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PITCHFORK WRITER: Hey boss another super excellent Australian record came in. Should I score it 8.0 as usual to convey the impression that we’re listening but don’t really think that anyone who doesn’t already care should do so

PITCHFORK EDITOR: Yep

Amen.

I mean it’s great that local bands are getting the overseas recognition, but fuck, these records are far superior to most of the crap scoring >8.0.

Shaun Prescott, Icons: Lucas Abela/Justice Yeldham, published on Mess and Noise, March 25.

I like to get lost when I play, and I think part of getting lost, part of the ritual, getting into enough of a frenzy to take a bite of glass and spit it out: I’m not human anymore at that point. I’m somewhere else.

Prescott interviews infamous Sydney noise-music legend Lucas Abela. They discuss Abela’s two-decade-old career in possibly one of the most difficult artistic scenes to find success, the term “experimental”, and the oldest of chestnuts: the Sydney-Melbourne divide. Amongst a whole heap of other interesting stuff. The article, which at times is a direct philosophical discussion of the role of music in our lives, is just as intriguing for those somewhat in-the-know as it is for complete outsiders.

Laurie Penny, Anarchy Reigns and a Nation Struggles To Understand Why, published in the Sydney Morning Herald, August 10th.

Violence is rarely mindless. The politics of a burning building, a smashed-in shop or a young man shot by police may be obscured even to those who lit the rags or fired the gun, but the politics are there.

At the height of the London Riots in August, Penny’s piece came as a breath of fresh air for navigating a path between the two extremes of explanations for the riots: blunt structuralist rationalisations (“It’s the organised working-class finally rising up!”) and dismissals (“They’re all just criminal opportunists!”). Her unassuming blogpost, soon picked up and circulated widely online, is an honest, first-person opinion piece. It’s the voice of an intelligent woman attempting to understand what has become of her dying city.

Jonny POA, The 2011 Aria Awards, published on Polaroids of Androids, November 28th.

It wasn’t until the second grass mulching scene in McLeod’s Daughters that I realised I wasn’t watching a live performance from Seeker Lover Keeper.

Over the past few years Polaroids of Androids, a Sydney-based music blog, has built up a bit of a reputation for its cynical tone, pissing people off, and (in the words of Gus from Unity Floors at POA’s Christmas celebration) “telling it like it is”. Gloriously absurdist and sarcastic, POA’s lead writer’s (who only goes by the name “Jonny”) review of the 2011 ARIAs is one for the ages. Using puns, poignant cultural references, and plain ridicule, Jonny makes it clear that tearing into both “mainstream” and “independent” Australian music with very little/no restraint has never been so justifiable.

Paul Krugman, Let’s Not Be Civil, published in the New York Times, April 18th.

Right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.

I love Krugman for nothing more than his precise analyses that brilliantly expose the logical inconsistencies and open hypocrisies of the American Right. In this damning critique of “bipartisanism” (defined above), Krugman carefully shows us that the President can only expect his agenda to be successful if he restrains himself from submitting to the Republican calls for it. He must lead, not follow. Krugman alone is worth getting a NYT digital subscription.

Ross Gittins, Floods Expose National Loss of Loyalty and Respect for Leaders, published in the Sydney Morning Herald, February 2nd.

All of us know the nation’s problems won’t be overcome without decisive leadership. We regularly bewail our politicians’ lack of courage and conviction, their reluctance to risk their personal survival in the country’s best interests. Yet we give our leaders so little loyalty.

Gittins is divisive, I know. Pundits of all political colours love and hate him; he’s virtually impossible to pin down ideologically (The mark of a truly great journalist?). In this piece, he accounts for the apparent paradox of Australian benevolence: we are happy to help out and financially contribute when natural disasters destroy our fellow citizens’ way of life… only when the government does not get involved. According to Gittins, this ultimately stems from a lack of loyalty afforded to our leaders.

Throughout a year that was possibly the Labor government’s most difficult since it took office in 2007, this February piece would prove remarkably resilient. In the face of deeply unpopular government decision-making (most notably in climate change policy), its very existence was on the line. Nevertheless, it survived. At year-end, my suspicion is that Australians are a little more loyal than Gittins gives us credit for. But only a little.

I’d like to think of myself as someone who tries not to see politics in black and white. For instance, I attempt to view political decisions as inextricably tied to their context. In 2003, for instance, many people thought that invading Iraq was a good idea. Some public officials I admire supported President Bush’s decision. Of course, in hindsight, it all seemed quite misguided. In a similar vein, I try to consider political figures as, to some extent, separate to their political party. My favourite politicians through history have come from all over the party spectrum. 

So, in keeping with that tradition, I genuinely would like to view the Republican race for their party nomination at the 2012 elections in a relatively serious way. While I support the Democrats (and, at the moment, the current President) quite firmly, I always would want to give the other side the ‘time of day’, and devote a good amount of energy to seeing what they had to say.

Here’s the problem. Every time I hear a sound bite of a Republican saying something that sounds vaguely intelligent, a voice in my head screams No. Don’t listen. They’re just talking. That’s what politicians do. No amount of talk can take away the fact that this person voluntarily signed up as a member of an organisation that contemporarily:

• Opposes an expanded health care system in any way run by the government, in the name of “choice”. 
• Takes anti-scientific climate change scepticism effectively as party platform. 
• Would abolish the Department of Education. 
• Is vehemently isolationist. 
• Preaches unwavering Christian conservative approaches to social and economic policy. 
• Encourages the closeting of LGBTI Americans. 
• Claims to love the free market, while allowing a tiny percentage of American citizens and corporations to control the economy. 
• Nominated, in 2008, possibly the most underqualified and inexperienced Vice Presidential candidate of any party, ever. 
• Etc.

Around 60 million Americans voted for John McCain in 2008, delivering him 45.7% of the primary vote. This makes the Republican Party an incredibly powerful political force, and therefore, theoretically, worthy of attention. But how can I take a candidate seriously when they subscribe to a party that even considers promoting the views listed above? If such a politician were to enter the Australian arena as a big-time political figure, I am proud to say that they would be quickly destroyed as a nutter far to the ideological right of even someone like Tony Abbott. It’s happened before.

Until now, the solution has just been to ignore it. There’s plenty going on in the White House and even in Congress to divert attention from an increasingly annoying primary race. But the fact remains that we have a little under a year to go until the presidential election. That’s a lot of Republican drivel to put up with. Sometimes, it’s really too hard not to feel like the woman here. I guess I just have to be glad I don’t live in the States right now.

I didn’t do numbered lists last year, but I’m a sucker for ordering and categorising things, so I’ll include a couple in this particular annual round-up.

TEN BEST RECORDS OF 2011 (* Indicates Australian).

10. Geoffrey O’Connor – Vanity Is Forever (Chapter)*

“Shimmery”. “Ethereal”. “Cinematic”. This record unfortunately came about twenty-five years too late to appear truly groundbreaking. Despite this, O’Connor’s synthy, nostalgic sound is affecting and absorbing. On tracks like “Proud”, the best of the mid-eighties get a run for their money. 

Start with: Whatever Leads Me To You.

9. Twerps - Twerps (Chapter/Underwater Peoples)* 

This Twerps record is excellent for some very basic reasons: well-crafted songs, a tight band, enough inventiveness to intrigue the listener. Plus an unmistakably Melburnian charm that sleazes right up to the unassuming, white bread Sydneysider. These talented kids deserve all the international hype they’re receiving at the moment.

Start with: Who Are You. 

8. Thee Oh Sees - Carrion Crawler/The Dream (In The Red)

Jon Dwyer’s long-running project Thee Oh Sees have a reputation in the industry for high-energy, kick-in-the-face, psych-pop. And that, after a bit of a false start with the “experimental” Castlemania earlier this year, is precisely what they deliver with CC/TD. While I still think the intensity of an Oh Sees live show can’t really translate to record completely, the tunes are still great.

Start with: The Dream. 

7. Yuck - Yuck (Fat Possum/Mercury)

And the award for 2011 in the Wearing Influences On Sleeve category goes to… Yuck, from London. But it doesn’t really matter how bad they wanna be Pavement or Dino Jr; the songs they write are intelligent and rockin’ enough in themselves to justify high rotation for their kickass eponymous debut. Interestingly, the softer tracks such as “Shook Down” and “Suicide Policeman”, are the ones that stick with the listener more than the obvious Sonic Youth love-ins such as “Operation”.

 Start with: The Wall.

6. The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient (Secretly Canadian) 

Oh, the U$ of A. I am so glad I can get past your evangelism, caricature politicians, and overstated humour. Digging only a little bit deeper into the modern American soul reveals a nation that appears profoundly troubled, yet with a huge propensity for hope, love, and ultimately euphoria. This is what emerges on The War on Drugs’ latest record. Long highways, fraternal affection, and slick guitar jams all feature on this philosophical LP.

Start with: Brothers.

5. Real Estate - Days (Domino)

New Jersey-via-Brooklyn’s Real Estate made my top ten of 2009 albums with their chilled out self-titled debut. Days, their second effort, is equally as innovative and probably more consistent than their first. The band seem more confident now; possibly a result of moving permanently to New York and shedding their lazin’-suburban-Jersey-boys image. That said, the thing that continues to draw me to this band is that they make what they do (i.e. create clean guitar pop with killer hooks) look effortless, precisely because, for them, it is. 

Days features some of the band’s best tracks yet – namely “Younger Than Yesterday” (which originally featured on the Reality EP), “Out of Tune”, and flawless closer “All The Same”. The band is coming out to Australia to party in March, and I suggest you snap up a ticket quick-smart. They’re going to put on a hell of a show.

Start with: Younger Than Yesterday. 

4. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar/4AD)

With tickets booked to one of Bon Iver’s three sold-out concerts at the Sydney Opera House in March, it is hard to think that it was only January 2009 when I saw the band play in the cosy Famous Spiegeltent in Hyde Park to an audience of around 200. Since that tour, soon after the local release of For Emma, Forever Ago, the band has simply exploded internationally. While certainly this has been partly due to the strength of their first record, it’s arguable that the momentum could not have been maintained without an equally impressive follow-up. And this is what we received with Bon Iver, Bon Iver.

This second record is, however, quite different to For Emma. The debut had obvious stand-outs and crowd faves: “Skinny Love”, “The Wolves”, “Re: Stacks”. This one’s a bit different; it ebbs and flows as a single unit. Each song glides into the next. I wouldn’t call it a “concept album” as such, but I would call it a great piece of evidence for why the full-length record is still a fantastic way of presenting one’s music. Bon Iver, Bon Iver probably only makes complete sense as a record, but man, what amazing sense it does make.

Start with: Perth.

3. Royal Headache - Royal Headache (RIP Society)*

To say this record was long awaited is probably an understatement for a few (the relatively small group of longneck-sluggin’, shit-kickin’ yoof who follow Sydney’s DIY punk scene) and an overstatement for everyone else. Nonetheless, the “few” are growing, and with the release of their raucous, fervent, explosive garage-pop record, Royal Headache are set on expanding their empire. Almost anyone who hears this record is taken aback by the integrity, fuck, the sheer reality of the music: autobiographical pieces rarely get more painful than “Psychotic Episode”, and “Really In Love” could be the best 1 minute and 42 second dedication there ever was to the brutally blurry line between love and lust.

I could shit on about this band for ages. All I can say is probably quite similar to what pretty much every other diehard fan says: they are important due to their pitch-perfect blend of fast-paced garage messiness and catchy pop glory, and frontman Shogun’s pointed lyricism, but more generally, what makes them so damn attractive is their honesty and lack of pretence. Get. On. It.

Start with: Down The Lane.

2. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo (Matador)

I’ve got to admit, before Smoke Ring I wasn’t entirely convinced by this Pennsylvanian. Sure, there were some truly excellent tracks scattered throughout his previous records (see “Freak Train”, “Freeway”, etc) but it all seemed a bit hit-and-miss. Only now, on his fourth LP under his own name, has everything seemed to come together. I suppose it is partly a matter of becoming more accessible, but Vile has done so in a way that does not compromise his imagination and tendency to experiment.

While most critics refer to Americana legends such as Springsteen, Young and Petty when searching for Vile’s creative forefathers, what makes this record astounding is his ability to own these influences without becoming nostalgic; rather, he uses them as a springboard to transform and truly modernise American music.

Start with: On Tour. 

1. Dick Diver - New Start Again (Chapter)*

In June 2009, I went with a few close friends to Melbourne to see some bands, drink heaps of booze, and get away from my folks. I caught a lot of great bands that trip: Twerps, Je suis Animal, and Straight Arrows, to name a few. One band I caught a glimpse of but didn’t really pay attention to were Dick Diver (they played pretty late; I was probably pretty smashed on middies ”pots” of MB by that point). That changed about a month later when the band came up to Sydney to open for Mum Smokes at the Spectrum. 

It’s safe to say that show changed the way I thought about Australian music. Although by that point I’d been interested in the Australian garage and DIY music for maybe a year or so, I hadn’t really considered any the bands I’d been seeing to be of real international quality. As in, they were great to party to and drink gutter beers with, but I viewed them as separate to the overseas music I sought out online. Dick Diver changed that: Australian independent music was legitimised for me, in a way. That night, Dick Diver played thirty-three minutes of passionate, intelligent, beautifully constructed, guitar-driven rock (Mum Smokes, for the record, kinda sucked on that occasion). Luckily, Morris Coffey recorded the show, and a few weeks later the single .mp3 file accompanied me on exchange to Canada.

Dick Diver’s first release, the magnificent Arks Up EP, was put out on Chapter about six months after the Spectrum gig. Then, after a few shows in early 2010, the band went quiet. Successful side-projects such as Boomgates and Total Control consumed the members’ time. A full-length record was eventually recorded, and at long last, released in October of this year. 

New Start Again is a masterpiece. Lyrically, it is a stunning ode to the significance of domestic trivialities, to the pangs and anxieties that inevitably shroud any meaningful relationship, to getting in the car and just driving away, anywhere, who cares. It is about friendship, freedom, and as the title implies, rejuvenation. Instrumentally, the four-piece work together seamlessly and naturally (even in the midst of the self-aware ‘You tell ‘em Al!’ back-and-forths in “Head Back”, the euphoric closing track). Talented drummer-girl Steph Hughes notably provides a crucial rhythmic drive for a band that relies upon subtle shifts in pacing and tempo to colour their delicately crafted songs. 

The record is, perhaps more than anything, a punch in the face to the pre-August 2009 Mike, whose views regarding small Australian bands are still held by many. To those people, I say open your eyes: there is music being produced in this country that is nuanced, smart, fun, and probably a shitload better than whatever Triple J or Pitchfork are telling you to listen to. Just because these bands haven’t been picked up by (what I guess you could call) the ‘mainstream independent’ media does not make them irrelevant. New Start Again is, for its authenticity as much as its creativity, without a doubt my favourite record of the year. 

Start with: Through The D.

SEVEN HONOURABLE MENTIONS.

·       Cloud Nothings – Cloud Nothings (Carpark) 

·       Kitchen’s Floor – Look Forward to Nothing (Siltbreeze/Bedroom Suck)* 

·       The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong (Slumberland) 

·       Beirut – The Rip Tide (Pompeii) 

·       The Antlers – Burst Apart (Frenchkiss/Transgressive)

·      Total Control – Henge Beat (Iron Lung)*

·       The Fighting League – Tropical Paradise (Dream Damage)* 

TOP FIVE BEST LIVE MOMENTS OF 2011. 

5. Royal Headache album launch at Goodgod. Shogun crowdsurfing; millions of bogans appearing from nowhere; Model Citizen and Holy Balm supports. Good stuff all round.

4. Belle and Sebby at the Sydney Opera House. Seminal band + beautiful venue = worth the significant ticket price.

3. Carsick Cars. FBi Social. Holy fucking ear-bleeding shit. 牛屄 !

2. Thee Oh Sees headlining Summer Vibes in Newcastle, way back in January. You could smell the energy in that circle of mayhem.

1. Peewee smashing out a righteous cover of Fly Away by Lenny Kravitz in my honour at my 21st birthday party. You guys are the best. 

FIVE THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2012. 

·       Woollen Kits LP (Though I wished for this last year, also). January 16^th! 

·       Bon Iver at the Opera House. 

·       More stuff from Unity Floors. The latest 7” absolutely slays. 

·       Springsteen tour? To be honest I don’t know if I could afford the ticket price, but the idea of seeing Bruce live is rad in itself. 

·        As always, heaps of cool stuff that will pleasantly surprise me. Sydney rulz right now. 

TIL NXT YR. x

Something strange happened at the end of my Sociology tutorial yesterday. Usually, when a tutor declares a university class over, an immediate hubbub breaks out, as students noisily pack their bags while chatting to each other about what’s going on after class, or how they’re going on their course assignments.

Not in this tutorial. At the end of class, everyone quietly picked up their books and left the room in silence.

The reason?

We had spent the last hour examining the tragic story of Ana Maria Acevedo - an Argentinian woman who, like so many young girls in the developing world, had fallen victim to a system that privileges religious doctrine at the expense of young women’s health and wellbeing.

A poor, uneducated girl from the countryside, Acevedo was already a mother of three by the time she started developing a tumour on her face at age twenty, in mid-2006. Concerned by the growing lesion, she visited a variety of hospitals for treatment, eventually turning to a city hospital in nearby Santa Fe. After significant testing at that hospital, the growth was found to be cancerous and cut off.

However, Acevedo was not offered chemotherapy, which would have helped eradicate the cancer entirely. Instead, she was instructed to return in five months for further testing. Why did this happen? The doctors, through their testing, had also picked up that Acevedo was several weeks pregnant with a fourth child. They took it upon themselves to exclude Acevedo from life-saving cancer treatment because it would require the foetus’s abortion.

Predictably, a few months later Acevedo returned to the hospital, clearly pregnant and now carrying a returned cancerous tumour. The doctors refused to treat her on the grounds that it would require late-stage abortion. Acevedo’s family took the matter to the hospital’s Bioethics Committee, that came to rule due to the “religious and cultural tenets” of the hospital, Ana could only receive medication for her pain, not her illness itself.

Ana was found by hospital staff in a near-death state a few weeks later, in late April 2007. The tumour had taken over much of her face and neck. An emergency caesarean was finally ordered after just 23 weeks of pregnancy. The baby survived less than 24 hours. As for Acevedo, she immediately underwent intense chemotherapy, but of course it was too little, too late.

Acevedo died in hospital on the 17th of May, 2007.

Her story is a reminder of the terrible consequences of letting archaic religious rules dominate the core institutions of a society - its schools, hospitals, welfare agencies, etc. Under Argentina’s Penal Code, Acevedo was legally allowed an abortion if her situation was deemed life-threatening. However, the hospital took it under its own jurisdiction to disallow such an activity until the last possible moment.

This is not an issue of “church-in-state” so much as it is an issue of “church-in-society”. As mentioned, the state had actually institutionalised a precautionary law that technically forbade the Santa Fe hospital for doing what it did. However, the fact that the hospital eventually justified itself by its “religious and cultural tenets” in refusing to treat Ana reveals the deep problems associated with the social acceptance of religion’s place in autonomous (i.e., non-state) institutions.

It would be an overreaction to say Australia is at immediate risk of letting a case such as Ana’s slip through the cracks. However, her story does act as a cautionary tale for the Australian governments and citizens in dealing with hardline religious pressure groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby. 

The ACL believes, for instance, that Christian schools should have the right to expel students for being gay (read my rant on this here), and that hospitals should have the right to not practice certain procedures if it interferes with their own sense of religious morality. Sound familiar?

My point is that keeping the Church (and all religious institutions) out of the state is not the only front that secular people need to worry about. We also must remain keenly aware of religious influence within regular social institutions, and expose discrimination, intolerance and malpractice. For it is to these institutions that regular people go for help and support in their day-to-day lives.

If we remain vigilant, Ana will not have died in vain.

After a lengthy discussion of this issue, our tutor ended the class with this tribute video. It is not hard to see why after the video, everyone exited the room in silence.