Basil’s Kite Chewing Bread (self release) – Says here that for their second record, Basil’s Kite have written “an anti-mindfulness manifesto. This album contains eight different ways your brain can explode while the world explodes around you. It’s not only unavoidable, but disastrous to avoid difficult realities in favour of comfy platitudes. Chewing Bread was written entirely using custom made one of a kind microtonal instruments”. Now this is a whole bag of forthright intensity and why use one note when you can cram in ten? Not all the time though, they ram raid it home for the first half of the album and then when they have you well and truly pounded they let off a little and turn into some kind of gracefully off-kilter almost-jazz band. The seventh track here, Going Home ends in a sublimely beautiful way, you wouldn’t have expected that after the onslaught of the first half, maybe it was all about game management after the break? Basil’s Kite are from Sydney, Australia, we’ve told you about them before, there’s something just there about them rearranging body parts and yes, bread can be chewy,  some of that East London gentrified bread is seriously chewy. This is the good type of chewy bread and when we’re done you’re probably going to want some. Here we are, half way through December, have the music publications have already jumped the gun and gone with their albums of the year lists and gawd knows why when there’s still bread to chew and there’s still great albums to feed on, this one came out a couple of days ago, this is seriously chewy bread.

Chewing Bread is incredibly clever on several levels, mathy, complex, hardcore, almost alien or maybe like some of those strange animals they got down there, the spiders and the swimming knives and such, yes, microtonal, different and they read the news about the deep sea diver, he’s a regular Robin Hood. That start to Company Time Pt1 is particularly intense and I forget the words again, did you take them?  This is the real deal, proper progressive rock, as in rock that progresses, that goes somewhere, that wants to push at things, takes themselves on and turn it all inside out and this is what was asked of them. Who is Basil anyway? That bit there really does peck, a lot of it screams, and then we get to Company Time Pt3 and the whole mood changes gloriously, almost like a microtonal chopped up Yes and then. Well that’s a good bit, Means Test, that passes, you bring home the bacon, they’ll bring the mud pie, do like the way there’s bit that seem to cross reference, so like this lots, lots and lots… Oh yes, you missed this one on you’re albums of the years list, you all went too early. Even in a Dream is a rather fine closing track… (sw)

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Here’s some previous action from before this new album…

Previously

ORGAN THING: A rather tasty slice of wildly awkward mathcore noise, a track from the excellent new Basil’s Kite album…