LULU'S JUNE 2022 NEWSLETTER

Here is the June 2022 Newsletter and Calendar, emailed at the start of the month to our mailing list and physically available free in store.

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Featured in this newsletter

HYDROPLANE - "HYDROPLANE" LP
WET KISS - "SHE'S SO COOL" LP
SZKLO - "PARASITIC ASSAULT" 7"
THE SHIFTERS - "OPEN VAULT" 2xLP
LONELY WHOLESOME - "VANITY/LETHARGY" 7"
SWAB - "BIG CITY” LP
SEMTEX 87 - "DEMO" CS
GROSSMAN / MORRIS-SMITH - "CURIOUS MUSIC" CS
MODAL MELODIES - "MODAL MELODIES" LP
ROMANSY - "DOVES OF PEACE AND WAR" CS

Hiii

Another huge month! Winter has well and truly arrived and the time to rug up with a nice record and book is here.

Luckily shelves are stackkkked atm with heaps of extremely good new local releases. After literal months and months in customs limbo, copies of The Shifters’ outtakes opus “Open Vault” are finally here - maybe the most “Shifters” Shifters release to date? Something hits particularly nicely about this one anyways.

We’ve also got the long-awaited reissue of Hydroplane via the ever-dependable Efficient Space <3 <3 On top of that, we’ve got debut LPs from Wet Kiss and Modal Melodies, and so many fresh new cassettes from new bands / projects. Truly blessed this month :’)

Keep an eye on the socials for a lil garage sale we’ll be running this month - heaps of back room finds, second-hand gems, and once thought lost one-off items that’ll be going cheap.

Suss the calendar for a huuuge upcoming month of shows and events.

Stay safe, love you all,
Lulu’s xx 

NEW ARRIVALS

HYDROPLANE - "HYDROPLANE" LP
Efficient Space

Simple and gorgeous. HYDROPLANE is an extinct showcase of dusty beats, OG dream pop vocals from the corners of the mind and some real down on the patio guitar caress. The weighty, swirling interludes are fantastic pieces of experimental music in their own right but here are employed as palette cleansers like a dark sky downpour before reappearance of the sun and chattering birds. Talk about a gem - a gem from the sometimes-best-forgotten 90's no less. Ups to Efficient Space and their dedication to unearthing underheard recordings - notched on their belt is an evergrowing list of artists whose names would once elicit a "who?" and now, instead, a "hey you gotta listen to..." HYDROPLANE bared their hearts 25 years ago and the time has come around for you to sit back, lean in and lend your ear to their gentle whispers.

WET KISS - "SHE'S SO COOL" LP
Dero Arcade

Who saw this coming? Brenna O takes her Wet Kiss project outside the bedroom thud, wrangles a backing band that is essentially just Bodies, and spits out an LP of faggy Laura Palmer on angel dust in the pink room sleeze.

Think strung-out (in a hot way), off-the-strip Vegas lounge singer femme fatale but backed with by a bunch of West Brunswick avant punks instead of a smooth jazz band and you're on the way to what Wet Kiss is doing here. Songs about pining, doomed love, being a body (good + bad). Sloppy grooves and deranged rants. Album of the year?

SZKLO - "PARASITIC ASSAULT" 7"
Feral Dog Records

Crashing, Crushing, D-Beating wings of terror! Totally sick parasiticrust punk that hits the sweet spot between harnessed intent and all over the place bombastic energy. Sound songwriting with no part outstaying its welcome. Top tier stuff coming out of Melbourne right now.

THE SHIFTERS - "OPEN VAULT" 2xLP
Adagio 830 / Insolito

Maybe it was growing up in the age of the almighty CD reissue w/ bonus tracks but ever since I was a teenager I’ve loved demos. The rawer alternate reality they present is one that is often of mysterious origin, experimental, harsher and a different approach lacking the polish of the finished product. There is a thrill to be had somewhere between that initial spark, its potential and the final master.

The latest SHIFTERS release exists in this universe - one of varying levels of fidelity, hiss and distortion with that familiar SHIFTERS swagger lurking underneath in various guises. Thought the majority of material is new to me, tracks like ‘Work/Life, Gym etc’ and ‘Medieval Kicks’ are familiar anchors in the expanse of ideas, discussions, maracas and clinking ice cubes. To be a fly on the wall or a part of the scenery.

The SHIFTERS might just have been the perfect band for this conceptual platter. A highly enjoyable trip.

LONELY WHOLESOME - "VANITY/LETHARGY" 7"
Wild Animals Records

Jonah Falco is the man and the guy knows his way around a song. This one might be perhaps a more intimate, or at least different, look into the Mr Falco's more sensitive side and it doesn't disappoint. The A Side is home to a trip through the Cleaners From Venutian sound elaborated and extrapolated into something that Fucked Up might have worked into their 24-hour set in NYC. On the B Side we're graced with something that the teenagers from Twin Peaks might have played in that loungeroom scene - you know the one. If any of that sounds interesting to you, don't sleep on this honest little release housed in a hand-stamped 45 sleeve. With love from Jonah 2 u.

SWAB - "BIG CITY” LP
Hardcore Victim

You're looking down the barrel at a barrage of quick, sharp hardcore PUNK hits in the vein of Jerry's Kids & Gang Green, filled with sarcasm and snappy drum fills. This type of music is infectious partly because between the bursts of noise you'll hear fantastic little riffs and partly because it moves so fast that you have to just give yourself over or be left in the dust. Besides being the brattiest singer around, a hyperactive ball of energy who sometimes is more Tazmanian Devil than person, Pap also brings a realness with her dummy spat words. Exasperation and desperation is the name of the game, and sometimes winning means gleefully turning yourself into a goddamned fist. It's also rare these days to hear a punk record where the bass playing is just as frantic as the drums but here it's proper manic. And you have to love an album that kicks off with a guitar solo, blistering its way to your poor little eardrums. In fact, I think it's the only one on the whole record. Yes. Their name is SWAB. S-W-A-B. So you'd better listen up, punk.

SEMTEX 87 - "DEMO" CS
Helta Skelta

There aren't many pleasures quite like a killer hardcore punk demo. Noisy and stomping as hell, this one is brute. Content & hellbent to be a soundtrack to destruction they've kept things to the middle pace more often than not (with the exception of the fourth track which has one of the sickest breaks I've heard in quite some time and the final track which is built around drummer Pat's signature hyperspee-d-beat) so you know there's carnage in mind. Perth punk brings the ruckus yet again and if it's ruckus you want, jam this in your deck let it blow up your speakers.

GROSSMAN / MORRIS-SMITH - "CURIOUS MUSIC" CS
Research Records

‘Curious Music’, the debut release from the recently formed duo of Michael Grossman and Jai K Morris-Smith (perhaps best known for their work in DEN and EXEK respectively) is an entry into the Underground Hustle that may have passed you by but deserves your attention.

A studio-centric collaboration, its two long pieces and various movements are built around day-to day routines and utilising the guitar as the singular means of sonic exploration and composition.

There is an obvious Fripp influence along with echoes of Miles Davis, Brian Eno and Harold Budd as Grossman and Smith navigate and manipulate their way through a woozy palette that shifts shape and pitch constantly and sonically mines a territory that might have found a home on the Obscure Records or Editions EG labels back in the day.

Chugging rhythms, blaring sax lines, xylophones, bells, string swells and various treated instruments ebb and flow seamlessly until you wrap your mind around the fact you’re not listening to the real deal.

Its conception during the changing of the seasons adds to its dynamic - evoking both nostalgic past tenses and promises of new beginnings with a hazy discordant shimmer that works as a perfect soundtrack to either a scorching summer’s evening or a long cold winter.

Simultaneously beautiful and heavy with a meditative almost therapeutic aspect at play

MODAL MELODIES - "MODAL MELODIES" LP
Anti Fade

The name MODAL MELODIES should be a clear hint at what's inside this box. A strict adhereance to chord progressions as a staunch building block for exploration. There is no need to stray too far from a good movement, but that doesn't mean there isn't room to push that envelope in all sorts of directions. Drum programming is indeed very 80's, mostly oscilatting between meaty and beaty new wave, punk and dance music steps. The layering of melodies and leads over these aforementioned building blocks feels like a lucky dip, experimenting with the inherent potential for any three or four chords to take on many forms of life. Some call for a snazzy effected guitar lick, some call for a twinkle and a bleep on the keys, some call for space and quietness, some call for cinematrack storytelling. And I'm sure all could have been turned on their head and gone into another direction entirely. This album is brought to you by an unlikely duo - Violetta (Primo!, The Glass Picture) and Jake (Alien Nosejob, Ausmuteants) who have formed like Voltron to lend each other their strengths. A balanced middle ground making way for something new; harder and punchier than Vio's usual work and more tender and patient than Jake's. By throwing simple ideas out there and sculpting them to completion, MODAL MELODIES' mixed bag approach could have been a rapid fire string of 7" singles, each touching on different paths, but this LP format feels like a more true representation of their collaborative effort together and an exciting insight into how two talented people can join forces to explore fresh expressions of modes and melodies.

ROMANSY - "DOVES OF PEACE AND WAR" CS
Cool Death Records

Forza Hardcore! Taking cues from the nasty sides of international freak music (UNITED MUTATION, GISM, ILDJARN) ROMANSY takes aim at your mind with intent to alter. It's paramount to listener experience to dose this trip at absolute maximum volume for maximum effect. Primitivo, elemental drumming influenzed by European hard dance music dis dis discharges with force to accompany the fiery six and angelic four stringz - attacking with deadly melody in place of precision. Lyrically and vocally it's a freaky affair about flowers in your hair and the urge to explode inwards and outwards, inciting and spitting and crawling between ferocious and outright weird & over the top. If the first three songs are punk freneticizm, the final track is a bewildering odyssey into the reaches of genre boundaries. rOMMMMMManse your skull.