ETC The courier August 1, 2

POP
Do the robot
First Names
Independent.

THIS, the second album from the Brisbane husband and wife team Matt and Sarah Deasy, was inspired by their European honeymoon. So it's perhaps not a surprise that it's a sweet, cruisy affair.
It follows last year's Amp on fire and is a different beast. Gone are the vocal calisthenics and jangling guitars, replaced by a much smoother approach, almost too smooth.
One of the most striking of the eight tracks is Grandmother's bicycle,which channels the drums, guitar and synths of New Order with aplomb. Sarah's voice is soft, a little thin in places, but it suits this silky, mid-range, mid-tempo material.
Another highlight, Just the Six (No, the Five of Us) is a simple mood piece in which the pair share the vocals, creating a nostalgic reverie in the mould of Clannad's soundtrack work. The songs have been beautifully layered, based on a foundation of drums and background guitar, drawing character from synths, keys and percussion. They could perhaps use a tad more character to help give each a litter more definition, as with the too-short muscled guitar work on Never Knew.
While the tracks seem almost too ephemeral to hold on to, there's a time and place in most days, most likely late at night or in the laziest haze of summer, where this album would provide the perfect soundtrack.

Jason Nahrung

We have almost finished our new record "First Names".

So new songs will be posted soon. RR records will be pressing 100 copies to vinyl which will have textured fabric covers....exciting!!! So they will all be different and we will be posting pics of all the different ones available..Vinyl will also come with the album on disc, but more about that later.

Songs are soon

Is an early demos record we have put together For anyone how would like a copy contact us:) ALL THEM WITCHES 1.A KISS 2.DUNES 3.DR DEATH 4.HOKEYPOKEY 5.WALKING THROUGH DOORS 6.BAD ART 7.BARRIUM MEAL RECORDED BETWEEN 2006 AND 2007/ EARLY DEMOS & ALBUM OUTTAKES COST: $5.00

Hi

If you would like a copy it can be purchased through the valve records website, Rocking horse records Brisbane, or you can send us a message and we will post one out to your address.

It is also available on the unexciting Itunes website.

Thankyou

Mrobot

Do the Robot
Amp on Fire
by: Thomas Mendelovitis

I was going to start this review with a petulant rant about recording values. About how it shouldn't be too hard to record something near to top-notch these days, especially if you have made the decision to release it. About how, obviously, you can hear a big budget instantly, but that there are ways and means of getting around that. I was going to start down that path (and I think I just did…) until I gave Amp on Fire one last listen, but with the volume way up loud. There are stories floating around how, in a race for ever-more (and Evermore!) attention-grabbing volumes, radio stations have fuelled the compression of a recording's peaks and troughs such that modern music is, in effect, louder. Thus, listening to Coldplay for 15 minutes at a moderate volume can damage your ears more than two hours of unrelenting death metal live. I suppose Amp on Fire is one of those records, just without the all-too familiar sonic bells and whistles. Played nice and loud, it sounds just fine; in places even excellent.

Do the Robot first caught my attention at a Cloud City Warehouse gig sometime in mid-2007. A three-piece from Brisbane comprising a platinum-blonde vocalist (Sera Mucha), a guitarist (Matthew Deasy) who, as the only tuned instrumentalist, was highly competent in filling out the large warehouse space, and a drummer (Derrin Cason) wise enough to keep to the beat through their extended songs- they were definitely the complete package.

On record, they succeed in imparting the same rhythmically atmospheric jam-like moods as they did live. Finding a singular sound somewhere between My Bloody Valentine, The Cowboy Junkies and new wave drumming, Do the Robot's is an all-encompassing universe. The band have a strong figurehead in Mucha, who, playfully repeating and turning over her lyrics, has obviously learnt from the book of Life Without Buildings' Sue Tompkins.

On Amp on Fire, Do the Robot present a body of work based more on sound than songs. Where some bands find a comfortable sound on which to base standard issue songs, Do the Robot opt instead to create comfortable songs based on their effective sound. While a 'sound' has obviously been the hallmark of certain bands, to be truly great there needs to be a match with great songs. At times on Amp on Fire the results of this sound-based approach are underwritten. 'Audrey' is a case in point. After speaking "I can only hear you through the amplifier" and singing "amplifier" a few times, Mucha thinks to morph this into "amp on fire"- giving rise to the album title. She then intones the refrain: "don't you ever stop". On 'Tambourine Beach' the verses go from "don't burn bridges, baby" to "push the dagger through my spine". While the music swells with rolling beats and guitars, the vocals in these tracks do not impart the same sense of atmosphere. The lyrical ideas are nicely spare and dissimilar but undeveloped in their juxtaposition. There is nothing wrong with these songs, per se, it's just that in favouring repeated lyrics over narrative we expect a kind of epiphany, which seldom comes.

Where Amp on Fire really shines is in the sounds Deasy coaxes from his guitar and amplifier. In this, the album title finds much more significance. There is so much depth to the playing, you wonder how this record could have been recorded on a smaller budget than Loveless's famed multiple engineer blow-out. Where Loveless, and much of shoegaze, revels in multi-tracked harmonics, Deasy's playing achieves a similar effect with what sounds like one microphone recording one amplifier. There are obviously different tracks to what we hear, but you can sense and appreciate each one. On 'Blue', swelling waves of guitar break over a twanging one-string rhythm, while on 'In The Shadows', delayed fret noise becomes a flock of seagulls and a single note becomes a cavernous hole of atmosphere. It's headphone stuff to be played loud, or better yet, seen live.

A band can't be built solely on the strength of one player alone, but in their favour there are moments where the three elements of the Do the Robot formula work in harmony. On 'Blue', 'Play' and 'Six Dreams And Counting', Mucha's vocals do not suffer from strained poetics and the songs benefit as a result. She has a versatile voice, and on these tracks she best showcases her mix between girlish semi-spoken words and singing at a comfortable range. When she gently pleads on 'Blue' to "sing me a blue song/serenade me/sing me a sweet song" the effect of the repetition isn't quite transcendental but, set to a potently low-key rhythm, sleighbells and the brilliant guitar, Do the Robot are certainly moving in the right direction.

Do The Robot - Amp on Fire (Album)

by mig

Generally, I thought that I was confined to doing the robot on the dance floor on Saturday nights. Now, as well as being my choreographic mantra, it is also potentially a musical following, being the name of the newest band to emerge from the Brisbane musical talent pool.

Do the Robot is a quirky three-piece, whose debut album, Amp on Fire is demonstrative of all that is new and different on the local music scene. And, band name side, these guys are really cool in an eclectic and funky way.

The title of the album is suggestive of the band's sound: it seems that the amp, has, indeed, been done away with in the name of sweet and charming little ditties incorporating minimalist notions to produce maximum impact.

Re-discovering the likes of neglected percussion instrument, the glockenspiel (or do you call it a xylophone…is there any real difference?) also earns Do the Robot extra brownie points in my opinion.

Lead vocalist, glock player, mover and shaker, Sera Mucha, manages to charm and make an impression without possessing extensive vocal skills, which seems to be the appeal of Do the Robot. For, she, along with fellow Robot-ites, Matthew Deasy on guitar and Derrin Cason - who covers all other instruments percussive – play together as though they have been since Year 10 music class.

With such influences as The Triffids, Julee Cruise (a la, Twin Peaks era) and other such unique sounding bands and genres, they are ultimately successful in their attempt to define the unique in their sound.

They also have a certain enigmatic way about them: in one respect they could be the band that play a regular set at your local every Friday. In another their quiet charisma may be alluring enough to develop a cult following. Either way, I'm sure these guys would have devotees as opposed to just casual fans, somehow.

From tunes that induce a strong urge to skip merrily down the street, (Six Dreams and Counting and Play), to those that seem more melodically pensive, (In the Shadows and My New Treat), Do The Robot maange to break down the barriers of typical musical genre. Amp On Fire is a testament to the sassy and quirky style that these guys have masterfully accomplished.

OK, there has to be a slight degree of lengthy riffs and over-indulgent intros, but one needs to be mindful of these certain debut album errs, whereby, band members get understandably excited about their big moment in the recording studio.

Not to mention the fun there is to be had in attemtping to do the robot to Do the Robot..(cos, in my opinion one can robot to anything! As it should be, really…)

So, full credit to Valve Records for introducing the rest of the nation to Do the Robot – in theory and in practice…

How lovely to come home and find this waiting for you!


Do The Robot
Amp On Fire

8 Track, LP (2008, Valve Records)
Related: Do The Robot.


Unexpected pleasures are often the best. I flagged this one down based on a quick glance - after all, they're a Brisbane band, named after a Saints song, with an album called Amp On Fire. Why not? But I couldn't have been more wrong as it turns out. There's not a trace of Bailey and co. to be heard here - and it's all the better for that.

A husband-and-wife project for Sera Mucha and Scul Hazzards' drummer Matthew Deasy, Amp On Fire is eight tracks of lightly-drawn but reverb-heavy tunes, that wax and wane in emotional intensity and length across the duration of the album. Strange, intriguing, and possibly unique - with no clues given on the sparse cover art. You have to listen to it.

They cite a host of mostly English '80s acts as influences, but surprisingly fail to mention Stereolab, whose love of mood-building repetition they share in spades coupled with pared back, but occasionally oblique lyrics.

So while they nail the fan/band dynamic perfectly in 'Play' ("Play for me, play for me, play for me!/ Don't stop"), the eight-minute tale of 'Audrey', whose voice comes through the amplifier, could be about paranoia or an imaginary friend.

These are not so much sketches as bright crayon drawings. There's a sense of deliberate simplicity at work here that almost veers into willful naivety. Although they put paid to any possible accusations of false cuteness with 'Cooper'. Surely there's only one way that a woman's breathy plea to "show me the ways of the world" can be read - even if it is layered under plinking xylophone.

by Trevor Block

Its been quite a month! If we have seemed quiet lately, thats because we ran away to europe for a month. Its official - do the robot are now mr and mrs robot. Its all signed on a big registry book in a little italian village called pischotta by the mayor himself if you don't believe me.

Talk about a whirlwind trip! Shopping wise, for me, I would have to say amsterdam was pretty damn awesome. The markets found me the best an most abundant lvd's (thats little vintage dresses to the uninitiated) than anywhere we've been. Unfortunately, I might never see them again.

Thanks very much malaysian airlines for losing my bag. It was 11.00pm, I had been in transit back home for the past 24 hours, and you should have seen my tired little face slowly droop lower and lower as I was left all alone at the carousel (well, not all alone, the new hubby was there, but he had all his bags!).

The lady at the desk was quite indifferent about it, said it happens quite often in flights coming out of amsterdam (maybe the dutch bag handlers are a little preoccupied with something???). But said it would probably turn up in 24 hours. At least I can procrastinate from unpacking for a little while....