High Pass Filter helped me pass third year uni. When I was studying in Holland a few years ago, I was sent their 1998 EP Audio Forensic by a friend back in Sydney. He had met the band members after a gig and discovered that one member’s father was infact the dean of my faculty. I have no doubt that my atrocious attendance record was overlooked in part because I gifted the CD to a positively chuffed Heer Green, who had hitherto heard none of his son’s music. Wonderfully difficult to categorise, Soft Adventure swerves between dub, jazz, pop, punk and post rock, enjoying and celebrating along the way. Every moment seems fully developed and deliberate, without losing spontaneity, possibly thanks to some excellent engineering. The opening track Wasteman attacks like the Avalanches on amphetamines, followed by the impossibly chirpy yet sexy Quango. There are darker moments in Eat System and Snickometer, but the highlight is Yellow Circle; with jazz drums, smoky falsetto and distorto surf-rock guitar, it exemplifies to dizzying effect the band’s mastery of all genres.
Bim Ricketson |
