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The Warm Cupboard

The new Albert’s Basement compilation, 'The Warm Cupboard', is an endearing glimpse into a moment in time that has already elapsed, writes DOUG WALLEN.

A vinyl-only compilation featuring a neat cardboard half-sleeve, the eighth release from the Melbourne collective Albert’s Basement underscores a love of all things modest and atmospheric. There’s a real intimacy to these 14 songs, and with such hazy home-recording tactics often on display, there’s also something ephemeral about it all. It’s as if each track is disintegrating as we listen.

The collection opens with the Frightening Lights, a trio that includes Albert’s Basement honcho Michael Zulicki on drums. Their entry ‘Strangers’ dwells on Elizabeth Downey’s minimal guitar and delicate, nearly whispered vocals as well as Dan Hawkins’ foggy organ. ‘Drombeslade’ then finds Hi God People as vague and unwieldy as ever, while Kes Band’s ‘Alamakalamazoo’ is the record’s sturdiest contribution. Spiked with violin, precious lyrics and Karl Scullin’s flighty vocals, it’s elfin folk occupying the same hypnotic realm as Devendra Banhart.

Much sparser but not so different in spirit, Francis Plagne’s ‘My Ear Stands’ floats double-tracked vocals over an acoustic strum. An old-fashioned alarm clock rattles halfway through, followed by other incidental sounds, and the song ends with off-kilter humming. Aux Assembly’s ‘Fly’ then flickers for five minutes with burring noise, chunky feedback and phantom thumps, but varies enough to not wear out its welcome.

Star’s ‘Heavy Star’ is a loop-based meditation on quietly clanging guitar and wavering feedback, while the flipside settles in with Free Choice’s ‘One Chord At A Time/B.O.P.’, another abstract instrumental. It starts with a dull buzzing and ends with bird calls, subtly teasing different textures along the way. Another cryptic offering, Seth Rees’ brief ‘Singing Trams’ shrouds piano and apparent loops in reverb.

“There’s a real intimacy to these 14 songs, and with such hazy home-recording tactics often on display, there’s also something ephemeral about it all.”

Vocals reemerge at long last with ‘Hey Owl’, a highlight from Aleks and the Ramps’ recent second album, Midnight Believer. A romantic slice of cosmic pop, it plays like frontman Aleks Bryant’s ode to bandmate and partner Janita Foley, who records and performs as Denim Owl. It’s then back to the diffuse with Christina Tester’s ‘Girl With Balloon’, a track wedding the squeak of fingers on a balloon with the kind of skittering laughs you only hear in Japanese horror movies. Fabulous Diamonds’ ‘Cemetery Dub’ is characteristic of the duo: Jarrod Zlatic and Nisa Venerosa’s detached vocals channeling Beat Happening over clattering rhythms and bristling loops.

Speaking of Beat Happening, the primitive pop trio Woollen Kits makes no bones about the 87-second ‘Rollerskate Girl’ sounding exactly like that band circa Black Candy. Rounding out the record is Baseball’s theatrically sung live rendition of ‘Songs Of The Righteous’ and Bleak Infinity’s ‘Skism Prism’, all glitchy noise, battered drums and the distorted squawk of female/male vocals. It’s a brash, punky finale for The Warm Cupboard, which so much of the time feels like a private, headphones-only showcase of the weird new talent peaking through Melbourne’s various cracks and crevices. Albeit less consistent than most compilations, it provides a fascinating and endearing glimpse at a moment in time that has already elapsed.

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The Warm Cupboard is out now through Albert’s Basement.

  -   Published on Thursday, July 30 2009 by Doug Wallen.
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Tracklisting
  • 1.   Strangers
  • 2.   Drombeslade
  • 3.   Alamakalamazoo
  • 4.   My Ear Stands
  • 5.   Fly
  • 6.   Heavy Star
  • 7.   One Chord At A Time/B.O.P.
  • 8.   Singing Trams
  • 9.   Hey Owl
  • 10.   Girl With Balloon
  • 11.   Cemetery Dub
  • 12.   Rollerskate Girl
  • 13.   Songs Of The Righteous
  • 14.   Skism Prism
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