Charlie Megira Und The Hefker Girl
Charlie Megira Und The Hefker Girl

Drawing from a collective musical lexicon as seen in Amici, Sogni (which translates to 'Dreams') reflects on themes of decision-making, change, time, heartbreak and the practicalities of work and daily life. Primo!'s music is a study of duality, weaving through these themes with an idiosyncratic delivery that is punctuated by post-punk sensibilities, upbeat jangle and unexpected electronic flourishes.Sogni sees the introduction of Amy Hill on bass, adding to the original trio of Suzanne Walker (drums), Violetta Del Conte-Race and Xanthe Waite (guitars). There’s a freshness here, a breaking of new territory that's a testament to the group’s collaborative work ethic and experience in their associated bands.Spanning just under 30 minutes, Sogni’s twelve songs were conceived collectively in the rehearsal room and perfected in a live setting, before being recorded to an 8-track with Al Montfort across a number of home studios in Melbourne.The resulting LP comes with a languid and fluid pace. Opener “Things To Do” sets the tone for Sogni, a record that reflects Primo!’s day-to-day life, with sharp lyrics and a chiming encouragement. “Perfect Paper” propels the album into cruise, with splintering guitars, “Machine” highlights the work-hierarchy struggle (you told me just what I should do / but the problem is you’re only human / and I just can’t listen to you / machine, machine, machine”). “Best and Fairest” questions the idea of an ideal life, while “Love Days” reflects on past relationships and “Diamond Day” deals in accidentally being swept up in love. Before long, the LP is wrapped up with a hazy and intimate final track, “Reverie”.Primo! are making guitar music that explores the boundaries of everyday life with calm levity, tilted grace and grit.

Efficient Space: ...Oz Echoes peels away another layer of Australia’s ‘80s DIY hive mind. The Oz Waves successor exposes a deeper circuit of micro-run cassettes, community radio archives and irrationally abandoned studio sessions, as Steele Bonus sequences a 10-track compendium of drone pop, psyche-electronics and agitated tape cut-ups.From the Sydney cassette network, The Horse He's Sick returns with an industrial car crash, alongside Wrong Kind of Stone Age’s pagan cacophony and primal riddims. M Squared dynamo Patrick Gibson appears in both Height/Dismay and Mr Knott, his respective studio-as-an-instrument collaborations with Dru Jones (Scattered Order) and ex-Slugfucker Gordon Renouf - the former’s worn out apparition hails from an instantly deleted 1981 7”, while Mr Knott entrust one of the compilation’s five previously unreleased tracks.Matt Mawson represents Brisbane music media-printed matter collective ZIP, as Adelaide’s Three D Radio grants access to their vaults of live-to-air recordings and aspiring demo submissions, rescuing the slap-happy punk-funk of The Frenzied Bricks and Jandy Rainbow’s prodigious beginnings in Les Trois Etrangers and Aeroplane Footsteps. Synchronously in Melbourne, Ash Wednesday (Karen Marks, The Metronomes) leads Modern Jazz’ improvised proto-techno and EBM pioneers Shanghai Au Go-Go home record their sardonic synth-wave.A cherry-picked cast of unusual suspects, Oz Echoes’ unfamed artist and non-band narratives are detailed by track-by-track liner notes with rarely published archival visions and artwork from Video Synth, prompting further rabbit hole ventures into this golden era of creative risk-taking and instant action.

After the demise of the Ooga Boogas in the Before Time, the four band members went their very separate ways. Being in that band was such an intense high pressure experience, some chillax time was well-deserved.Stacky recorded under the name Leon, Per joined Voice Imitator, Mikey recorded with The Green Child and Rich played in Drug Sweat. All quite deserving projects, but it was Leon's solo outing that garnered the most interest from public and industry alike. The demand for live shows led Leon to recruit Per from Ooga Boogas and a guy named Brad into his touring lineup.The trio was red hot, but inevitably the venues they filled required a fuller sound so Leon recruited Mikey from Ooga Boogas on second guitar. The gruelling touring schedule became too much for family-man Brad, so Rich from Ooga Boogas jumped in to fill his size 11s and off they went for another lap of regional Victoria.Eventually the question presented itself to this freshly-minted foursome: should they continue as Leon's backing band or strike out anew with a fresh identity? The answer came in a moniker too electrifying to resist; a name as clever, enigmatic and indeed, as powerful as the band itself. Power Supply.Back in the shed, jams became songs, jokes became lyrics and long afternoons spent together became the record you're now half-listening to while you yearn for your inbox. Listen though, and you'll hear life through the lens of Leon and the tactile tentacles of his pals. In The Time of the Sabre-toothed Tiger contains ten songs that listen so easy, you'll barely notice when they're gone.

Bananagun have hatched another slick psyched-out gem that's part Motown banger, part funkadelic soul train that's just rolled in from the Melbourne outback. Rapid fire congas take hold before a close to home love story unfolds, as leader Nick explains:"It’s located in the heart and is basically me dealing with a break up and putting that into a song. Love is strange? You jump in the deep end with someone, roll the dice and pay the price but there’s no floatation device when the river runs dry. I just got married and then suddenly it all turned pear shaped, what the hell can you do? In those hard times the best way to get some clarity is to make a song about it, sing it back to me! Look inside, no answers, only dancers. Hopefully there’s as energy transfer."With the aim of merging the proto-garage rhythmic fury of The Monks with the tropicália grooves of Os Mutantes, the band have forged a sound that is loose and unravelling as it is focused and taut, with an aim of creating a real sense of place and environment. “We didn't want to do what everyone else was doing,” the band say. “We wanted it to be vibrant, colourful and have depth like the jungle. Like an ode to nature.”