommended.

You can currently listen to the entirety of Fur Release record at the band's myspace page.

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Review: AXXONN - Masters of the Epic Day

Masters of the Epic Day, the second EP from local laptop-drone duo AXXONN (the first being the freel download Should You Fear Hell?, which Gav reviewed a while back), is an interesting little release. Interesting because it's actually something of a split record, featuring two songs from AXXONN and two songs from each of the two members' solo projects: Tom Hall (as himself) and Ian Rogers (as Ambrose Chapel).

It's also interesting because the two AXXONN tracks are probably the weakest on the record. Masters starts out with 'The Second Death', a track that plays out like a slightly condensed version of the debut EP (but this time with drums). The song starts out quiet and contemplative, full of warm synth tones, before erupting into noise around the one third mark, cruising along at full volume for a bit before calming back down... only this time it returns to crushing distortion instead of just petering out. Since it's only one song compared to the first EP's three it contains fewer melodic ideas, being mostly based around changes in dynamics instead of the Hell's gradually shifting tones and melodies. It's satisfying in the way that a Mogwai song is satisfying: it hits all of the points that you want it to hit, and it peaks right around the time you desire it to. It has big dynamic shifts that seem as though they're meant to jolt you about, but you're expecting them so they don't really surprise. In fact, the song is very Mogwai-like - I know it's a sin to automatically compare dramatic instrumental bands to the Scottish post-rockers, but this track really sounds like the more electronic numbers from the most recent two or three Mogwai records (the only difference being that Mogwai play guitars that sound like synths while AXXONN play synths that sound like guitars - even the sampled drums sounds a lot like the playing of Martin Bulloch, though that's probably more because he's often such a lifeless, mechanical drummer). I don't think there's any plagiarism going on here, even of the subconscious sort, as I don't believe that AXXONN are overly avid listeners of Mogwai - it's probably has more to do with the inherent limitations of and similarities between bands in this vague 'genre'. Anyway, 'The Second Death' is certainly not a bad track, in fact it's quite good, but it doesn't feel as successful as the band's earlier release.

The second track, 'Nikki Grace', is shorter but perhaps a bit more interesting, though it mines a very similar vein of ideas as 'The Second Death' - gradually developing textures in the first half, a big dynamic shift around halfway, mechanical drums. In fact, I think one of the main problems with the two AXXONN tracks is the drums - I just don't think that Hall or Rogers are particular adept at programming rhythms, or at least not the big, bombastic sort that they're trying to implement here (actually, on second thought the rhythms are actually pretty decent, the issue has more to do with the drum sounds that have been chosen and the way they've been mixed - the drums just seem to stick out, breaking the spell created by the rest of the music). On Should You Fear Hell? rhythm was used sparingly, often being limited to muted bass rhythms that burbled away beneath the weight of the huge synthesizers, and this was very effective. On Masters the rhythms are much more upfront, and I don't think it really works. It takes the band more in the direction of standard post-rock, which is all well and good, but I think that the band's best moments are when they're more understated and are slowly milking a dramatic chord progression for every remaining bit of interest.

The solo tracks reinforce this. All four are far more understated than the opening two songs, and are all the better for it. Tom Hall's 'Wor(l)ds Fall Down' is four and a half minutes of dread based around a couple of keyboard notes, while 'Between Subdivided Distances' features a slowly building array of drones and textures which never reach any sort of emotional payoff, although they do eventually break through the aural clouds to reach a kind of sunshine for the last minute of the song. Both tracks are desolate, murky sounding affairs, but not in a cold, detached way. They're also both really, really good.

Meanwhile, Rogers' two tracks are equally as enthralling. 'Bulk Carriers At Sea (And On Fire)' alternates between unnerving white noise and synths that sound like foghorns, giving a feeling that perfectly reflects the song's title. 'Corridors_Bend' is the shortest track on the EP, featuring a chorus of what sounds like ebowed guitars and rumbling ambience - there's really only one idea in the track, but it's explored thoroughly while not outstaying its welcome, and as such is as successful as anything else on the EP.

Masters of the Epic Day is an interesting little release. It's successful in ways that you wouldn't think it would successful, and its failures are due to things that you would imagine would be strengths. Who would have thought that the solo tracks, which many might have expected to be somewhat 'throwaway' in comparison to the 'proper' band songs, would be the highlights of this disc? Conversely, AXXONN are often most successful when melding the heady 'art' of experimental drone music with the more emotive, visceral world of rock and folk (in the traditional sense of the word), so it makes sense that the use of bombastic rhythms and big dynamic shifts would only add to the success of their music. However, this doesn't seem to be the case. It seems as though the aspects of AXXONN's music that they should be pursuing are the subtle melodies and texture shifts, and mixing those with a more subtle rhythmic approach.

Don't let my musings on why this record doesn't quite hit the heights its aiming for put you off, it's still a highly worthwhile release. All six songs are at the very least interesting, with none of them being remotely 'bad', while some of the solo tracks would be highlights on many quality records. Oh, and the packaging is pretty cool, almost meeting the lofty standards set by Rogers' other act, No Anchor.

Here's the video for 'The Second Death'.

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Gigs of the Week - November 27th

I wasn't go to do one of these up, but there's so many great gigs on this weekend that I thought that perhaps I should. I think I'll only do one more this year, since things tend to die down in December.

Friday 27th:
No Anchor, The Rational Academy, Yout Dem, Whyte Lighting @ The Step Inn (Front Bar)
The Swamplords (Album Launch), Sulphur Lights, Velociraptor, Running Guns @ The Troubadour
Fergus Brown (NSW), McKisko, Mr Maps, Cowper @ Lofly Hangar
The Gin Club, Edward Guglielmino, Mexico City, Lion Island @ The Zoo
Toy Balloon, Cardhouses @ Ric's Bar
Real Bad Music Convention @ 1145 Ipswich Rd MOOROOKA - Three day DIY convention.

Saturday 28th:
At Sea, Lion Island, Smokestack Orchestra, The Videomatics @ The Troubadour
4zzz's Dub Day Afternoon: Kingfisha, Rhythm Collision Sound System, Darky Roots & lots more @ The Jubilee Hotel
Real Bad Music Convention @ 1145 Ipswich Rd MOOROOKA - Three day DIY convention.

Sunday 29th:
Lion Island, Pensive Penguin, Hello Yoko, Tom Eggert @ Ithaca Pool - just in case you thought there weren't enough opportunities to see Lion Island this weekend.
Real Bad Music Convention @ 1145 Ipswich Rd MOOROOKA - Three day DIY convention.
Assassins 88, Kitchen's Floor, Sleepwalks, Loomer @ Browning St Studios (6pm)

Wednesday 2nd:
Browning St Goes Bush Benefit: The Rooftops, Stop It I Love It Cabaret, Kay Orchison, Peter B & The Homeless Souls, Sarah Gall & more @ Brisbane Arts Theatre (Petrie Terrace) - a benefit for the music teachers from Browning St Studios to take their music education to remote areas. There's also a student recital occuring at the venue at 6pm.

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Gigs of the Week - November 12th

Thursday 12th:
Secret Birds (Album Launch), Slug Guts, White Cop, Manic Eyes @ The Clubhouse
Doch Gypsy Orchestra @ The Powerhouse

Friday 13th:
2high Festival: Tin Can Radio, Villains of Wilhelm, Sunflower, My Fiction, Running Guns and more @ The Powerhouse - see www.2highfestival.com for the full list of bands and times. Free entry.
The Stabs (Vic), Witch Hats (Vic), Loomer, The Deadnotes @ The Clubhouse - Free entry.
Mr Rascal, At Sea @ Ric's Bar
Princess Rodeo, Blue Trial Records, The Bloodpoets, Boss Level Monster @ The Globe
Doch Gypsy Orchestra @ The Powerhouse
Wagons (NSW), Texas Tea @ X&Y Bar
Illage @ Checocho Cafe, West End

Saturday 14th:
Mere Noise Meltdown: The Horrortones, Turnpike, El Borracho, Vegas Kings, Butcher Birds, The Sips, The Hymies, The Dangermen, The Keep On Dancins @ The Step Inn
Texas Tea @ The Troubadour (1am Late Show)
2high Festival: Black Market Rhythm Company, Richard In Your Mind (NSW), Mr Maps, McKisko, Dot.AY, Mt Augustus and more @ The Powerhouse - see www.2highfestival.com for the full list of bands and times. Free entry.
Little Lovers, Extra Foxx, Feathers @ 4zzz Carpark (2pm) - All ages, donation entry.
Cuthbert & The Nightwalkers (NSW), Little Lovers, Oh Ye Denver Birds @ X&Y Bar
Hungry Kids of Hungary, Deep Sea Arcade (NSW), Ball Park Music @ The Zoo
Doch Gypsy Orchestra @ The Powerhouse

Sunday 15th:
Shit Life: White Cop, Blank Realm, Tidy Kid, No Guru Trio, Extra Foxx, Loomer, Heart Flew Like An Arrow, Sounds From The Ward, Cured Pink Radio, Swamplords, Loose Grip, Science, Kitten Party, Baglady & Walter P. Cronwiegn, Brutal Hate Mosh, The Harpy Choir @ Dutton Park Cemetary (or somewhere near it, 3pm)
Hungry Kids of Hungary, Deep Sea Arcade (NSW), Ball Park Music @ The Hive
Live Spark: Steve Grady, Crystal Radios @ The Powerhouse
Doch Gypsy Orchestra @ The Powerhouse

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Gigs of the Week - September 9th

So, it's Big Sound week this week. That means there will be all manner of industry types walking around the valley until the weekend. I had a bit of a look around today, it was... interesting. In any case, Big Sounds means that there are quite a few shows happening around town over the next few days.

(Also, for those who want a look behind the curtain to see what makes Before Hollywood tick, there's an interview with me over at the blog The Fruit Bowl... if you're interested)

Wednesday 9th:
Big Sound Live: I Heart Hiroshima, The Rational Academy, Little Scout, DZ, Skinny Jean, The Middle East, Hungry Kids of Hungary, Kate Bradley, Toy Balloon, Timothy Carrol, Ed Guglielmino, Rocketsmiths, Chris Pickering and MORE @ Various Valley venues - See www.qmusic.com.au/bigsound2009 for details on getting tickets etc.

Thursday 10th:
Big Sound Live: We All Want To, Grand Atlantic, The Boat People, Mary Trembles, Hunz, Last Dinosaurs, Madeleine Paige, The Cairos, Drawn From Bees, Dan Parsons and MORE @ Various Valley venues - See www.qmusic.com.au/bigsound2009 for details on getting tickets etc.
Pink Reason (USA), Slug Guts (LP Launch), Fabulous Diamonds (Vic), Blank Realm @ Step Inn
NineHoursNorth: aus (Japan), Cokiyu (Japan), Do The Robot @ Judith Wright Centre
Teleprompter, Snow White @ Ric's Bar

Friday 11th:
DZ (EP Launch), ChainGang (NSW), Stature::Statue, Villains of Wilhelm @ Club House (Empire Hotel Corner Bar)
Songs (NSW), Little Scout, Big Strong Brute @ The Troubadour
We All Want To @ The Powerhouse
Up Late: Kate Jacobson, Ben Salter @ Queensland Art Gallery

Saturday 12th:
The Bell Divers, Bliss @ Ric's Bar
Running Guns @ The Troubadour (1am Late Show)

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Turnpike @ Mere Noise Meltdown, Step Inn (14.11.2009)

I saw a lot of local bands play over the last weekend. The sounds coming from these bands included cool garage pop (Running Guns), overwrought radio-rock (The Gallant), awesome Bardo Pond-esque drone-pop (Loomer), K-Records-meets-SST sludge (Manic Eyes), affected yet entertaining noise punk (White Cop), the gradual evolution and coming of age of an already pretty great new band (Slug Guts), the farewell of a local phenomenon (Secret Birds' final show), a beautiful yet far too brief set of quiet folk (McKisko), and an experience of a band I missed during their heyday (El Borracho). Most of it was actually pretty damn great, a somewhat rare run of consistently quality music. Some of it was not so good. All of it was worth writing about in some form. However, when the time came there was only one band I really wanted to write about, and they're a band I've written about (and fawned over) before: Turnpike.

Turnpike, for me, are that band you go and see at every opportunity that presents itself, where you stand in the front row with a handful of people and wonder why so many others seem to pay so little attention. They've been one of my favourite bands (note: favourite bands, not just favourite local bands) almost since the first time I saw them. Their music is simultaneously clever, boneheaded, technical, lacking in technique, ear-splitting and aurally orgasmic. Song structures are merely loose recommendations on where a particular piece of music should lead - each player is free to head off on a whim at a moment's notice, or to attempt to play a particular part completely differently to how they've played it previously. And yet the songs are complex, twisting journeys that are unpredictable and yet always hit their marks.

In the last year or so there have been rumours that Turnpike would break up and transform into some other band. Thankfully that plan seems to have been abandoned, but the idea of changing direction somewhat seems to have been retained. New songs have been introduced recently: the first one was introduced a few months ago and is by far the most schizophrenic song the band have yet written. Starting with a bubbling bass riff in 5/4, it eventually builds up and explodes into a rudimentary sort of thrash metal before falling back to where it began. The second new song was unveiled at the Mere Noise Meltdown on Saturday evening, and was in huge contrast to the retro-tinged garage rock performed by most of the other bands on the bill. Featuring more twists and turns than... well, something very twisty and turny, it displayed guitarist Adam King adding a bit of Ian Williams to his usual Steve Albini meets Ash Bowie guitar stylings. Individual notes and melody lines are clearer than they have been for years in Turnpike's music, although still delivered in a highly twisted, clanging fashion. Meanwhile, the rhythm section of Chris Bryant and Tim Evans provide their usual mix of solid anchorage mixed with appropriate levels of chaos, except now with double the number of 90 degree turns in the music and greater flow than ever before. The total effect is mind blowing, throughout the song I found myself being more and more astounded with every newly introduced riff.

Older songs were also performed on the night, both released and unreleased (though familiar to anyone who has seen the band since their debut full length dropped in 2006). They were similarly impressive, and performed as well as I've ever seen them (despite some occasional problem with guitar leads being disconnected due to the Step Inn Front Bar's limited stage space). Although the set was a short one at only five songs, it was packed to the brim of explosive, exciting music. Turnpike may well fall within the confines of 'math rock', but they also display a vitality and energy that bands in that genre often lack, who instead getting lost in studiousness and the search for perfection in performance. Turnpike dismiss that aspect of the genre, and hence are able to comfortably fit into a night such as the Mere Noise Meltdown, where attitude and perceived authenticity reign supreme.

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Review: Do The Robot - First Names

Do The Robot's 2008 Valve records release Amp On Fire was an enjoyable, if somewhat flawed, minimalist shoegaze record. A little over a year later the band have released their follow-up, First Names, and it's an improvement on their debut in almost every sense. While recent live shows have played up the ambient side of their music, First Names combines the recent increased use sound layering with the traditional melodicism Do The Robot have shown at all stages of their existence. The record improves upon the areas that were somewhat lacking on Amp On Fire, while expanding the areas where the band was already quite successful.

The record starts off with 'Europe', about as concise a song as you'll find in Do The Robot's discography, coming in at a touch under 4minutes. Within this timeframe the musical improvements the band has made in the past year all come to the fore - the songs are more densely packed with melodies and shifting arrangements, and there's a greater sense of movement inherent in the music. No longer do their songs coast along for 7minutes with a mere two or three chords, seemingly held in stasis; now songs embrace traditional pop structures while still keeping the band's trademark dreaminess and languid beauty. Another thing that will strike those familiar with the debut is the sound of the record - everything seems so much more full than before, and not just because of the increased use of guitar and keys overdubs. Engineer Todd Dixon has done a great job of balancing reverb-filled haze with a sense of weight for all of the instruments. The final thing of note that has really improved in recent times is Sera's singing - she has always had a voice with the perfect character for this style of music, but now she has better control of her vocals and hence comes across as much more powerful and confident. She also seems to have reduced the Americanisations in her pronunciation (something that is a bit of a pet peeve of mine).

The band also seems more willing (or more able) to mix things up - 'Grandmother's Bicycle' is a terrific, upbeat pop song that devolves into a Sonic Youth Sister-era outro, 'Mountain' is the tensely dramatic centrepiece of the album, and 'Moon In The Sky' shares a fair bit with sister-band The Rational Academy's more reflective moments. Meanwhile 'Just The Six (No The Five Of Us)' is the sort of extended jangly pop song that Amp On Fire was filled with - except better. Matt also mixes up his guitar tone much more frequently than on the prior record, often double tracking his parts and not being afraid to throw down some appropriately distorted shoegaze guitar. It helps to keep the record moving along, and stops things from getting too samey.

First Names is the record that I was hoping for with Amp On Fire - beautiful and stark, yet inviting and enveloping. Unlike Amp On Fire, it benefits from not outstaying its welcome, being all over in a bit over 35minutes. It also packs a lot more ideas into its running time than its predecessor, ensuring that the listener stays interested through its entire duration. Since Do The Robot have already moved on from the sound of this record I'm interested to hear their next release - if its much like their current live show we can expect it to be more obtuse, more ambient, more abstract and even more densely filled then First Names, and yet just as melodically satisfying as this record.

Oh, and I should also mention the beautiful packaging. The vinyl version comes in individually hand-crafted fabric jackets.

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Tragic/Athletic video clip

To celebrate a new year, here's something that doesn't require much effort from me to share. It's a video clip for Tragic Athletic's 'We Set Sail When The Wind Came', from their rather awesome 2008 10" EP Brakes. Apparently they have a new EP in the works.

I have a whole stack of records I'd like to talk about sitting next to my computer, so if I can motivate myself I might do a big roundup of a heap of newish releases from the latter part of 2009.

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Gigs of the Week - August 13th

It's Radiothon for 4zzzFM from this Saturday all through next week, so subscribe to the station so they can stay on air. You can win prizes!

Thursday 13th:
The Lifted Brow Launch: Talkshow Boy (Vic), The Estates, Joel Saunders & Crazy Hearse @ The Zoo - Launch of literature zine, with cheap copies available
Dave Ross, Conor MacDonald @ Step Inn (Front Bar)
Grand Atlantic, Sarakula (NSW), The Stress of Leisure @ The Troubadour
Tycho Brahe, Twist Oliver Twist @ Ric's Bar

Friday 14th:
Mexico City @ The Powerhouse

Saturday 15th:
4zzz All Day Breakfast: Seaplane, Turnpike, Undead Apes @ 4zzz Car Park, St Paul's Tce (2pm) - With a sausage sizzle!
Do The Robot (Album Launch), Carry Nation, BigStrongBrute, Silver Screens @ Lofly Hangar
Mr Rascal, Lion Island @ Ric's Bar

Monday 17th:
Wheatpaste, The Dead Ringers @ Ric's Bar

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Gigs of the Week - August 27th

Thursday 27th:
Bliss, Half Tail @ Ric's Bar
Secret Birds, TroubleKarmaFlow @ X&Y
Bluejuice (NSW), Skinny Jean, Last Dinosaurs @ The Zoo

Friday 28th:
Alps (NSW), Kitchen's Floor, The Deadnotes, Whyte Lightning (Vic) @ Step Inn (Front Bar)
Extra Foxx, Little Lovers @ Ric's Bar
To The North, Caught Ship (Vic), Soars, The Peel St Band, Birth of Bison @ Via Studios - Free, All Ages.
Mexico City @ The Powerhouse
The Keep On Dancin's @ The Troubadour (1am)

Saturday 29th:
Caught Ship (Vic), Whyte Lightning (Vic), The Swamplords, Sweet Dreams, Loose Grip, Nikko @ Ahimsa House
Cuthbert & The Nightwalkers (NSW), Little Scout, Lion Island @ The Troubadour
The Sunday Reeds (Vic), Kitchen's Floor, The Gonzo Show @ Lofly Hangar

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DZ, Villains of Wilhelm @ Fans (12.09.09)

Popular indie-rock club night Fans recently up and left their traditional home at Alhambra lounge, now putting on their regular shows at the Empire's corner bar (otherwise known as The Club House). Deciding to start things off with a bang, Fans opened the new location with the EP Launch for the super-hyped dance-punk band DZ.

Starting off the night, however, were garage rockers Villains of Wilhelm. Before I go any further, there's one thing that has always annoyed me about this band: they seem to always pronounce Wilhelm as 'will-helm', missing the obvious opportunity for illiteration provided by the usual pronunciation of the name! Man, that really grinds my goat... Anyway, The Villains play largely uptempo, loud rock'n'roll with occasional detours into something a bit more melodious. Frontman Danny Wilhelm is far and away the focal point of procedings, running around and causing all sorts of havoc while the rest of the band provides tight backing to his antics. In general crowds seem to lap it up, though not everyone is so enamoured - after their set a less than impressed friend of mine commented that 'anyone can roll around on the floor, it doesn't mean the songs are any good'. It's a fair point, though perhaps a marginally unfair one. While The Villains are hardly providing anything unique in the grand scheme of things, they execute their chosen brand of rock'n'well with a near perfect balance of musical proficiency and reckless abandon. Furthermore, what's wrong with a bit of showmanship? Whether the band can prove themselves to be as effective on record is up for debate, but as a live spectable they're a worthwhile act for those with a predisposition towards their particular form of rock.

DZ have garnered a reputation as a fairly explosive live act, being unafraid to try every trick in the proverbial book to enhance the energy inherent in two dudes playing loud, guitar-based rock music. To that end they liberally incorporate intense strobe lights, crowd surfing, smoke machines, black lights and extreme volume. Most of these things were on display at the launch of their Ruined My Life EP, and the crowd responded in predictably riotous fashion. The end result was without a doubt one of the sloppiest rock sets I've seen in many a month - instruments would regularly stop playing for bars at a time, musical cues would be missed, crowd members would run onstage and push over parts of the drum kit or pull out a guitar lead. For a band being touted in some circles as the heir to Violent Soho's grunge-influenced crown, on this particular night they lacked that particular band's iron-tight grip on its music, but that's not really what DZ are trying to achieve. They're a band who are attempting to bring the noise and aggression of punk and meld it with the communal, party atmosphere of dance music, as shown by their regular covering of songs from acts live Daft Punk, Justice and even the Venga Boys. Judged on that criteria, the launch was a complete success. I can't think of many occasions where a crowd has been so intensely into a local band's set, or where the security at the front of the stage were actually not only necessary at a local show, but so laughably ineffectual.

The night finished up with Stature::Statue playing the 1am slot, but a) I've already reviewed them quite recently and b) I was pretty tired by the time they had started so had already headed home. There was also Chain Gang from Sydney at the start of the night, but I only caught their last (pretty crazy) song, plus they don't fit within Before Hollywood's scope.

Photo courtesy of Gerry Rocks.
Usual full disclosure statement: I recorded the DZ EP at my home studio.

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Gigs of the Week - August 20th

So there was supposed to be another post in here about something else, but unfortunately there were technical issues and it had to be scrapped, so instead here's a boring old gig guide. There's not a whole bunch on this weekend, though what is on is pretty good.

Also, remember that 4zzz's Radiothon continues until Friday, so subscribe!

Friday 21st:
Greg Brady & The Anchors, Del Toro @ Ric's Bar
Vegas Kings, Undead Apes, Electric Jellyfish (Vic) @ The Troubadour

Saturday 22nd:
Sweet Dreams, Electric Jellyfish (Vic), Turnpike, Dollface, Loose Grip @ Browning St Studios
4zzz Radiothon Finale: Hunz, Blue Carousel, Ball Park Music @ X & Y
Reptiles (Vic), Parties of the Interzone @ Ric's Bar

Tuesday 25th:
The Scrapes, Sounds from the Wall @ Ric's Bar

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Turnpike, Seaplane, Undead Apes @ 4zzz Carpark (15.08.09)

4zzz's Radiothon has come and gone, so I hope that those of you who weren't subscribers prior to this past week have now changed that. In any case, the Zeds started off their yearly subscription drive last Saturday with an afternoon show in their carpark on St Paul's Terrace, something that was relatively common a few years back and has recently returned as a semi-regular event. The Porridge program was responsible for this particular show, and so we had three loud indie-rock bands (of various sub-types) playing in the winter sun.

Local punk rock frankenstein Undead Apes started things off. The band consists of members of Eat Laser Scumbag, Sekiden, Dick Nasty and Gazoonga Attack, and Undead Apes don't really stray too far from what you would imagine a band featuring such musicians would sound like: it's loud, up-tempo, catchy punk (more of the garagey 'pop-' variety than the 'hardcore-'). Although they've only been around for a relatively small amount of time, they're a pretty tight little outfit - again, as you'd expect given their lineage. Aside from one mix up due to attempting to play a song that was only written a day or two before the show, every song was nailed down tight, coming across with great force. I'm struggling to think of anything substantial to really say about them, other than if you like the previously mentioned bands (or just punk rock in general) then you'd be well advised to check them out.

Seeing as Seaplane's co-frontman Stirling Bartlam hosts the Porridge show, it was no surprise to see his own band on the lineup. They're a fine act so I doubt many people had any complaints. Having gone through a lineup change fairly recently (drummer Conwae Burrell being replaced by Nova Scotia frontman Scotty Brique), it's been reassuring to see that if anything the band has become even tighter. Scott is a louder and slightly more accomplished drummer than Conwae, although not to such a degree that Burrell's trademark roughness has been eliminated. Brique provides the perfect middle ground for the band - sturdy enough to provide a solid base from the two guitarists to throw their signature squall over, but loose enough to continue the previous incarnation's character. This show was amongst their better, with all members being able to stretch out at full volume with a supportive and interested crowd (indeed, Dale Peachey seemed quite incredulous that audience members kept asking him to turn up for once). Most of the set was made up of tracks from their recent 12", such as The Soiree, Plastic Jesus and Feather, with a few older favourites added to mix things up.

It's no secret that Turnpike are one of my very favourite Brisbane bands. If you're at all inclined towards their brand of no-wave/math-rock noise then it's a rare thing to witness a bad Turnpike show (indeed, I can't actually remember ever seeing one, though I'm sure it must have happened at some stage... probably). Although they've been playing a set of largely unreleased songs ever since the arrival of their Humans Find Patterns album a few years back (with the only songs to appear since 2007 being 'Selling, This Century' from their split with Del Toro, and 'Easy Choices For Bad People' from Stranded), it seems that the band has decided to start moving onto new areas regardless. Hence we are treated to a lengthy new song, with the promise of more to come. The new track features drummer Chris tweaking electronic noises for the first third of the song, while Tim plays a continuous 5/4 riff on bass and Adam noodles away on guitar. It's like some sort of minimalist version of Tortoise. Eventually the guitar and bass meld together, the drums enter and things work themselves up to a moderate level of 'rock', before everything explodes into something that can only likened to thrash metal. After a comparatively small amount of ear-shredding the songs calms back down and returns to its origin. It's definitely new territory for the band, and represents another shift in their sound (something that seems to happen every year or two). It will be interesting to see if they continue this new, more abstract direction with their other new material. Hopefully we'll see a new release from these guys in the near future.

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