One thing that I’ve been guilty of lately is the lack of insight into the musical scene in my own backyard. With taste buds fixed firmly on multiple flavours from all corners of the globe, it’s easy to be blinkered to the plate of pancakes right under your nose. Let me rectify that in ’09.
The surface veneer of Sydney’s music scene suggests a few things to the casual street press reader: belated attempts to recapture the essence of ‘pure rock’, post-punk, electro and many more tried and tested genres besides. Forgive Sydney such hipster ambitions, its true soul lies elsewhere. Striking an ice-pick blow to such a veneer can reveal a great deal more complexity.
Ghoul strike out from beneath the surface with an EP (“A Mouthfull Of Gold”) that stands in defiance to everything around it, and as each track on the free release ticks by, each seems to stand in defiance of its neighbour. The sparse, electronic minimalism of ‘Swimming Pool’ is the best platform to showcase Ivan Vizintin’s semi-falsetto vocals (swiftly drawing inescapable references to Antony Hegarty), contrasting with the baffling yet engaging lo-fi blues swagger of ‘Serbian’. Elsewhere, we find proto-industrial sounds on ‘Fuck Math’ whilst ‘Mouthfull Of Gold’ rounds off a tight, abstract synth excursion with a brief clutter of post-rock. It’s an unpredictable clutch of sounds, a remarkable and undoubtely refreshing EP – one that certainly helps to reaffirm our faith in Sydney’s potential to confound rather than conform.
Ghoul – Fuck Math | mp3
Ghoul – Swimming Pool | mp3
Download the EP for free at myspace.com/ghoulsydney. Ghoul play live for nix with nine other bands as part of Oxford Art Factory’s ‘Ten For Free’, this Saturday (3rd): info oxfordartfactory.com.