Aussie larrikins Babe Rainbow make silly songs with substance on their sixth surf-rock opus

Tony Stamp reviews the latest album releases every week on The Sampler.

If you listened to this band without knowing where they were from, I’m pretty sure you could guess they were Australian. There’s a certain attitude - larrikinism, let’s say - that tips you off. But even if their songs (like their name) suggest irreverence, there is substance under the surface.

Babe Rainbow are generally categorised as psychedelic or surf rock, but they explore far beyond those boundaries: ‘Like Cleopatra’ has obvious disco touchstones, ‘When the Milk Flows’ leans into ‘60s spy movie sounds like busy percussion and bass, and ‘Now and Zen’ sounds like Tame Impala by way of The Avalanches.

It’s a good headphone listen, with sounds popping up in the left or right ear at unexpected points. The music is made with obvious care, even if its trappings suggest otherwise.

Initially released in 1993, Perfect Teeth was Washington D.C. band Unrest’s seventh and final album. This (slightly delayed) 30th anniversary reissue is crammed with tunes which, if you’re a fan of jangle-rock, will either be a welcome look back or revelatory first listen.

Their first releases, stretching back to 1988, show a gleeful disregard for genre as well as eardrums, ping ponging between guitar pop, hardcore, and acoustic strums. Allegedly, they never played the same song twice. By the time they made it to 1993, they had mostly settled into a middleground, with Bridget Cross’s vocals joining those of founding member Mark Robinson.

‘Make Out Club’ mixes pop smarts with hyperactivity, and ‘Six Layer Cake’ is similarly tuneful, sharing common ground with the guitar bands who populated NZ at this time.

The reissue will be many people’s introduction, and it’s a generous one, coming with a crop of equally great B-sides. The fact that so many of these songs didn’t make the cut is a testament to the strength of this band and Robinson’s songwriting in particular.

Despite starting his career in the ‘90s, German DJ Koze’s latest LP is just his fourth.

In the 2000s, his output tended toward minimal techno, sparse and smooth with humorous touches around the edges. Then on 2018’s Knock Knock, he exploded any boundaries, weaving in tropicalia, trip hop, acoustic ballads, and beyond.

This release goes even further. ‘Wie schön du bist’ samples German composer Holger Biege and pairs him with contemporary folk band The Düsseldorf Düsterboys. An auto-tuned Damon Albarn appears on Afrobeat cut ‘Pure Love’. American-German musician Sophia Kennedy makes bird noises on the eight-minute floor-filler ‘Buschtaxi’.

Kozalla explained the intention behind Music Can Hear Us to Rolling Stone, saying, “It can feel our pain, our destiny, our euphoria, our wishes, our demands. It’s somehow political also.” Any unifying thread can be found here more than genre commonalities: an attention to vibes that are always good.