Hey, have you heard about…KINO MOTEL

(Photo Credit: Larry LaJoliet)

Cinematic is definitely a term you could use to describe Ed Fraser’s noise-rock outfit HEADS., though perhaps the style of cinema would be more unnerving and tense, leaning toward horror and the you-don’t-wanna-know sides of life. When we reviewed their latest record ‘Push’ (out via Glitterhouse Records), we suggested that at times it can stir up “a cocktail of feelings – pensive, agitated, excited“.

His new outfit KINO MOTEL is equally cinematic, though more on the wavelength occupied by the likes of Baxter Dury and The Last Shadow Puppets, thanks in part to the striking strings and hypnotic rumble that permeates the duration of their debut single.

Unlike the often gritted teeth delivery in his other outfit, KINO MOTEL (dubbed by the band as “grit pop“) sees Fraser working with Rosa Mercedes, the vocals of both intertwining for entrancing results. The duo definitely call to mind the work of Dury and his glamorous sounding instrumentals, broken up by an almost spoken word vocal delivery that covers up a grittiness and a sense that not all is well.

Sure enough, debut single ‘Waves‘ – written together over the course of one week in a cheap Bangkok hotel – was inspired by an alleged intense experience they had whilst in Thailand last year, one which the song suggests left them feeling trapped and needing to find a way out.

The video (directed by both Fraser and Mercedes) captures the vibe perfectly – A mini-movie, just shy of 4 minutes, taking in the sights of Bangkok and balancing a fine line between masterpiece cinema and shlocky fighting films (both just as appealing as the other). Take yourself to their socials and you can even find promotional mock-ups that add even more aesthetic pleasure.

I would have wanted to hear more from this new pairing regardless, but now we’ve been introduced to ‘The Boss‘ and ‘Cici‘, i’ll be eagerly anticipating the next instalment! ‘Waves‘ is the first of five parts, so keep your eyes peeled for what’s to come!

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a/s/l: HEADS.

Remember the days of the old schoolyard? Remember when Myspace was a thing? Remember those time-wasting, laborious quizzes that everyone used to love so much? Birthday Cake For Breakfast is bringing them back! 

Every couple of weeks, an unsuspecting band will be subject to the same old questions about dead bodies, Hitler, crying and crushes.  

This Week: Ed Fraser, vocalist, guitarist – and by the sounds of it, basketball player – in noisy outfit HEADS.

Words: Andy Hughes
(Photo Credit: Basti Grim)

a/s/l?
As old as time itself / yes necessary for survival of species / Melbourne.

Have you ever seen a dead body?
Yep.

Who is your favourite Simpsons character?
Moe the bartender. So much depth of character, so little compromise.

What T-Shirt are you wearing?
It’s brown and beautiful with a giant hole in the front where I very recently snagged it real good on a door handle.

What did your last text message say?
“Absolutely! See ya at Alv’s joint at 7 big fella”

What’s the last song you listened to?
Idles ‘Grounds’. I really enjoyed it. Video is great too.

How did you meet the people in your band?
Craigslist Berlin, true story.

What’s the first record you bought?
Brian Adams ‘Waking Up The Neighbours’. I thought he was rebellious haha.

What was your favourite VHS growing up?
‘Dazzling Dunks & Basketball Bloopers’, quality stuff.

When was the last time you cried?
When I hit this sweet three pointer at the buzzer.

Have you ever kissed someone & regretted it?
No regrets.

Best Physical Feature?
Jumpshot, when it’s on.

Worst physical feature?
Left-handed layup.

Reasonably ok/not bad feature that you’re not fussed about?
Free throws.

Do you have any pets?
Not at the moment. Too much travelling usually.

Ever picked up any injuries on tour?
I fell off stages in both Adelaide and Hobart on the same tour and mangled my wrist up. And in 2018 I toured Europe with a freshly dislocated kneecap. I couldn’t do any cool moves on stage but I also didn’t have to load any gear, so it was great.

What did you do for your last birthday?
Went walking in the bush, mid-corona.

Name something you CANNOT wait for?
Playing shows again.

Do you have a crush on someone?
I got one on you now pal. (Woof! – Ed)

What’s the shittest experience you’ve had as a musician?
Waking up in pitch darkness on a concrete floor, locked inside this warehouse venue in Brussels, mid-winter after a large after-show party with USA Nails. It was cold and confusing.

If you could go back in time, how far would you go?
All over. Lots to see.

How do you want to die?
Gorging myself to death on delicious foods.

What’s your favourite thing about pizza?
Oh everything.

What are you craving right now?
Now a pizza.

Have you ever been on a horse?
I was born on a horse.

What did you dream about last night?
It was something to do with Joe Pesci and Las Vegas but it’s gone now, into the haze.

If you could go back in time and kill the baby Hitler, would you?
No. But I would teach baby Hitler to be nice. Get myself hired as his nanny and then get to work. This really feels like the plot of a tv show, did I steal that?

Do you like Chinese food?
Oh yes.

Have you ever been on TV?
As a teenager I somehow managed to talk my way in and got my first band hired as the house band on a TV show called ‘Raucous’ on a community channel in Melbourne. It was kind of like Wayne’s World but way worse and way more Australian.

Ever meet someone famous?
In recent years at our shows I’ve been lucky to meet a number of musicians I really looked up to when I was young. That has honestly been a real buzz for me.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
I’m pretty content where I’m at right now.

HEADS. new album ‘PUSH’ is out now via Glitterhouse Records! Grab a copy (or two) here! You can also read our review right here!

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Album Review: HEADS. – PUSH

Words: Nate Holdren

In 2016, art rockers HEADS. released a cover of Helmet’s ‘Blacktop’ for a compilation called ‘Meantime Redux‘. HEADS. stayed loyal to the original’s density and inhumanity but instead of Helmet’s sound – a brutal machine, defined by cutting edges and crushing gears – HEADS. reinterpreted it as a basalt monolith, towering stone washed smooth by the ocean. These metaphors are my clumsy attempt to get at HEADS.’ unique and creative approach to post-hardcore. A lot of bands I listen to sound like they are frantically playing as far and hard as they can, but HEADS. sound like they are holding something in reserve, for artistic effect. The band don’t so much play heavy music as they sound like a heavy band doing something far more restrained: they have tremendous power to pulverise, but they choose not to rock out because they want to do something else instead.

Now it’s 2020 and the Berlin and Melbourne based band have released ‘PUSH‘, their second full length. In the 90s, Simon Reynolds described post-rock in terms of “rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbres and textures rather than riffs and power chords.” On ‘PUSH‘, HEADS. have riffs and power chords, but they use them to create space and to build tension. That tension rarely if ever releases; if cathartic release defines rock music, then despite Reynolds’ definition, HEADS. play a kind of riff-based post-rock.

I worry this will sound like an insult but I mean it as a compliment: this feels like a record full of long songs, but most of the songs are under four minutes. They feel longer because they’re weighty and tightly-wound, and they force listeners to slow down and notice the build up of tension over time. The band lean heavily on droning and vamping, layering weighty sound on top of each other, the droning riffs serving as the backdrop for a mix of melodic and dissonant element on top, with the underlying layers slowly morphing into something else, creating space for new melodic and dissonant figures on top. The effect can become hypnotic. It works like some electronic music, building upon itself, with motifs that recur and morph, rather than clear verse-chorus-verse structures.

As I listened, I thought of Chicago’s Shellac and Luggage. All three bands play bold music that sounds indifferent to your enjoyment as a listener. It’s a private sound, music the band made for each other, for the joy of making it together. We just happen to get to overhear it. HEADS. have something of the minimalist quality of those bands as well, in that they don’t follow conventional song structures and there’s some repetition to their sound, but HEADS. make less use of silence than Shellac. Much of the time instead there is a wall of sound. Some of the best wall of sound music – any of Bob Mould’s bands, and My Bloody Valentine – can get a little muddy, while with HEADS. all the elements are clear and crisp.

One of my favourite things on this record is how the first track, ‘Empty Towns’, works with the other songs. ‘Empty Towns’ has a repetitive bass rumble – industrial sounding, not in the music genre sense but literally, like factory machinery – with some occasional vaguely siren-like noises. It’s reminiscent of the new Girl Band – riffs, but deconstructed – with an in-your-face loud spoken word vocal. The phrases that the vocalist spits recur on later songs on the record as lyrics sung. This has the effect that if you listen without knowing the lyrics, the recurring snippets of lyrics feel familiar and more striking but it’s not always clear why. It’s similar to being in a new city for the first time and a little lonely, and thinking you see the faces of old friends in the faces of a crowd. It’s also a bit like being intoxicated and having an urge to connect. The result is a cocktail of feelings – pensive, agitated, excited. It’s very effective and creative and I struggle to think of other records where I’ve heard anything like this done.

My favourite song on here is the only genuinely long song on the record, the almost eight minute ‘Paradise’. The track has a clear vocal hook, but before the singing starts at 45 seconds there have been four different guitar riffs. Several more riffs arrive before the four minute mark, when the song slows down and becomes more melodic before changing again a minute later to a brooding but pretty space rock, with the guitar moving back and forth between providing texture and playing a melancholy lead. That goes on for two minutes before a sad, ambiguous and unresolved ending.

The album’s final song, ‘As Your Street Gets Deserted’, reprises the machine clatter of ‘Empty Towns’ and some of the lyrics as well. After the spacious, luscious, and complex sounds of ‘Paradise’, the return to the simple factory pounding we heard at the start of the record makes ‘As Your Street Gets Deserted’ feel like a slamming door, closing off what the earlier parts of the album opened up and finishing the album on a dark and definitive note (it made me think of a joke from Franz Kafka: “plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope – but not for us”).

This is a demanding record in terms of what it asks of listeners. It sounds nice at a surface level if you need something as background noise, muzak that you largely tune out while you do whatever you have to do in order to get through your day. To really get this record I think you need to dial yourself in very fully, giving it your undivided attention. That can be hard depending on what your life is like, but this record really rewards a close listen. It’s really good, you should check it out.

(Photo Credit: Basti Grim)

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