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Thus Let Us Drink Beer – The Velvet Sledgehammer

If Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art – MONA is not of your bucket list of places to visit, we cannot be friends. Opened at the beginning of 2011, October of the same year saw my first visit and a love affair that has seen me return at least once a year as operations evolved, blossomed and branched out in a range of wonderful directions, with the core of its bars, cafés,  restaurants, and accommodation, winery, cellar door and cemetery only being a few of them.

The inception of Moo Brew predates the museum and is an endeavour to create beer reminiscent of what David Walsh, the man behind MONA, found during his travels overseas. So, he built a brewery. Logical, right? Easy.

Not unlike everything that emanated around MONA, be it festivals or otherwise, the brewery became quickly Tasmania’s largest craft beer brewery and accumulated accolades internationally with kicked into overdrive when head brewer is Jack Viney took the reins to further refine the brewing process under the watchful eye of former head brewer Dave Macgill.

Now, one thing to look forward to every year during Australia’s winter is the annual emergence of Moo Brew’s legendary stout.

Truth be told, I am not much of a stout aficionado – too rich, too heavy and I prefer IPAs to complement boilermakers with heavily peated water of life.

However, as with nearly every of Moo Brew’s idiosyncratic emissions, it proved difficult to subdue smacking my lips once the “Velvet Sledgehammer” tickled the top of my mouth.

With Viney channelling his alchemy, it is everything one would expect from a well-made stout, i.e. it is dominated by syrup and roasted maltiness along with a higher ABV content, yet it is more delicate and much more drinkable than any other stout I’ve had so far. Velvety indeed with enough punch to justify the allusion to the sledgehammer.

Given that it will disappear in September, it is not further wondrous that beer lovers make a run for it and stack up on time, making it a coveted brew.

MONA is heavy on curated branding. There are not coincidences with what you will see emerge from the museum. A lot of thought has gone into every aspect and Moo Brew is not exception with its art making a statement as well.

Leigh Carmichael, now Creative Director of Dark Mofo, forged the idea to use John Kelly’s iconic series of paintings, which started off as a deliberate affront again the Australia Council for the Arts in a bid to counteract the commercialisation of art.

While the beer labels might look simple in nature at first sight, the different interpretations and embedding of the sun and kangaroo within different contexts, one of them being a reimagination paired with art from Sidney Nolan, makes it the perfect eye candy to adorn the Moo Brew cans and it elevates the drinking pleasure quite a bit.

Apart from the recently launched Club – which much to my annoyance sells out its limited-edition emissions within days, Moo Brew has an overly stylish merchandise collection which manages to strike a near perfect calibration between being striking and subtlety.

Jeremy Kirwan-Ward: You Can See It From Here

Fremantle Press

One of the qualities of art is to offer to grind a new lens and the opportunity to transform and change viewpoints, which can result in one recalibrating one’s outlook. With Australia’s unique rugged landscape, there are a myriad of a spectacular phenomena to be experienced, be it on the surface of the ocean, the bush or in sunburnt territory, specifically in the Western part.

Jeremy Kirwan-Ward is a master when it comes to depicting ever unfolding and reforming shapes and enhancing the experience by using reflective colours that help to illuminate nuances such as the change of winds or microscopic dots of light or the rhythm of the sea.

If I was to pinpoint what Kirwan-Ward channels his alchemy in, I’d describe it as the ability to highlight a separation of his art from the real world while shedding light on the underlying processes of its layered creation and and by that, juxtaposing shifts and continuous movement with stasis.

Mesmerising and intent on reassessing the art of looking as contrasts and counterbalances are amplified to then suggest that perception is in the eye of the individual beholder.

This beautiful tome comprises the five-decade long career of an Australian artist that due to being located in one of the most remote parts of the world, is not widely known.

With a depiction of over one hundred of Jeremy’s painting and framed by compelling essays, Kirwan-Ward’s oeuvre is contextualized in the canon of not only the local Western Australian, but also the national and international context.

July: Hype Stickers

Boy, I'm getting these things up later and later. Thanks for checking out what I listened to for this installment of Search/Play/Repeat. A lot of 2020 releases in this month's playlist. Some of which that have been a long time coming. There isn't really a "theme" for this month. I just did some bouncing around. One of my new favorite bands are The 1865 which I happened upon last month. While continuing to listen to their album, Don't Tread on We, I found myself perusing the "Fans Also Like" tab of their Spotify...page? I dunno, is it considered a "page?" Anyway, the first two bands that popped up were The Muslims and Pleasure Venom. The latter falls on the heavier side of Post-Punk, while The Muslims are raw Punk. The Muslims released their new album, Gentrifried Chicken, back in April its perfect for anyone looking for fast-paced Punk, but the album harbors some catchy Garage-Rock tunes as well.  "Sura Sura" is a great track, and probably one of my favorites of the year. There's also a witty rendition of Blink 182's, "What's My Age Again?" that's titled "Blink 9-11 (What's My Race Again?)" that I also suggest checking out.

July was loaded with notable new releases. A few of them from veteran Punk bands. Strike Anywhere released their new EP, Nightmares of the West. Their first new music in 11 years, and it sounds like they picked up right where they left off. Pop-Punkers, Broadway Calls, released Sad in the City which is their first new album in 7 years, and The Lawrence Arms returned after 6 years with Skeleton Coast. One of the albums I was most excited for was the sophomore record from The Beths, Jump Rope Gazers, and it did not disappoint. It's a more mellow record compared to their debut, Future Me Hates Me, but the Power-Pop and catchy melodies they're known for are there.

The surprise release of the month was Blaqk Audio's Beneath the Black Palm (Side A). Well, okay, it was actually Taylor Swift's folklore, but I haven't checked it out yet. Blaqk Audio released a new album just last year, but they're back with another album due to release at the end of August. The duo were kind enough to release the first half for fans to enjoy until then. Marilyn Manson announced a new album as well and dropped his new single, "We Are Chaos." Admittedly, I haven't really heard anything Manson has done in like two decades, so I have no idea if this has been the direction he's been heading in, but I like it. The music video was pretty on brand for Manson though. Weird choppy imagery complete with a baby playing with a mobile of singing Marilyn Mansons.

That's some of the new music I listened to. Some non-2020 releases made it into rotation as well. I checked out The Roots' Things Fall Apart. A couple weeks after listening to the album, Malick B. died. Another night, a friend and I were pulling a "remember that band" with I Am Ghost. Curiostiy got the best of me and I looked up what the lead singer was up too and saw he has a new band called My Immortal Enemy. It sounds like I Am Ghost if I Am Ghost had continued on, which is probably good for fans of I Am Ghost.

And with that, I'll be bringing July's S/P/R to a close. Thanks for listening! We're reaching the middle of Summer so stay cool. Hunker down next to the A/C and listen to some music and try to find something you haven't listened to before.

The Formative Years – ACME 7”

In 1993, I received a demo tape “Menschenmaschine” by a band from the Northern regions of Germany that had just changed its name from New Deal.  The artwork, new band logo and presentation did not exactly catch my eye and it took a while until I felt compelled to give it a spin, however, upon first listening I could not quite fathom the onslaught that was unleashed on me.

While the songs were raw in nature, even those early recordings indicated that there was something to the song writing that calibrated the incorporation of extreme metal styles without ever confining themselves to any stylistic limitations in an unparalleled manner, while still honouring the rawness of traditional metal-tinged hardcore bands.

We are not merely talking about lifting the occasional trademark Slayer riffage here and there, but a tour de force in the curation of an idiosyncratic melange that skimmed the best and most intense ingredients of grind, sludge, death and black metal and cooked it up to a venomous broth that infused the bands’ own DNA.

ACME’s songs from the demo were re-recorded by Systral’s bassist and sound-hexer par excellence Dirk Kusche in his Kuschelrock-Studios, where the recordings were refined and taken to the next level.

What resulted was the musical equivalent to napalm and something that remains unrivalled to this day. Dirk Kusche has since produced many great releases be it for his own bands or other heavy Mucke bands, however, the way ACME’s violent outburst of atonal, densely layered riffage is paired with the detonating double-bass hammerings created an atmosphere where blackness started to shine.

Yes, ACME might have been part of what became labelled as the “Bremen Schule” along with other  local bands dabbling in the genre, but they instantaneously and effortlessly created a league of their own as their majestically noisy songs pulverized everything else with their over-the-top annihilating aggression.

The sonic equivalent to a chainsaw gone flying, made all the more interesting as the band itself did exactly fit the visual stereotype of looking and behaving like the cast of Mad Max, as one might imagine from listening to their emissions.

Kusche’s recordings were eventually released on Jeroen Lauwers’ Machination Records as a 7”, a label that evolved after his joint-effort with Ed Verhaeghe, i.e. Warehouse Records folded and whose back catalogue includes such interesting bands as Fabric, one of the first musical endeavours of Tony Sylvester who amongst many other incarnations and manifold detours now quite successfully fronts Turbonegro.

It was only a matter of time until the “Bremen sound” and specifically that of ACME fell on fertile ground in the new world, which saw ACME’s discography  - merely nine perfectly violent tracks -  re-released by Edison Recordings under the name "...to Reduce the Choir to One Soloist" in 1996, long after the band had folded.

A release that seals the legacy of a timeless mayhemic, hyper-savage , dark and neurotic inferno of a band that redefined sonic brutality.

Thus Let Us Drink Beer – The Southern Highlands Brewing Co

Formed a decade ago, it is a shame that I became only very recently aware of the existence of The Southern Highland Brewing Co.

With the name being a telling one, i.e. the brewery being located in the Australian Southern Highlands, the brews the duo, which originally met at a Rugby game, have been accolade decorated from the get-go.

With a playfully named core range that tickles all nuances a beer lover could wish for, i.e. starting with lager and rising the bitterness via Pale Ales, my favourite of Southern Highlands’ emissions is their fantastic Tighthead IPA.

Now, what is commonly labelled as “American IPA” has evolved quite a bit since the style first emanated in the early 1980s.

 Based on a melange of Warrior and Chinook hops, this delightfully herbal, piney and citrusy new world IPA might not be overly complex or fruity like many of its contemporary peers in the ever expanding craft beer market, yet did a borderline perfect job as being the complementary constituent to complement a Boilermaker with Laphroaig’s Lore with its balancing malt backbone. Clean and bready tasting, moderately bitter light in both body and mouthfeel and if properly chilled, an immensely enjoyable crisp and well-crafted IPA. It appears that the mash temperature and grain bill has been manipulated in a manner to let the IPA finish in a superbly dry manner.

If you are an aficionado of tropical flavours, Southern Highlands Brewing’s latest seasonal, the Rain Ale or Shine Dark Tropical will be right up your alley. Clocking in at 6% ABV, what materializes on the palate is an extra pale ale variant with dominating fruity and citrussy highlights, that are pervaded by subtle nuances of dark malt.

With their brews getting the recognition they deserve at European beer awards; lovers of expertly crafted ales worldwide should take note and keep their eyes peeled as Southern Highlands is currently looking at exporting its emissions into overseas markets.