Wooden Fische - Syphons

Year: 1995
Label: Independent (no label mentioned, cataloged vat 37)
Genre: Art-Rock, Indie Rock, Post-Punk

I know very little about Wooden Fische. They were on the Perth scene before I was old enough to go to licensed gigs, and I've heard nothing about them from anyone I've ever spoken to in the scene. From what I've managed to glean from the occasional google search and O's myspace page they were part of the Jacuzzi International crew, which was a bunch of local bands from the early to mid nineties (including Bluetile Lounge, O and Yummy Fur) who used to play shows at the Grosvenor and have parties where they'd hang out in jacuzzis. That's about all I know... But what's funny is that although I have no knowledge of what this scene was all about, in my mind I've glorified it as this halcyon age of great local music where a collective vibe blossomed, many good times were had and that transitive, ephemeral je ne sais quoi that we (as musicians, music fans, people in a scene) search for in music and bands was somehow achieved by a select group of now ageing indie kids who used to be in bands.

Warwick picked this up at a Cash Converters around seven years ago, and when he got bored of it he gave it to me. I've treasured it ever since, because I really feel as though I've got a genuine piece of local music memorabilia here. It was pressed in 1995, when it was certainly rarer than it is now for local bands to get the money together to make a recording. Every band seems to have pro tools and a home studio these days, but this little gem takes me back to the pre-internet age, when media technology wasn't nearly as democratically accessible. The liner notes to this are all in Chicago - that generic Apple Macintosh font from the eighties and early nineties (see above), and the CD even has that now rather quaint 'Compact Disc' logo on it:

This EP was released the year I turned fourteen, which is about when I was starting to go out to local all-ages gigs at venues like Planet Nightclub (now the Dollhouse) and O2 (now a patch of lawn that's currently being redeveloped) - but the bands I was seeing were lightweight indie-pop bands like Jebediah and Beaverloop. In comparisson, the music on this EP is dark and intense - more visceral, and far more rewarding.

It's funny that Perth's been labelled as a haven for upbeat indie-pop bands, because there have also been a bunch of great - I would say world-class - bands doing something different, something awesome - something I relate to far more. More obscure, and in my opinion more interesting than your Eskimo Joes or Little Birdys, in a figurative sense bands like Tucker B's, Mukaizake and Adam Said Galore, for me, stem from this EP.

I see this as the precursor to those bands (especially Adam Said - there are the same angular minor key guitars, tight, propulsive rhythms and expressively imagistic yet off-the-cuff lyrics and vocal delivery). It's artiness is stooped in an Australianism - vocalist Chris Hann sing-speaks in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Mark Seymour's gruff, muscular, blokey delivery - but he has Seymour's sensitivity too, and his lyrics are just as poetic:

Give me one dollar and I'll get on a train
Gimme all your money and I'll call up a taxi
Stumbling out, of an angel's house

I probably shouldn't have made the allusion to Mark Seymour, cause you're probably thinking these guys sound like Hunter & Collectors, but they're way better. There's a terse post-punk angularity to the rhythms and dirty, almost-dischordant guitar work here. They're up-tempo, almost punky songs, that have a straight ahead-ness to them, and yet the guitars sound like they're kind of hanging off this big behemoth of driving rhythm, almost flapping in the wind and skipping and trilling alongside and around the edges. And then at times everything falls in together and drives through in moments of purposeful clarity and verve. I guess I get snippets of early Sonic Youth in some of these songs - the guitars have that gain-drenched mid-nineties "rock-end of indie rock" crunchiness to them that's gorgeous. What keeps me coming back to this record though are the melodies, the lyrics, and the songwriting - I think that's what keeps me coming back to many of my favourites. The songs twist and change subtly, darkly - like some organic/machine hybrid - they're never comfortable staying where they are - and the lyrics convey this tension and discontentment so well:

Put all the blood in the water
Tear the earth out of the sky
Make a wish
Tell me a lie

Hann's lyrics and his brooding/ranting delivery are pretty captivating. I really believe the emotion behind his voice. The visceral darkness and intensity of these songs is palpable - I believe they meant every note, every lyric, every beat. There's a dark mythos here that's heightened by the lack of information I have about it - by my inability to complete the story in my head. Who knows, maybe they were just a bunch of kids in a band who had fun playing shows and drinking their riders...

I don't know what happened to Wooden Fische. I assume they just broke up like every other band does. I don't know their story - this is all I have. There's an address in the artwork though - it's in Maylands. And there's a phone number too. Maybe one day I'll call it and see who picks up. Whoever it is I'm sure they'll never have heard of Wooden Fische. But what if? ...