MUSS BLUES: SONGS &
INSTRUMENTALS, 2012-14
CD + Digital out now
on Why Don't You Believe
Me? Records
The CD comes in a jewel case with inserts and a zine featuring liner notes by Nathan Roche. 100 copies made, released on Why Don't You Believe Me? Records on March 17, 2026.
01: Next Time
02: Muss Blues
03: Hey Gus
04: Sunday In Milan I
05: Farrow
06: In Town
07: See Me Out
08: Wilder
09: Slink
10: I Found It I
11: The Fuck
12: Hadaka no shima
13: Roman Aqueduct
14: At The Blows
15: I Found It II
16: Sunday In Milan II
17: Adelaide
18: Benny And The Jets
when I got in the tour van with the middle east around 2009 the band were raving about
a young songwriter with a dozen CD-Rs to her name - emma russack who they had played with on a previous tour
along with her guitarist alec marshall who both came from the south coast of new south wales.
I met them shortly after when they played a concert with TME and grand salvo in canberra
and words couldn’t really describe the confrontational tension they created, intense control and release
of folk sound and authenticity like tides rolling in and out from the coast towards the inland,
it had punk spirit but a sort of palace brothers-like honesty and directness that hypnotised,
paralysed and wouldn’t let you move as if being stung by a fucking jelly fish in coledale
it demanded your full attention, and perhaps a bottle of vinegar to put on the wound.
I noticed soon after they had relocated to melbourne and that another mysterious project called
hot palms were floating around on various small-bar line-ups which seemed to have the same members
jake phillips, and emma russack and alec marshall
but by the time I saw it live it felt like a different beast entirely to what I had seen that night in canberra
at first it felt like the place where emma would dream up songs in her sleep, select them from a whirlpool of improvisation
and ambient ideas both loose and profound, and you as an audience member could almost watch them compose
her next record on the spot like a live art installation, it felt free-form and mysterious
and less-crafted and in that way much more real, and risky
as if we, the audience, were just observing a private world from behind the glass.
the next time I came back to melbourne I saw my wild friend andré vanderwert was playing theremin
in the band and then all of the sudden soda eaves aka jake core was there on stage,
and occasionally jordan ireland was playing keys sitting on the ground in the corner
when he wasn’t on tour on the other side of the world.
ashley bundang and zahra khamissa who I had met through ocean party and the trio pencil
were playing in the group as well and it all felt both natural and supernatural,
coincidental and completely obvious all at once.
It seemed hot palms had evolved from an off-shoot band to something more in line with a surrealist free-form collective
or cult commune ambient jam band, and the music itself morphed with each small release on
marshall's WDYBM label, and I started to realise in time that alec in a silent way was the one conjuring the vibe,
and general ambiance of the project from here on in.
The compositions and unique simplistic way of playing guitar created a weather pattern
and world for the others to decorate around him
sure it got complicated when one CD-R was self-titled hot palms and then another cassette was also self-titled
hot palms with completely different track-listing but that was half the mystery of it..
on that 2012 CD-R featuring Slink and I Found It already showed alec recording on his lonesome, without russack
and this was a sign of things to come, and in a way his composing took the forefront.
It had also turned more psychedelic in nature…more cosmic, as if something had happened
when he used a wah-wah it was to create an impressionistic bottom of the sea floor filled with fauna
and aquamarine life-form swimming around in sound.
the other self-titled cassette featuring a mysterious photo of alec on the cover and songs like,
The Fuck and Hadaka No Shima was a real stand out release for me in 2012,
and I would listen to it religiously between R.I.P Society, Negative Guest List releases
and other more local brash punk, garage and noise records at the time as a sort of divider and palette cleanser.
hearing these cassettes and CD-Rs at the time, and compiled here now as Muss Blues - Songs & Instrumentals
created something of a Maher Shalal Hash Baz like-collective mythology as people or
more accurately friends came and went as each passing release or concert, depending on individual schedules.
like My Pal Foot-Foot, or Lehmann B. Smith/Mum Smokes/KES these loose compositions
felt lost, but found…incomplete but never-ending and crafted like living-breathing microcosms or haikus
which is not surprising since the 2013 release, J.C has songs adapted by the works of
visionary and minimalist poet jake core who was also playing in the band at the time.
I feel like this here compilation is an important document for future generations as it provides a mystic road map
of how we got from there to the brilliant two blue divers records and how
Jordan Ireland & The Purple Orchestra, Soda Eaves, Emma Russack, Velcro or Snowy Band and others
went about free-form composition and in doing so somehow naturally created
a music scene of their own in melbourne share houses and brought it back home to the coast,
a sound and spontaneity outside of whatever else was happening
and I think that could have informed a new generation of hallucinatory bush-ghost poet songwriters
like Field Commander Ali, Lil Morris and Digby and no doubt many more to come -
a free-flowing imaginative and unique soundscape
that for me as a friend and fan has formulated: the sound of the south coast in feeling and spirit and that music as
a source of community, self-expression, creativity and gathering people collectively should be like
the music of hot palms: open and free, incomplete, deep-listening to one another, primitive, in constant motion, natural, and
above all: eternal
nathan roche
