There’s something trance-y about Perth’s Mental Powers that doesn’t involve Israeli DJs, ecstasy or glowsticks. TIM SCOTT talks to band member Den Den about their ethos and the exciting local scene they hail from.

Perth’s Mental Powers play a kind of trance music. The kind that feels like you’ve taken one too many muscle relaxants and somehow – accidentally – severed your carotid artery. Their song ‘Jhek’ washes down like warm blood over your suede Clarks and onto the flashing squares of a half-empty dance floor.

The band’s latest split release with Free Choice – a new project for Fabulous Diamond’s Jarrod Zlatic – is a mesmerising affair that takes elements of ambient drone, folk, kooky free jazz and math-y percussive kraut. Well, at least that’s the description the guy in your local indie record store will probably write on the record sleeve sticker.

Mental Powers. Awesome. What kind of powers are we talking?
Maybe like the mental effort required in keeping things together. That’s a power of sorts.

When you first hear Free Choice and Mental Powers together it sounds like a free information seminar for Scientology.
I took one of those once, an IQ/personality test, and apparently I'm stressed. I later found out that for several hundred bucks I can improve my overall personality by one percent.

So what’s the background on Mental Powers?
We’re local Perth boys from somewhere else. We ended up here from all over the country/globe: Manchester, England (Handsome Lou); Canberra, ACT (Yojimbo); Torquay, Victoria (myself); and Margaret River, Western Australia (Tom Fré). Most of us arrived at music a little later in life (if that even means anything) and all of us are untrained musicians. This current Mental Powers line-up has been together for like one-and-a-half years.

You’re a four-piece but I believe Tom is on hiatus? Is it “indefinite”?
Tom is currently undertaking a working holiday in sunny Manchester with his partner Betty. He'll be back in a few months or when his research grant runs out.

What is your involvement with [Perth label] Fifth Column? They seem to be doing some really interesting stuff at the moment.
The good folk at Fifth Column like our band enough to want to put out something of ours, as well as other local, interstate and international acts. They also have been bringing cool bands from back east and overseas for the starved Perth music fanbase to enjoy every so often. They are doing some really significant work in this town.

“We now have film-makers, visual artists, new labels, party hosts on board. It really is exciting times. Folk want to be involved in one way, shape or form.”

It seems like the more experimental music scene in Perth is growing. Labels like Fifth Column and Farmer Frontier and bands like Taco Leg, Extortion and yourselves are willing to push the boundaries in a non-Jebediah kind of way.
There has always been a music scene that hasn't been “industry pushed” in Perth. And, yeah, it's burgeoning at the moment, which is great. The above bands you mention and others like Bamodi, Wind Waker, Craig Mcelhinney, Silver Bulletin, Cease, Smrts, Rabbit Island and Carbuncle have all come out of this broader group of local folk and they have contributed heavily to our small community. The cool thing is we now have film-makers, visual artists, new labels, party hosts on board. It really is exciting times. Folk want to be involved in one way, shape or form.

Perhaps it's a symptom of Perth being a smaller city/scene, but punk or hardcore bands like Extortion often seem to play with improv/experimental acts?
Oh, that’s not the case. It's a shared ideology: DIY. Sure the outcomes can be way different, but there is a mutual respect among bands. Everyone wants to be interested in something. Most of the best shows are smaller, immediate and honest. The Ramones said it best: “All the kids want something to do.”

Maybe it’s thinking about how you can make a positive difference in your own life and immediate community rather than seeking taps on the head from industry or some far away land. Further, it’s offering that community an alternative to Aussie pub culture. Extortion is legendary for their house shows at 208 [vocalist Rohan Harrison’s house in Maylands) and a good 75 percent of our shows have either been at parties or alternative spaces.

How did you team up with Jarrod Zlatic for the split?
I met Jarrod when I saw his band Oh Belgium play in Collingwood like four years ago. He is a fiend, a freak, a supporter of strange shit (at least our antics), a special kind of guy, a pink motherfucker. Good people.

Who did the art for the record?
Yojimbo did this one. But we have all dabbled over the stretch with posters, flyers etc.

How much improvisation is involved in your songwriting?
A little bit. It’s usually how we come up with sounds in the first place, but we are not into playing improvised jams live that sort of don't go anywhere. We like to have a structure or a common purpose to build under, upon and around. All the elements evolve and mutate in this very organic way, which keeps things interesting and fun.

I’m digging on ‘Chippers’. Is this a newer song?
Funny that you should be digging on this track, it's the name of a funeral home here in Perth, not that you were meant to know that. We like the sentiment, a happy death. Yeah it’s a newer one.

Have you had much interest from overseas?
Not to our knowledge.

What do you have in the works? Any east coast shows lined up? Weather permitting, we'll have some more recordings out this spring season. Due to our current circumstances, there will be no touring this year, but hopefully next year at some point.

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Mental Powers/Free Choice split 7” is out now on Fifth Column.