Dirty Jokes

One-man electropop act out of Australia. Experimental, shoegazey at times, lushly pop at others. Fluxes from fuzzy to noisy to dreamy to just plain weird. Soft-lilt indie vocals can be barely audible, buried under a wall of synth. Dense lyrics. Often very, very pretty. At first listen this can seem forgettable, but I love it. Sounds like, I don’t know, Dan Deacon? The Elephant 6 collective? Fuck it, plenty of great moments here, comparisons be damned.

Mr. Centipede is Wilfred Brandt. The guy is from DAYTON (allow me my pride), but he blew the states for Australia a few years ago. This record (his fourth) was his master’s project at Sydney College of the Arts. Don’t you wish you were doing something this cool in school.

try: 9, 6, 2, 13 (FCC “Miss Bitchy”)
FCC: 4, 8, 12, 13

1. pretty bells-effect keys & drum machine. this must be what a symphony of wine glasses sounds like. polite strummed guitar and soft vocals about midway in.
*2. starts with plain hooky guitar. warpy vocals at first, & rudder synth. gathers surety & steady beat, maintains distortion throughout.
3. starts low-volume at :02. nice coming-together-of-loops at start. overarching two-note synthy keys. vocals-only solo in middle with live-sounding drums.
4. FCC insistent, driving vocals more prominent. clopping percussion and up-bend guitar.
5. slow. real guitar on this one, and up-slide backing strings. mellow & sweet.
*6. heavy drum machine, electric-guitar-ish synth riff and bold single-note melody on keys, more hard edge. repetitive, but rockin. careful with the title. a “hoot”, perhaps.
7. hollow noisy percussion. going-flat wilting guitar line juxtaposes airy, brassy synth/keys and vox. odd!
8. FCC busy/energetic video game effects (like... bubbles popping?), live electric guitar in chorus. upbeat.
*9. smooth, lush. soaring, sublime melody line. no vocals. drum machine & gorgeous wall of sound give way to solo picked guitar. careful with the title. i recommend “taco ocean”.
10. wall of bells & vibes & claves, dampens a little when vocals kick in.
11. builder instrumental. short, uneventful. dies abruptly.
12. FCC i love this song! noisy, dirty, pushy electropop smoothes out to cool ping-pongy keys and alt-indie vocals. the fact that it’s drowning in FCCs makes me want to weep. violations: “shit / cock / tits / ass” no f-bomb, though.
*13. FCC “bitchy” jangly vibes-n-bells and... a recorder? creamy dreamy pop sound.
14. dead air.
15. crappily-recorded bonus track. straight-ahead, could be drum kit and guitar.