On his fifth LP, Big Black Plume, Melbourne-based and Californian-born musician Michael Beach reveals the vitalizing power of connection in an often hostile world. Equally informed by the songwriting of Bill Fay and Peter Laughner, the minimalism of Tony Conrad and Terry Riley, and the rock and roll heart of the Goner Records roster, Big Black Plume provides deliberate compositions adorned with genuine madness. The songs on this album range from spare, textural ballads, to spiraling psychedelic overtures connected to a propulsive cosmic pulse.

“I was wrestling with the beauty and intensity of the natural world and coming to grips with the human destruction of it,” says Beach. “I have an overwhelming sense that humans will come and go, and the world we depend on will outlast us.”

Building on Beach’s network from over 20 years of touring, engineering, and production work (in Melbourne, SF, and LA), and employment in independent touring venues, Big Black Plume features contributions from a murderers’ row of talent. Produced by Beach and Gareth Liddiard (Tropical Fuck Storm), the record includes Dirty Three guitarist Mick Turner, The Necks bassist Lloyd Swanton, Tropical Fuck Storm members Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin, folk artist Leah Senior, Oren Ambarchi collaborator Joe Talia, and Comets on Fire’s Utrillo Kushner, among others.

Big Black Plume was recorded over four different sessions. Phil Manley (Trans Am) engineered the album’s two hardest-rocking songs, “Poison Dart” and “Sick Century”, at El Studio in San Francisco, with Kushner on drums. A second session at Sydney’s Golden Retriever (engineered by Tim Whitten) captured the album’s improv and avant-inflected ballads, “No One Knows Any Better” and “I’m Gonna Need Ya,” creating a special resonance through the interplay of Swanton’s subtly winding acoustic bass and Talia’s abstract but propulsive drums.

“The Sea” (featuring Turner and Talia), “Next To You,” and the album’s electronic pieces and overdubs were recorded at Beach’s Melbourne studio, EAP West. The album was completed in Nagambie with Liddiard adding finishing touches and guitar overdubs, and Kitschin singing backing vocals.

Beach is a masterful songwriter–he writes songs as seen from 10,000 feet, from 6 feet under–from every angle. The songs here aren’t stick-and-poke songs that will dry and fade on the skin, aimless prayers for jams; Beach has been making deliberate things for decades. Big Black Plume is a record about connections, mercurially curated, transforming individual contributions into something strikingly communal.

For the last decade, Beach has called Melbourne home, a city that knows the power of community–in myriad small venues like The Tote and The Old Bar, in community radio stations like RRR and PBS, in countless independent bands playing all genres every night, untouched by heavy industry. For a living, Beach teaches music (often to folks in those same small bands). He produces, engineers, or performs as a guest musician for friends’ bands (most recently for Tropical Fuck Storm on their forthcoming American musical underground). For years, Beach has been carefully fostering musical connections.

Big Black Plume is out July 25th, 2025, on vital independent labels Poison City (Australia) and Goner Records (US / Rest of World). Beach will support Big Black Plume with headlining tour dates and festival appearances in Australia, the United States, and Europe, including Gonerfest in Memphis, TN, Rising in Melbourne, Dark Mofo in Tasmania, and Binic Folks Blues Fest in France.

The hardest working men in showbiz Ed Kuepper and Jim White reunite for a limited run of shows this October in support of their new album After the Flood.

“… the results are stunning. Playing tunes as old as The Saints Swing For the Crime and as new as The Ruins (from Kuepper’s 2015 Lost Cities), the album is a brilliant roll of invention” – Byron Coley (The Wire)

“This is a superbly magnificent collection of gems that capture the ethereal songwriting skills of Kuepper over the years with the added frisson of White’s innovation and creativity, adding numerous layers and nuances to the tracks.” – Backseat Mafia

Kuepper, who just completed a solo Australian tour which followed an Australian tour with The Saints ’73-78 which predates an international tour for the same and who has just completed his parts for a new Asteroid Ekosystem album joins White, currently touring Europe with The Hard Quartet following a US tour for the same before joining both Bill Callahan and Xylouris White for a series of dates ahead of the first Dirty Three European tour in 15 years, will perform their shows in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

“Extended crowd appreciation finally coaxes the two musicians back into the fray and we’re treated to a robust rendition of Kuepper’s solo track ‘Rue The Day’ to bring things home, both Kuepper and White standing by the end of the righteous and powerful performance and seemingly as engrossed in the music as the adoring, sold out throng before them.” – Steve Bell / Rhythms

To coincide with the tour. Kuepper White have released a video for Swing For the Crime, a reworking of the opening track from The Saints 1978 album Prehistoric Sounds and a feature track from After the Flood.

Tickets on-sale 11am Wed July 23.

British/Greek singer, songwriter and producer Eleni Drake’s hauntingly beautiful sound is at once refreshing and timeless, uplifting and introspective, inspired by a deep love of music that spans from Mazzy Star and Adrienne Lenker to Mac Miller and Cleo Sol. With over 40 million streams to date and still only just getting going, 2025 promises to be Eleni’s biggest year yet with her most personal and profound music on the way.

Eleni’s celebrated 2024 EP, ‘Above Deep Water’; her first release on new label MNRK, having self-released her previous projects, picking up a devoted following in the process. She’s earned fans along the way at tastemakers including The Line Of Best Fit, Consequence, The Independent, The Arts Desk, CLASH, La Blogotheque and Wonderland, and last year took her intimate live set to The Great Escape and SXSW festivals.

Opaque R&B elements intermingle with touches of jazz, with Drake utilising warming, analogue tones throughout. A soft, supple piece of songwriting… – CLASH MAGAZINE

The British singer-songwriter has successfully captured the beachy, cosmic energy the record’s name seems to indicate – CONSEQUENCE

A compulsive set of songs laced in spacey twang… there’s a touch of David Lynch about its zonk-blues melancholia – THE ARTS DESK

Bleak Squad is the most well-known Melbourne band no one’s heard of.

Bleak Squad are a new Melbourne four-piece comprised of Australian art-rock royalty – co-authors of some of the most critically-acclaimed antipodean music of the last 40 years. Featuring Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Mess Esque) Mick Harvey (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, The Birthday Party), Adalita (Magic Dirt) and Marty Brown (Art of Fighting), “supergroup” is an embarrassing word. “Supernatural” might be more apt.

“I think the name Bleak Squad speaks to both this loose collection of misfits,” says Adalita of the concoction. “And the noirish mood of our music.” 

Bleak Squad’s debut LP Strange Love is the moving sum of these parts, one that sees all four members juggle multiple instruments, songwriting, their own idiosyncrasies and – in the case of Adalita and Harvey – lead vocal duties. The nine songs percolate on brooding guitars, slippery basslines, organ drones, Brown’s lyrical drumming, and the unmistakable, illogical fizz of Turner’s guitar squawks. Over it, Adalita and Harvey swap and share tales of love dampened, hope on hold and threaded tendrils of acceptance.

As with all great works, Bleak Squad’s story starts by the pool.

“I was sitting around Fitzroy pool one summer bemoaning I wasn’t playing drums enough,” says Marty Brown. “So I thought I might start a new project and just called everyone then and there. I can’t remember why I thought it would work. Maybe I recognised we all had a similar way of making music – uncomplicated and instantaneous.”

Brown’s intuition is sharp. The drummer in melancholy mainstays Art of Fighting, as well as his partner Claire Bowditch’s band, Brown runs Standalone Studios, where he’s engineered and produced records with both those acts, as well as Sodastream, Darren Middleton and many more.

“I knew everyone had a completely unique musical personality,” says Brown of his contacts list. “But I wasn’t expecting how well those personalities would complement each other.” 

Activated by Brown’s phone call, the four members brought in song ideas to a jam session at Melbourne’s Head Gap studios. With engineer Rohan Sforcina on the record button, the band – effectively – simply began.

“The first day was effortless,” says Brown. “We played the songs one time to teach others the bits, then we’d record the second take. A lot of Strange Love is that second take. Even though most of the tracks were jams, it sounds like we were reacting and playing to ‘the song’.”

Harvey agrees. “Marty concocted something good. He guessed at a good chemistry. But everyone put in lots of ideas and committed to the project. Playing music with other people is an exciting thing when it clicks.”

The nine songs on Strange Love reflect this alchemy – a regal compilation of bruised tunes that swoon and sizzle, while betraying the historic confidence of its members. Opener ‘Lost My Head’, the loping title track and ‘Everything Must Change’ build from sparse rock chugs to a swampy swagger, while the gorgeous ‘World Go to Hell’ and lonesome ‘Blue Signs’ skirt celestial depression. By the time closer ‘Melanie’ collapses in squalls of distortion, something is excised. It’s less a statement from veteran players, than a conjuring of something kinetic and conversational.

“Everything seemed to flow really easily, with everyone just getting a vibe and stepping in or out with the feel,” says Adalita. “We all add our own strengths to everything. And we take turns in the spotlight.”

What happens next? Live shows. And pinching themselves.

“I just really love the album we’ve made,” says Adalita. “This is the first time I’ve been in a band outside of Magic Dirt and my solo thing. So playing with different musicians I’ve always looked up to and being so inspired by being in an actual new band, is really exciting. They’re just fucking amazing. I really am pinching myself. It’s unreal. I really can’t wait to play live.”

Brown agrees. “I can’t wait to get the band on stage. The album has such an energy from feeling our way through the songs, I think it’ll make for a great show.”

“I’d have to say I feel the same way,” says Harvey.

And what does Turner make of all this?

!!!

LP/CD/Digital preorders available now via Poison City www.poisoncityestore.com and Bandcamp www.bleaksquad.bandcamp.com