Moyamoya: Hol Newland 12"

Moyamoya: Hol Newland 12” (Permanent Residence) Debut album from this art-punk trio from Perth, Australia, often referred to as the most geographically isolated major city in the world. As you might expect given their locale, Moyamoya sounds wonderfully out of step with contemporary music, evoking (if anything) the quirky art rock and angular punk of the late 70s. With punk/funk bass lines, slashing PiL-esque chords, and a vérité recording that sounds organic and live, like a band playing together in a room, Hol Newland brings to mind Talking Heads’ earliest work, with the singer’s heavy accent and the way he stuffs a zillion words into every song recalling TV Smith of the Adverts. The songs’ compositions and arrangements are similarly dense, featuring odd time signatures, lots of parts, and diverging bass and guitar lines, sort of like a maximalist version of the Minutemen. Like all the bands I referenced above, Moyamoya’s lyrics are also well-considered. The songs are dense with verbiage and the vocals are very alive rhythmically, the singer often adopting patterns that remind me more of poetry than song lyrics, creating yet another counter-rhythm to the band’s already packed arrangements. The topics Moyamoya addresses tend to revolve around Australian identity, which gets examined from a wealth of different angles, from the polemical to the nearly abstract. Certainly Hol Newland isn’t for everyone. Some will find it too arty or get frustrated by that feeling that much of what’s happening is going over your head. But if you’re looking for aggressively intellectual art punk that’s totally on its own trip, this is well worth a listen.