Perth gets hot. Scorching hot. The sort of heat that melts your brain like butter. They say cold places are ideal for making music – London, New York, Paris – all the usual suspects. But heat makes artists do weird things too, and that’s the space where Methyl Ethel live and thrive. Aussie has been cooking up some good tracks on the BBQ lately, this being one of them.
For Methyl Ethel’s crepuscular and reverb-laden debut album, Oh Inhuman Spectacle, Webb wrote, played and recorded everything before bringing the album to Chris Wright, an introverted sound engineer at Perth music venue The Bird. “I mix songs in an unorthodox fashion. Chris would say ‘This isn’t right…but it sounds good’,” Webb enthuses. Wright preserved the spatial sound of the record while making Webb go back and tinker away to get the songs to where they needed to be. “He showed me work-arounds,” he says.
Recently, Methyl Ethel drew the attention of tastemakers from the northern hemisphere after debut US shows at New York’s CMJ conference. Their electric live performances impressed Rolling Stone, NME, The Guardian and 4AD, the latter will give Oh Inhuman Spectacle its worldwide release in 2016. Closer to home, Methyl Ethel were voted into the Triple J Hottest 100 and Oh Inhuman Spectacle has been shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize, up against Courtney Barnett and fellow Perth act Tame Impala.
Jake Webb is a one-man band in the studio with endless sonic ideas for pop songs. Now, having gained so many plaudits from pundits in their home country, Methyl Ethel are ready to leave Perth for the rest of the world. And the heat is on.
The post Methyl Ethyl twist your sweat with new album ‘Oh Inhuman Spectacle’ appeared first on SNIFFERS MUSIC | MIXTAPES | CULTURE.