Tag: Chapter Music

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Aussie Punk Outfit CLAMM Wrestle with Impatience and Yearning in “Something New”

With the release of 2020’s full-length debut Beseech Me, the Melbourne-based punk outfit CLAMM — Jack Summers (vocals, guitar), Maisie Everett (bass, backing vocals) and Miles Harding (drums, backing vocals) — quickly exploded into national and international punk scenes. Originally released by the band on cassette, the album received airplay and praise from Aussie radio stations 3RRR and FBi. Reissued by UK-based label Meat Machine last year, the album earned best punk nods from the likes of Spin, Bandcamp Daily and KEXP.

Adding to a growing profile, the band has played with Wolf Alice, Civic, Amyl & The Sniffers, The Chats, Vintage Crop, and The Murlocs — and they’ve made their way across the Aussie festival circuit with stops at Boogie Festival, Melbourne Music Week, and Meadow.

The rising Aussie punk rock band’s sophomore album Care was released last week through Chapter Music globally — with the exception of the UK, Europe and Asia, where it was released by Meat Machine.

Recorded during any free moment they had last year in one of the most locked down cities in the world, the band’s sophomore album was tracked at Rolling Stock Recording Rooms and Sound Park Studios with Nao Anzai. The album also features Anzai playing synth — and he has joined the band on stage at recent shows. Mangelwurzel‘s Anna Gordon (sax) contributes sax on a number of the album’s songs.

Care, much like its predecessor sees the band exploring the confusion — and perhaps seeming hopelessness — of being a young person trying to live an honorable life in a fucked-up, mad world. Thematically, their songs are frequently about trying to navigate systems of power and oppression while retaining a healthy sense of self and mental health. Community, creativity and catharsis are what they hope to achieve through their work.

Care‘s third and latest single “Something New” is an urgent, mosh pit friendly ripper centered around enormous power chords and thunderous drumming, propulsive basslines paired with rousingly cathartic hooks and choruses, Summers’ urgent, yearning delivery and some sax wailing from Anna Gordon. The song manages to capture and evoke youthful impatience, the subtle and creeping recognition of mortality just over your shoulder, and the yearning desire for meaning and peace in such a mad, fucked up world in a visceral way — so visceral that it hurts, because we’ve all been there. Or maybe we’re still there despite age and perceived wisdom.

“‘Something New’ is a song about searching or yearning,” CLAMM’s Jack Saunders explains. “It is about impatience and time, and its title refers to the process of facing seemingly new stimuli throughout life.”

Frequent visual collaborator Oscar O’Shea directed the accompanying video for “Something New.” Shot on Kodak film, the video follows the members of CLAMM storming around Melbourne and its surroundings, starting with a house near the train line, a lakefront, an abandoned warehouse and the beach with the city just over the horizon.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Lysergic Sounds and Visuals of Beaches’ “Arrow”

Comprised of Antonia Sellbach (guitar, vocals), Alison Bolger (guitar, vocals), Ali McCann (guitar vocals), Gil Tucker (bass, vocals) and Karla Way (drums, vocals), the Melbourne, Australia-based psych rock quintet Beaches formed in 2007, and since their formation the quintet have developed an international profile for their critically applauded 2008 self-titled debut and 2013’s sophomore effort She Beats both of which drew from psych rock, shoegaze, prog rock and krautrock — with both albums being shortlisted for their respective years’ Australian Music Prize. 

Second of Spring, the Aussie psych quintet’s third full-length album is slated for a September 8, 2017 release through Chapter Music — and interestingly enough, the album is the first double LP released by an individual artist/band in the label’s history. Recorded in their hometown of Melbourne with producer/engineer John Lee, who has worked with Totally Mild and Lost Animal, and mastered by David Walker, the Melbourne-based psych rockers third album reportedly finds the band expanding upon the sound that won them international praise and attention but with material that emphasizes a jam-like feel.  Now, if you had been frequenting this site earlier this summer, you may recall that I wrote about Second of Spring’s first single “Void,” which featured buzzing power chords with a motorik groove and anthemic hook. And interestingly enough, the track reminded me quite a bit of The Breeders “Last Splash,” Liz Phair‘s “Supernova” and others but with a swirling, lysergic feel; but as the band’s Ali McCann explained to Vice Noisey “‘Void’ is a conversation between two people, who discuss a prolonged absence, a temporary disappearance into a space of emptiness. We wrote ‘Void’ in our rehearsal space in Reservoir (Melbourne) during a prolific period of songwriting. It was produced by John Lee (Phaedra Studios), who also plays synthesiser on this track. Karla and I are on vocals. There is a restrained interaction between them, tempered by the motorik drive of the instrumentation.”

The album’s second and latest single “Arrow” continues in a similar vein as its predecessor as it features buzzing power chords and a chugging, motorik groove and an anthemic hook under-pinned by a breezy, ethereal melody — and while clearly nodding at 90s alt rock, the song subtly nods at 60s psych rock. And fittingly, the recently released music video for the song features some incredibly trippy, psychedelic imagery — including an extended section in which shapes explode and change color and rearrange themselves in front of the viewer, in exact beat to the song, before briefly panning out to show one of the band members standing in front of projection screen or a hand manipulating things.