Australian duo Hotel Wrecking City Traders have announced they’ll release their first long-player in six years’ time in the form of Ikiryo. What will be interesting to hear in the instrumental outfit’s sophomore outing is how much their songwriting will have been affected by their collaborations over the last several years with the like of Gary Arce (review here) and the more psychedelic influence they showed late last year on the live recording “Ode to Guinn” (video here). Their last physical release was a 2012 split with WaterWays and Sons of Alpha Centauri (review here), so really, the Matthews brothers have a wide open range of places they could take their sound, including the crunching noise rock elements that were the driving factor of their 2008 self-titled debut.

Much to look forward to, and if you’re in Europe, a cool chance to see them live. They’ll be at Desertfest in London and more, as the PR wire informs:

HOTEL WRECKING CITY TRADERS ‘ Ikiryo’ (2014)

Hotel Wrecking City Traders’ (HWCT) first full length LP since 2008’s ‘Black Yolk’. After a series of successful collaborations & splits with Desert Rock forefathers Gary Arce, Mario Lalli (Yawning Man/Fatso Jetson) and a steady bout of touring Australia and Japan, the urge to record as a duo again was something that was important. So was emphasizing the song and the melody and crafting the riff. ‘Ikiryo’ is a more harnessed beast and comprises 5 songs that were written over the course of a 3 month period at the end of 2013. They were recorded in a mere 2 days, in January, 2014. This time working with engineer Jason Fuller at his Goatsound Studios in Melbourne. Jason’s background is well known as being in the heavier more metal realm (Brutal Truth, Blood Duster). The band were sought out by Jason and invited to record, ironically entering the studio with some of the most melodic and concise songs of their existence. The result is a vivid sonic journey over the course of 40 minutes that sees HWCT’s new approach spread across 5 measured sonic explorations. Improvisational aspects are still present but so is a confident and measured velocity. This is evident in the album’s title, suggesting a spirit leaving the body and moving around freely. The album is heavy, mind altering and noisy and still undeniably HWCT.

1. Breath (7:40)
2. Riley (4:15)
3. Dance the Hempen Jig (4:49)
4. Tetryl (6:18)
5. Ikiry? (13:39)
BRO FIDELITY RECORDS [BroFi010]

HWCT:
Toby: Guitars
Ben : Drums

Ikiryo European Tour April/May 2014
Fri April 18th The Anvil, Bournemouth
Sat April 19th The Hole in the Wall, Colchester
Thu April 24th Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
Fri April 25th Church of St Thomas the Martyr, Bristol w/The Body, Arabrot, Hey Colossus
Sat April 26th The Desertfest, London
Tue 29th April RockSound, Barcelona
Wed 30th April IncivicZone, Sant Feliu de Codines
Thu 1st May Lion Cafe, Benicarlo
Fri 2nd May La Residencia, Valencia
Sat 3rd May Métrica, Málaga
Sun 4th May Mondongo Bar, Puerto Santa María — Cádiz
Mon 5th May Cruce de Caminos, La Zubia — Granada
Tue 6th May Wurlitzer Ballroom, Madrid
Wed 7th May El Reino, Cabezón de La Sal
Thu 8th May Sentinel Rock Club, Erandio + MEIDO
Fri 9th May Mogambo, Donostia + ERROMA + MEIDO
Sat 10th May AVV Arrebato, Zaragoza

www.facebook.com/hotelwreckingcitytraders
www.hotelwreckingcitytraders.bandcamp.com
www.reverbnation.com/hwct
www.brofidelity.blogspot.com
www.wombatbooking.com

Hotel Wrecking City Traders, Ikiryo Euro Tour Promo

Over the last two years or so, Melbourne, Australia duo Hotel Wrecking City Traders have immersed themselves in a Californian desert influence. In 2012, they contributed to a split with the Yawning Man/Fatso Jetson-affiliated outfit WaterWays and Sons of Alpha Centauri (review here), and prior to that, they issued a collaboration with Yawning Man guitarist Gary Arce (review here) that found guitarist Toby Matthews and drummer Ben Matthews moving past some of the noise rock elements that typified their earlier work (it doesn’t fit as neatly into my constructed narrative, but they also released a split with Melbourne’s Spider Goat Canyon last year). Listening to the brothers’ 46-minute improv jam “Ode to Chunn,” it’s abundantly clear this basking in heavy psychedelia has had a profound impact on Hotel Wrecking City Traders.

It’s worth noting for an American audience that the PBS in question here is not the Public Broadcasting System, but instead PBS 106.7FM, a Melbourne-based radio station which filmed Hotel Wrecking City Traders playing “Ode to Chunn” live and got a pro-quality sound to match the high definition video. The band had uploaded “Ode to Chunn” in four parts, but I was dying to hear the complete piece, front to back, so I waited until they strung it all together. I had been kicking myself in the ass for not posting it earlier in its components until I finally caught the finished product. Not anymore. This thing is fantastic. A huge demonstration of how far Hotel Wrecking City Traders have come stylistically and an unmistakable glimpse at the musical chemistry the brothers share between them.

Maybe you won’t put it on and watch it front to back, staring at your screen the whole time, but even if you play the audio and check back in periodically over the course of the piece, you’ll no doubt find yourself amply consumed by the flow of the track. My only hope now is that “Ode to Chunn” makes its way to some kind of physical release, whether it’s a 12″ split into two sides or a tape or CD with it contained in its linear entirety. I’d argue in favor of the CD or an extended tape, if only so that the builds and rushes that Toby and Ben enact over the course of the song don’t find their momentum interrupted and that anyone listening isn’t pulled out of the trance for any reason whatsoever. Whatever they do with it, hopefully it’s something. In the meantime, note Toby‘s Mother Teacher Destroyer shirt and enjoy the crap out of “Ode to Chunn” below:

Hotel Wrecking City Traders, “Ode to Chunn” Live at PBS 106.7FM

Hotel Wrecking City Traders on Thee Facebooks

Bro Fidelity Records

A three-way split released in gorgeous 180 gram LP (limited to 500), with each of its participants represented in a different primary color – red for Californian desert rockers WaterWays, blue for UK prog instrumentalists Sons of Alpha Centauri and yellow for Australian brotherly noise rock duo Hotel Wrecking City Traders – the latest Bro Fidelity Records is every bit as intricate and lush in its psychedelia as its Alexander von Wieding artwork. The three bands display distinct personalities between them and as WaterWays come first with side A all to themselves and twice as much material as either Sons of Alpha Centauri or Hotel Wrecking City Traders, they’re obviously meant as a focal point. No wonder, given the band’s lineup. WaterWays boasts in its ranks guitarist Gary Arce of Yawning Man, bassist/vocalist Mario Lalli and drummer Tony Tornay (both of Fatso Jetson) and vocalist Abby Travis, who in the past has collaborated with the likes of Masters of Reality and Eagles of Death Metal, so if they come first of the three acts represented here, at least they earned it via pedigree. It’s also not the first time Hotel Wrecking City Traders – who also run Bro Fidelity Records – have sought to highlight Gary Arce’s work. The band collaborated with Arce on a 2011 collaborative 12” (review here). And as WaterWays’ first release was a late-2010 split with Yawning Sons, which is Arce’s pan-oceanic collaboration with Sons of Alpha Centauri, he would seem to be the figure tying everything together on this split, particularly as his influence has bled into the work of Ben and Toby Matthews of Hotel Wrecking City Traders on their contribution here, the 9:37 closer “Pulmo Victus.” Before them, on side B, Sons of Alpha Centauri dig deep into their archives to unearth the 8:48 track “27,” from an early recording session, and of course on side A, WaterWays take their time unfolding four songs of textured dune-minded psych, Lalli and Tornay’s well-honed chemistry underscoring Arce’s expansive tone and Travis’ sweetly melodic vocals.

Travis is joined vocally — presumably by Lalli — by low-register rhythmic singing on opener “Piece of You,” playing up a progressive feel early into the split. “Piece of You,” “Queen,” “The Blacksmith” and “WaterWays” are all relatively short, none touching five minutes, and they play out with more structure to them than one is necessarily used to in the often jam-minded context of Arce’s work. The guitarist in no small part defines any band he touches. His tone is inimitable and unmistakable, and for the most part, though it’s not what Yawning Man usually traffics in, he does well with the material, which still feels and sounds open despite having set verses and choruses. He’s hardly caged here – there’s still plenty of room in these songs for him to wander as he will, and even Yawning Man’s freest material doesn’t linger time-wise – but it’s Travis’ vocals that wind up characterizing much of what separates WaterWays from the slew of other Arce projects. She’s got just enough quirk in her voice to make “Piece of You” stand alongside the Palm Desert tradition of weird explorations while still injecting a soulful breathiness into “Queen,” somewhat ironically jarring the listener back to the sandy ground with the punctuated line, “You’re fucking high.” “Queen” has a Western march in its snare from Tornay and Lalli has no problem keeping up and setting the melody on bass while Arce emits echoes of what seems like an eternal lead. It would be the highlight of WaterWays’ section of the split but for “The Blacksmith,” which has “hey-ya, hey-ya” backing vocals behind Travis reminiscent of but not caricaturing Native American chants and the band’s most engaging chorus here. By contrast, the eponymous “WaterWays” offers “lalala”s and an introductory progression that reminds strikingly of Geto Boys’ “Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta,” which left an impression as a featured track in the movie Office Space. Sonic coincidence most likely, and the song moves away to a drum-led section with Tornay setting the course on his toms, but the vocals here seem like an afterthought added once the instrumental progression was set, and the repeated line, “Go the waterways,” falls short of the lullaby it seems to be reaching to be, its pacing just a little too quick to soothe in its four-minute course. Crash cymbals toward the end and layered vocals don’t exactly help in that regard either, though the song remains undeniably infectious.

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The recently-reviewed Hotel Wrecking City Traders and Gary Arce collaborative 12″ is available for pre-order now. If you missed it, the two-song, 20-minute release will ship at the end of June from Bro Fidelity Records, the label imprint of Hotel Wrecking City Traders, whose crunchy Aussie noise rock is surprisingly well-complemented by Arce‘s wide-ranging guitar sound, known best as heard in Yawning Man, Ten East and a host of other projects.

Topped off with beautiful artwork from Exotic Corpse and text from Ben Matthews (aka Ben Wrecker of HWCT), the pre-order comes with an exclusive t-shirt and of course the record itself, which is heavyweight blue vinyl and limited to 300 copies.

Hotel Wrecking City Traders and Gary Arce (I’ve been referring to the project as HWCTARCE and you’re more than welcome to as well, I suppose) have posted the track “Coventina’s Crusade” for streaming and were kind enough to offer to let me host. Please enjoy it on the player below.

Also of note, Hotel Wrecking City Traders have set up an Indie Go-Go page and are taking donations to help raise the recording costs to put together their next 12″ release. You can see how it’s going and donate here. Arce‘s next release is a split 12″ between his collaboration with British proggers Sons of Alpha Centauri — dubbed Yawning Sons — and a project he has started with Mario Lalli and Tony Tornay of Fatso Jetson (the former also of Yawning Man) called Waterways. More to come on both.

It’s a cross-continental collision of sounds, and aside from being into both the Aussie noisemaking brotherly duo Hotel Wrecking City Traders and the work of landmark desert guitarist Gary Arce of Yawning Man, what most drew me in to the idea of their collaborative studio project was how different the two sides are. Hotel Wrecking City Traders, who’ve been releasing music on drummer Ben Matthews’ Bro Fidelity Records since 2007, are a fittingly tight unit. The sounds on their Black Yolk full-length and follow-up Somer/Wantok 12” were rife with intensity and an impatient mathematical feel. By contrast, Gary Arce is considered one of the founding figures of desert rock. His laid back, airy tone and improvisatory will have been a key inspiration for bands literally all over the world, and when it comes to jams, there are few guitarists out there who can add as much personality to a piece of music as he can. It’s not like one’s playing polka and the other death metal (although I hear those go together nowadays too), but it’s a short list of commonalities between Arce and Hotel Wrecking City Traders. Apart from working instrumentally, they seem to be driven by completely different musical ideals.

And maybe that’s what makes their joint Hotel Wrecking City Traders and Gary Arce 12” (released on limited 180gram vinyl via Bro Fidelity and Cobraside Distribution, who also put out Yawning Man’s 2010 album, Nomadic Pursuits) so damned interesting. The two-song, 20-minute release combines the disparate elements at work in the total three players involved for a double-guitar brew that’s based as much on improvisational noodling as it is on noisy crunch. It works, too, which is the miracle of the thing. The first track, “Coventina’s Cascade” (10:19) is content to wander in its midsection, Ben providing pulsing bassdrum kicks while his brother Toby Matthews adds to the build on guitar and Arce spaces out for what’s probably the busiest payoff on the release. Hotel Wrecking City Traders showed off some atmospheric tendencies on Somer/Wantok, but Arce takes it to do a different level entirely. One can hear during a break about seven minutes in how the duo constructed the track before sending it to Arce to add his guitar lines, but that’s not at all to discount the flow of what the collective trio come out with as a result. As he does in Hotel Wrecking City Traders proper, Matthews proves capable of holding down a rhythm section, and Toby wisely leaves room to allow for interplay with Arce – who also contributes bass to both cuts, adding further dimensionality to both sides A and B.

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Australian noisemaking duo destructo Hotel Wrecking City Traders have put up a page at IndieGoGo.com (not an amateur stripping site, as it turns out) asking for donations to help them record their next full-length album. Now, the thing here is that in donating, you’re basically buying a copy of the album, because I don’t think Hotel Wrecking City Traders have a release out yet — they put out their own material through drummer Ben Wrecker‘s Bro Fidelity imprint — that they haven’t given away for free, either via their Bandcamp site or some other distribution channel.

So if you’re hesitant to donate, don’t think of it necessarily as giving away money so a band can hit the studio, just think of it as preordering a copy of the record before it’s put out on the 12″ vinyl. If past is any kind of prologue, Hotel Wrecking City Traders material is worth the investment, and you get the smug satisfaction of knowing you helped independent artists. That alone is easily worth the 10 bucks or however much you want to give either via Paypal or credit card.

Here’s the link to donate. Have at it.

Because I’m Mr. Has a Facebook Page now (and that would be here), I get to find out nifty stuff like that Australia‘s recently-reviewed Hotel Wrecking City Traders have posted their entire 2008 album, Black Yolk, on Bandcamp for your streaming pleasure. You can go to the page here, or just stream it in the even more immediate using the fancypants player below. Either way, enjoy the tunes and make sure to thank the band for giving away their hard work.

The cumbersomely-named Australian instrumental duo Hotel Wrecking City Traders have been in the business of noisemaking since 2007, releasing an EP and their Black Yolk full-length through drummer Ben Matthews’ own imprint, Bro Fidelity. They’re shortly to issue a collaboration with Gary Arce of desert rock legends Yawning Man, but in the meantime have issued the Somer/Wantok 7” single on their own, which finds the production somewhat stripped down from Black Yolk, but the songs comparatively tighter as well.

Matthews’ snare pops quickly on “Somer,” and the somewhat groovier “Wantok,” and the guitar of his brother, Toby Matthews, is appropriately tight and feels much more condensed sound-wise than it did on Black Yolk, keeping the band’s “one guitar/one drumkit” thoroughly in mind. As the cover suggests listening to “Wantok” first, I took that approach and found myself quickly lost in Toby’s riffs, which come through with a tone not dissimilar from but hardly imitating early Pelican. There is an isolated feel in the music, but more on “Wantok” than “Somer,” there are sweet melodies to offset that loneliness. And for what it’s worth, neither track is long enough for you, listening to it, to miss vocals.

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