BLOGS

ALBUM REVIEW New Weird Australia Volume 6 - Various Artists

By SARA-SAVAGE on Jul 27 2010, 10:40PM

Are you a patriot?

Tough question, I know. When an entire quarter of the population are tuning in to the Master Chef finale, and another big chunk are actually considering letting a certain budgie-smuggler enthusiast run the country, it’s hard to find reasons to be proud of our increasingly bewildering home.

Luckily for the sceptics among us, the guys over at New Weird Australia have been trawling the country (and its as yet unfiltered Internet pages) high and low to bring us the most recent of their compilations of, well, new and weird Australian music. Never has a glimmer of hope been so welcome.

NWA is a recently developed, not-for-profit initiative that aims “to promote and support new eclectic and experimental Australian music”. It is the brainchild of Sydneysiders Stuart Buchanan and Danny Jumpertz; respective founders of The Nest and Feral Media, not to mention New Weird Australia’s eponymous radio show on Sydney’s FBi 94.5fm. This is the sixth and final compilation in the series before NWA changes its set-up in favour of guest-curated, thematic and genre-specific formats, and they’ve certainly made sure to end their first chapter with a bang.

Opening with the prolonged, dark, drone-metal tones of Ambrose Chapel, NWA don’t appear to be particularly worried about alienating their less-seasoned listeners with the first track. It’s worth sustaining, however, and as the track (and album) progresses, it starts to make sense as to why this less-than-friendly number is the welcoming face of the compilation. Canberra’s Jonny Telafone yanks us headfirst into the rest of the ride ahead, with his apocalyptic yet strangely uplifting ‘Stardate 2012.1221’. This is followed by Melbourne’s own Chrome Dome, and their short, sharp track ‘She Said’. Full of messy synths and could-care-less vocals, the Chrome Dome trio have a way of making their music sound so good, yet somehow so accidental, at least in comparison to their company on this compilation.

The next two tracks move the listener seamlessly through to the end of the album’s first half; Wigwam with their persistent, awkward percussion and J. Newman & R. Squires with an excerpt from ‘The Church of our Lady of Pompeii’ – a crackly piano number that could have easily accompanied a Lumiere Brothers film. It’s Kynan Tan’s contribution to NWA Vol. 6, however, that arrives as the first standout track on the compilation. Tan is a pending WAAPA graduate and steadily flourishing sound artist. Listening to the silvery tones and haunting vocals on his track ‘Melt’, it’s easy to recognise why.

From hereon in, there are a number of tracks keeping Tan company in his high calibre of sound. Melbourne’s Trjaeu are simply captivating with their slow crescendo of eerie and uplifting layers, as is their neighbour Hamish O’Neill (aka Isle Adore), who provides us with a welcome interlude of experimental pop that is reminiscent of a pared-down Atlas Sound, or even early Animal Collective. Providing a cathartic ending to the compilation is Anna Chase’s previously unreleased ‘Lines’, with her unalloyed vocals and fittingly sparse accompaniment of just an accordion and a guitar.

NWA’s sixth volume is by no measure a perfect compendium, but it is an undeniably fresh and extremely welcomed addition to the greater field of Australian music. While the concept borrows the name of its American peer genre of the early noughties (‘New Weird America’; responsible for artists like Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, The Mountain Goats and Vetiver to name a few), New Weird Australia is by no means replicating the movement. In fact, the music that Buchanan and Jumpertz have lovingly unearthed has a distinct rareness and uniqueness that many are perhaps unaware even exists on our own shores.

Thanks to NWA’s exhaustive and meticulous scouting abilities, even the most elitist local music critics and enthusiasts will not have heard of some of the artists. This isn’t a message of ‘cool’, however, so much as it is one of the charm in the truly new and the beautifully weird. With the compilation traversing so many genres, music enthusiasts of many varieties will surely find something they can enjoy in this exciting compilation.

Great talent and great tunes – all from the comforts of home. Oh, and did I mention that all the NWA volumes are available to download for free? Now that’s something for Australians to be proud of.