Nite Fields-Vacation 7" (2012)

I've never been to Brisbane, Australia, but the welter of hot new bands from there makes me wanna start selling coke so I could afford a trip: Kitchen's Floor, Meat Thump, Cured Pink, and, in a different register, Nite Fields.

Whereas most Brisbane bands I've heard lately specialize in charmingly ramshackle "Downer Pop" (Matt Kennedy's words), Nite Fields is another trip altogether. Following on their split with Happy New Year,  this two-song EP finds Nite Fields refining and deepening the atmospheric glum rock found therein.

"Vacations" opens with a snare lick that tips its hat to the opening of "Decades," before laying down an insistent guitar note that slowly builds into a swirling, hypnotic post-punk revel. The synth and drums layer each other to create dense cloud of gloom, with the singer maintaining the one-foot-in-the-grave monotone on "Come Down." This would be a great opener or closer to a darkwave night at yr local bar.

"Hell/Happy" is more downed out and somber. Ethereal might be the right adjective here: synth and cymbals swirl in and out of focus while the guitar and bass pluck away in an inobtrusive way. The whole thing makes you feel like you just ate a few Xanax and wandered into a fogbank.

I'll add Nite Fields to my list of reasons why the Brisbane/Melbourne/Sydney arc is where it's at these days, musically. Listen to the EP here. If you're Down Under, catch 'em at the Lost Race festival November 17; you can get tickets from the Lost Race site.

Happy New Year/Nite Fields split 7" (2012)

Bridging my current fixation on dreampop (guilty pleasure of the last two months 'round here has been the new Beach House LP) and my ongoing obsession with all things -wave, this split EP throws up two tracks of effects-laden dreaminess suitable for those who enjoy thinking about doom 'n' gloom gothiness when getting fucked up.

Happy New Year's "High Sea" opens with pensive, (melo)dramatic piano and distant, echoing gongs. The singer intones from a distance, her words lost on misty trails of cold ruin as the musicians hammer home a Gothic, lost-on-the-moors ambiance fitting for smoking a shit ton of weed and watching "Game of Thrones" with the sound off, to better absord Happy New Year. Y'know, wizards and death and swords 'n' shit.

Nite Fields' "Come Down" picks up where Happy New Year left off; the song picks up after the swords 'n' dragons battle to dwell on a ruined, haunted landscape. The drums are propulsive but heavily treated with echo, the singer sounds like he's singing from a ship passing in the night, his words vanishing into the ether.

Last night I tripped over some goth girl's 12-inch black docs while walking out of a bar-it seems like goth is back in a big way in Portland, so all you ultra-cool West Coast kids, be sure to pick up this piece of Australian glumrock, pronto.

You can do so here, courtesy of Lost Race Records. Listen to it before ya buy it, over at soundcloud.