No Pain In Pop

Dickshaker’s Shanty

This track from New Zealand’s Surf City hasn’t strayed far from my glad ears since the first time I heard it. Easy, fresh and buoyant, the remarkably named ‘Dickshaker’s Union’ rattles along on a suburban breeze of daytime drinking and cloud cover, Abe Vigoda-ish stabs of strung treble underpinned by more provincial rhythm. If Vigoda had it right when they proclaimed themselves ‘tropical punks’, you’d guess Surf City might be ‘maritime punks’ - witness the hungover skies in the video and the call-and-response shanty understanding of guitar and voice, cymbals that create a light, lapping wash of noise. Possessing the clatter of Roxy Music at their most strident and the isolated charm of Kiwipop, Surf City update the Flying Nun tradition writ by bands like The Clean and The Chills for a generation set to be remembered for its fawning over Animal Collective. And that’s awesome.

A self-titled six-track EP is available now through Morr Music.



MP3: Surf City - Dickshaker’s Union

Tags: morr music, surf city

You Dark Ambler

When scene sick and sunless, it’s best just to wait it out and side with purity. Motrealer three The O Voids sink into your skin like water, bare bones post-guitcore with guilty swipes of blues falling like leaves on the cold, dead terrain envisaged by Fugazi and The Fall. Chris, Peter and Leah (Nick played drums on the record) make music that sounds like it wears fading plain t-shirts and has its hair cut short, a no waste, low tolerance acid test for the fool-eyed flotsam’s lot. The proof is in the pudding bowl, so let me see your scalp.



MP3: The O Voids - White Hole



MP3: The O Voids - Moving Forward

Tags: the o voids