#Lowlakes

[not-poignant]

Spent the morning doing some actual tidying and cleaning (ugh chores) and now I'm going to make a green smoothie (that is 60% fruit shhh) and package some art and make some lunch. Fascinating, I know!

I used to post little personal updates here all the time and I kind of miss doing that and don't know why I stopped, lol. I'll come up with some kind of universal tag at some point so you can blacklist / not see these posts if you want.

Tempting to write February's Nascent Diplomat chapter this month, and I also want to so badly write the next Nate/Janusz chapter because that pair has shot right up into the top three pairings I've written this year (the other two being of course, Efnisien/Gary and Sebastian/Alex).

Got some editing to do! Hoping to have the next A Stain that Won't Dissolve chapter up on Sunday!

[pieaterpieater]

Very happy release to the brilliant Tom Snowdon, his debut album 'Lonely Tree' is out now. Stream / Buy Vinyl

As an artist he already has an impressive back-catalogue - one album with his first band Lowlakes and two albums with No Mono. In the past, Snowdon’s work has centred on hazy atmospheres, and in expressing emotions via metaphors of elemental forces - water, ice, air and light. His affinity with nature is still present on Lonely Tree, but here we see Snowdon ruminating in a more direct way, offering glimpses into a more personal story. With one eye on the past, and another on the “what could have been” (what Snowdon calls ‘the lingering alternative’), he yearns for a stabilising hand to keep him present and hopeful in the here and now, and sends his voice reaching out across broad sonic landscapes to find one. Across its nine songs Lonely Tree is an exploration of loss and hope, of things ending and new things beginning. Led by Snowdon's famously haunting voice, the album is a journey into a dream-like world of the intangible, and one of deeply personal reflection.

Tickets - tomsnowdon.com 2 March - Northcote Social Club - Naarm / Melbourne                          8 March - Lansdowne Hotel - Eora / Sydney                                            9 March - The Servo - Dharawal Country/Port Kembla                            10 March - Smith's Alternative - Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country/Canberra 13 April - Black Bear Lodge - Meanjin / Brisbane

[hotgirlsummersam]

Tagged by @ravingliberal and @uttermywish

Rules: We’re snooping in your playlist. Put your entire music library on shuffle and list the first 10 songs and then choose 10 victims

1. Smalltown Boy - Orville Peck

2. Situation (Club 69 Future Funk Mix) - Yaz, Peter Rauhofer

3. 60 Feet Tall - The Dead Weather

4. Black Saucers - Hollywood Burns

5. Replace the Face - Lowlakes

6. Season of the Witch - Donovan

7. Quiet Houses - Fleet Foxes

8. Beauty Beats - Beats Antique

9. If You Could Only See - Tonic

10. Every Man I Fall For - Cold War Kids

I think like everybody has probably been tagged at this point - if not, feel free to do it and say I tagged you.

[conversationsattheend]

There’s no reason to watch mediocre “Like A Version”s --- there are way too many good ones! HAIM doing Shania is a recent favorite. And, see previously on our blog for #1 Dads and Tom Snowdon (who are now officially a band called No Mono) giving us there best Aussie finger-snappin’ FKA Twigs. 

I never got as into Dananananaykroyd as I should have, given my love for yelly powerpunk. I think I was listening to too much Stellastarr* that year. 

Envelope - “I’m Not Poor (Just Broke)” - 2005.

Envelope (Tony to friends) is the greatest rapper from Clintonville, Columbus, Ohio. (Ok, he’s the greatest rapper from the whole city, but it’s goofier to plant him in Clintonville, which is not a very rappy neighborhood.) Every time I hear the damn Khalid “Young, Dumb, and Broke” song, I wish I were in a sweaty bar in Columbus hearing Tony rap about his bike courier business and how he’s got “enough loot for Pabst Blue Ribbon.” Other lines that make me crack up every time: 

“I don’t get, like, factory machinery caught up in my limbs and shit, or vice versa”

“We ain’t dog in a bag rich, but shit man, I’m 40 in a bag rich”

“I don’t live in like a mud hut....I’m about to move into the neighborhood with the nice mud!”

--Chris

P.S. For Columbus local politics nerds, “Clippers vs. Yankees” is an essential (dated) Envelope joint. The conceit is that the Clippers were at that time the AAA minor-league affiliate of the Yankees, and Tony draws an analogy between the baseball hierarchy and the ruling classes/plebeians of Columbus. This one name-checks the gay former county Republican chair, the school board member who banged his shoe on the table to stop the giveaway of a public radio station, and the former mayor’s makeup choices. (Mayor Mike Coleman never became governor, sigh.)

[st-pam]

Hi, before the disgustingly unfair hacking and deletion, I remember you used to have a list of your favorite bands up on here, and I was wondering if you still had that somewhere and would be willing to share it again?

I don’’t have that list anymore, but I will list a few bands for you!Altin GünAlt-JBeach HouseBombay Bicycle ClubDepeche ModeDjango DjangoDrengeEcho & The BunnymenEverything EverythingGlass AnimalsHalf Moon RunKajagoogooLowlakesMetronomyParquet CourtsSiouxsie and The BansheesSisters of MercySoft CellTalking HeadsTears for FearsTemplesThe CureThe DoThe GardenThe Human LeagueWild BeastsWolf Alice

[peoniepoetals]

@reya-writes​ - prompt contest - prompt #1 

You know you’ve lived long enough once the people who have been with you for centuries start to disappear.

Faecelle was the first to go. She turned into an oak three months after her 263rd birthday. She had told them two weeks beforehand, laying on the grass behind Bryrice's cottage in the Lowlake Forest, her hands under her head as a pillow and her eyes closed.

"I'm going to turn into a tree soon," she had said with a smile.

The others had blinked and looked at each other.

"How soon?" Quedira asked.

"Very soon. Within weeks."

"Why?" Bryrice had ventured to ask.

Faecelle was quiet for a moment, and the others just watched as a soft breeze played with her bangs. "I think I'm ready," she then said.

A cloud passed overhead, blocking the sun, and in the changed light, Faecelle seemed a lot older.

"Alright," Rye said, "I suppose that's fair."

Over the weeks that followed, they stayed together. Their little family watched as, suddenly, wrinkles were etched into Faecelle's skin, her hair turned grey and then white, and her eyes seemed to become glassy. Her dark skin turned almost rough to the touch, until it was indistinguishable from bark. Then one morning, Faecelle rooted herself to the forest floor and became a tree with a smile on her face.

The others watched her go in silence. It seemed right.

Rye was the next one to go, but this time, it was not peaceful.

Not yet a hundred years later, a powerful beast raged over a town Rye was visiting, and afterwards Bryrice and Quedira heard that Rye had stepped into the fray and brought it to its knees. Before they were able to give it the killing blow, however, it had forced them into the bottom of a lake. The only comfort Bryrice and Quedira got was the knowledge that people had seen Rye pass out before they hit the water - instead of struggling and dying in pain, it had probably been like going to sleep. Rye had given one more gift to the world. The town remembered them as a hero.

So did Bryrice. So did Quedira.

Together, they had 500 more years. They were fine years, where they lived in the cottage in the forest and gave advice to wandering adventurers who came across them by accident. They had faded into the background of society long ago, and the stories that had been written about them had long since been classified as fiction. Most people who ended up in their home didn't know who they were talking to - what they had done, over the years. They just came for a warm meal, a drink, a basic bed. Bryrice and Quedira listened to their stories and their goals, and helped them on their way if they can. Bryrice gave one of her most prized possessions, the feather of a dire-owl, to one of the small druids that had a particularly beautiful story to tell.

After those 500 years, they suffered a loss neither of them had been expecting: Quedira's son, Gorhin, had died suddenly, and left his wife and five children bereft. It was a blow in many ways. Quedira mourned her son deeply, and decided to move back to her family to help raise her grandchildren, knowing that Gorhin's wife Keira was extremely distraught and would need at least twenty years to get back on her feet.

She promised to come back, but she never got the chance. An illness swept through the area where the small family lived and took the lives of all but one. Quedi, the youngest of the bunch, lived with Bryrice for another 50 years. She tried her best to soothe the young girl, and taught her the ways of the creatures in the forest, how to find them, how to hunt them, which ones to honour and which to kill. She became quite good in her own time, and before long she left on her own adventure, the legagy of Quedira, The Call of the Wild, a secret she would keep for a long time.

Bryrice was left alone. She stayed there, in her cottage, for a hundred more years. Two hundred more years. Three hundred...

Then the biggest loss hit.

A necromancer, who reminded her so much of Fallar, their first and most despised foe, took control of the Lowlakes and brought back their dead. She started seeing apparitions, some good, some bad, and then Rye was on her doorstep again - translucent, hardly lucid, a mere wisp of consciousness in a body that couldn't fully exist.

They had come to Bryrice's cottage on instinct, they said, although they didn't know much of who they were, and before two months were over, they had just control over their own being entirely and devolved into a mindless creature who sought to harm as many as they could.

Bryrice went into the forest and made an arrow of elk and moss. She took out her old, worn bow, and she shot her friend in the chest. Rye turned into sludge on the forest floor, a horrid, gross substance that smelled like rotting seaweed and gas.

For a moment, Bryrice didn't know what to do with it. Eventually, she collected some of Faecelle's leaves and covered Rye with it. Something about the way that her family had returned to the Earth started to be depressing instead of comforting. Like they were really gone, and insignificant, somehow. It didn't matter who they had been - now they were drab and an oak. That's all.

It was about that time that Bryrice started to consider what she wanted to be after she died. How she wanted to decay.

A long time ago they had decided that their bodies had to be destroyed. Apparitions aside, none of their small little family wanted to be brougth back in a more substantial form. What happened to Rye had been unfortunate. Bryrice couldn't let the same happen to herself. And the thought of her ashes being used in a necromantic ritual 400 years from now made her shiver. Nothing could be left after she was gone. she would not be used like that, not after death. It wasn't right.

Eventually, she decided to visit an old friend.

She left her cottage for the last time, knowing that the moment had come for her to leave this planet on her own terms. She trudged back into the wilderness, through the Lowlakes, down the Marshland Hills, all the way to the Emerald Sea. There, she took a small boat and thought of Rye while she headed towards the deep sea trench where her family had once slain a terrible sea serpent.

They hadn't planned on destroying it, really - they were unexperienced, back then, funnily enough, and when the creature attacked they didn't know what else to do. It was only after they returned that they learned that when a sea serpent died, their decomposing body released certain smells that attracted countless other, smaller sea serpents, who would then battle for the old one's place in the eco system. There always had to be a sea serpent, it seemed. Always in the same place. It's why people didn't usually kill them.

The sea serpent Bryrice found at the place she had killed its brethren so many centuries before was far more powerful than the former one had been - of course, it had been around for a long time now. Its consciousness seemed to be more human-like, more communicative. When Bryrice cast a spell to speak with it, the creature had no trouble whatsoever understanding her.

"I've come to feed you," she said.

"And what have exactly have you brought me, earthchild?"

"Myself."

"You would give yourself as a sacrifice?"

"No. I'm not trying to start a cult. Those usually end up harming more people than they help, in my experience. Even the good ones."

"Then what?"

"I am just here to be destroyed."

The sea serpent was quiet for a moment and regarded her.

Bryrice noticed she was shaking. She wasn't entirely sure why. "You will gnaw my bones?" she asked, "You will drain me and leave nothing at all?"

"If you wish, earthchild, then yes."

"It is what your brethren promised me years ago."

Back then, it had been a threat. Now, it seemed like a soothing promise.

For a momeny, Bryrice thought that the sea serpent would argue. That they would ask her if she was sure. Instead, it was on her in a flash, its jaws around her tiny boat, and then there was darkness.

-

When she woke up, she was laying on the grass behind her cottage. When she opened her eyes, someone beside her leaned over her immediately.

"Ah," Faecelle said, "She's up!"

"I don't understand," Bryrice whispered, "I thought you were ready."

Faecelle nodded. "I was."

"Well, I wasn't." Rye dropped down next to them with a grumble, "I was in the prime of my life!"

"You've been saying that since you were 83, Rye," Quedira chuckled. She was staring in some kind of crystal intently.

"What's that?"

"What? Oh! That's Quedi." Quedira held out the crystal for Bryrice to look in, and, sure enough, there was young Quedi, not so young anymore, trying her best to create her own legacy.

Quedira smiled. "I've been keeping an eye on her."

Bryrice dropped back onto the grass and looked at the sky. It was pink, here. Not blue.

"Is that what we do, on this side?" she asked, "We just... look?"

"Oh no," Faecelle said, and she clasped Bryrice's hand, "We were just waiting for you. We were actually thinking of going back."

"I just got here."

"Here is not really anywhere."

"But where would we go?"

"Back," Rye repeated, "To see the world again. I feel like it's different now. Things keep changing, you know."

"I thought you wanted to leave," Bryrice told Faecelle again.

Faecelle shook her head. "Sometimes a body needs to become a tree. But a soul needs to be with their family."

"Isn't that why you came here?" Rye asked.

Quedira was still smiling at the crystal.

"Is that why you want to go back?" Bryrice asked, "For her?"

"It would be funny, wouldn't it?" Quedira chuckled, "If I could come to her for advice next?"

"I don't understand life and death," Bryrice said.

"Don't get too caught up on them." Faecelle smiled down at her. "There are far more important things about."

[rimbaux]

The ever-lovely and amazingly kind @magisteriumm tagged me for this, thank you, i love doing this stuff!

RULES: put your music library on shuffle, and list the first 10 songs that play

1) English House by Fleet Foxes 2) Oceans Brawl by Cœur De Pirate 3) Prophet (Better Watch It) by Rizzle Kicks 4) Actors by Still Parade 5) I Don't Know by Peter and Kerry 6) Saving Us A Riot by Phoria (this one's really really good guys) 7) Light Of The Seven by Ramin Djavadi (yeah ok i love the GoT soundtrack) 8) All I Bring You Is Love by Diane Cluck 9) Newborn by Lowlakes 10) The Warmth by Koda (also a really nice one)

I'm tagging anyone who wants to do this! Honestly, you see this and want to do it? Well fella, consider yourself tagged!

[feral-strays]

So I know it was posted 2 days ago but u wanna do the Black Hole, Wormhole and Supernova questions? (I'm also curious about the constellations/favorites but they're too many)

Black hole: I've literally almost seen it all, and I can't come up with something on the top of my head right now.Worm hole: Oh shit this is a hard one, I guess becoming a ballett dancer or scientist. Can't become a scientist because I don't have the resources or money to go to a university and study to become one, plus I'm reaaally tired of school at this point. Can't be a ballett dancer because my joints and muscles are too unstable, and I have nerve pains and ligaments in my feet that sublux very easily. Supernova: Oooh I've got so many things I wanna do before going six feet deep, but I really want to meet Stephen Hawking, that's one of the many things I wanna do!And since I'm really in the mood I'll do the other questions you wanted me to answer as well, so buckle up because we're in for a ride!!Constellations:Centaur: Summer vacation, easyOrion: June because it's the start of summer and my birthday is the 5th of July so I have something to look forward to! Cassiopeia: Hmmm, I don't read that much to be quite frank, but it has to be one of my Hellboy books!Delphinus: Yikes, I have no clue... English used to be my favourite until I fucked myself over lmao, so I'll pick art.Hercules: I think Cello???Gemini: right now it's Newborn by LowlakesPegasus: Other than my bed it has to be the woods or a field during summer. If it's a place it's Oslo.Libra: Lavendel!!! Phoenix: Hoodies and soft t-shirtsAries: oi fuck, I can't remember???Cygnus: When the sun is about to set, the air is warm and you hear the birds sing, everything is bathed in an orange light and the smell in the air is fresh, and you don't have a worry in the world.Hydra: Keys clapping against each other, motorbikes revving, sound of people waking up at a sleepover, the sound before entering a festival/concert.

[c9sneaksen-blog]

c9sneaksen blog newsletter #37 & 38

+ Hey guys! I hope you’re ready to read, cause man, missing last week’s newsletter just means that it’s combined with this week’s as well, and it’s going to be quite a bit more extended than normal. Now that Tumblr is finally not acting crazy anymore (at least for me) I should be able to get things posted again without problem. So the schedule should slide back into it’s normal place as far as posting goes. Hopefully that problem won’t come up again. *knocks on wood*

+ Still tweaking some stuff with the layout, so keep expecting more changes over the next week. Also, music will most likely finally change either late tonight or tomorrow. Depends on when I have the chance to finally get to it. I’m also working on fitting in another tab on the blog.

+ Before I get too much farther into the rest of the content - if you haven’t taken the “How Well Do You Know Sneaksen” quiz yet, you can click here! You should go try it out for fun and see how well you do! XD

+ 23 new fam members to announce!

Greetings and warm welcomes to : pradar, joannesmacarine, purgemychain, lillian-paige, corvidan, fivu, hatofacorns, meropswings, minnesotaboy99, m1dnightt, weixuu, nyarlath0tepp, chokomilk, therealhowl, joeleaterpalmeborn,  jankos-smurf, yamahasuperstar, nevergonnagrowup17, redshadow74,  tsundere-kouhaibitchh, meow-and-all-that, lowlak, &  flynngranger !!

Big shout outs to each and every one of you! So happy to have you here! <3

+ 8 new gif sets :

- wave to the camera - - sneakyTroll - - when jensen carries - [1][2][3][4][5] - dank memes -

+ Throwback gifs :

- feels jensen man - - i know where I gotta go -

There are 184 total gif sets in the archive. Click here to see the rest!

+ Not much by way of fanworks over the past couple weeks, but, tianhuo did give us the first part of chapter 4 to her amazing high school / theatre AU ‘on a heartstring’. You can click here to read it!

+ Regarding the on a heartstring updates, for now I think we’re facing a hiatus with those, as tianhuo was incredibly busy last week, and I have not heard from her for a few days, so I’m not sure when they will resume their weekly schedule, but I’ll keep everyone updated!

To visit the fanfiction archive, click here. To visit the fan works section, click here.

+ Link for submitting your fan works :

Submit

+ 5 new tweets :

- sneaky’s birthday dinner - - who we root for - - jensen’s playoff face / scary manhunt - - sneaky’s desktop wallpaper - - impact’s hair - Need more tweets in your life? Click here to see some more!

+ Cloud 9 finished the last week of Spring Split with 2 victories, finishing with a record of 14-4, and earning 2nd place overall, including a bye week going into spring playoffs.

+ Jensen finished in 1st place in total kills, CS per minute, and CS total. He finished 2nd place (with Smoothie) in KDA. 

+ In their last weekend of games, Jensen won Player of the Game awards twice during his performances against Dignitas on Orianna. Sneaky won a Player of the Game award against Phoenix One for an outstanding performance on Lucian.

+ Jensen finished the regular season with 10 total Player of the Game Awards, and power ranked as #1 in the mid lane position.

+ Cloud 9′s next game will be on Saturday, April 15th at 2pm. Their opponent will be decided this weekend during Quarterfinals. 

+ That’s going to do it for news these past 2 weeks. Hopefully Tumblr will continue to be cooperative in the future and I won’t have to put it off again!

+ Big thank you to everyone for their patience while I sorted out the issues. I still don’t fully understand what was completely wrong - it was just something to do with the plug ins and extensions not loading and causing it to freeze when I’d try to drop an image into a post. :/

+ Thank you to every single person who continues to support and follow the blog. It means the absolute world to me, and I will continue to do my best to bring you fun content!

+ I hope you all have a wonderful week! See you next Sunday! <3

[pieaterpieater]

Performing artist Tom Snowdon already has an impressive back-catalogue - one album with his first band Lowlakes, two albums with No Mono - but now he shares details of his first solo album 'Lonely Tree' our 9 FEB 2024.

In the past, Snowdon’s work has centred on hazy atmospheres, and in expressing emotions via metaphors of elemental forces - water, ice, air and light. His affinity with nature is still present on Lonely Tree, but here we see Snowdon navigating his ruminations and desires in a more direct way, offering glimpses into a more personal story. With one eye on the past, and another on the “what could have been” (what Snowdon calls ‘the lingering alternative’), he yearns for a stabilising hand to keep him present and hopeful in the here and now, and sends his voice reaching out across broad sonic landscapes to find one. Across its nine songs Lonely Tree is an exploration of loss and hope, of things ending and new things beginning. Led by Snowdon's famously haunting voice, the album is a journey into a dream-like world of the intangible, and one of deeply personal reflection.

The photos on the album art were taken on Western Arrernte Country, west of Mparntwe/Alice Springs - Snowdon’s home town. During the emotionally tumultuous time of writing, Snowdon spent periods at home and felt its safety and peace. The landscape of Central Australia has long been inspiration for the artist, and is something he echoes on Lonely Tree - the dramatic beauty, the peace and lingering space, its otherworldliness; and also the extreme nature of it - the harsh climate and textures of rock and sand, the big skies and the extreme isolation that welcomes people looking for an escape.

[gabedamage]

Catch The Breeze by Lowlakes https://ift.tt/2IslTnt

[jillsreviews]

BLOG TOUR: Low Lake by Gretta Mulrooney

BLOG TOUR: Low Lake by Gretta Mulrooney

Today it is my stop on the Blog Tour for LOW LAKE by Gretta Mulrooney. This is book 5 in the Tyrone Swift series and is a very gripping addition to a brilliant series.

@joffebooks #netgalley #policeprocedural #ukthriller #tyroneswift #lowlake

‘Mulrooney has a real gift for dialogue, the words and phrases ring true and make her characters wonderfully real . . . A tenderly funny and genuinely moving…

[themelbournetone]

No Mono @ Northcote Social Club [Gig Review]

“They aren’t mono at all, instead a beautiful stereo pair”

Review by Harry Bradley

Photos by Ziggy Cross

After knowing and loving his main project, Big Scary, for up to 7 years, I was finally being told I’d been doing it all wrong, according to my friend. It probably isn’t meant to be so difficult, but I hoped for his sake he was right as we shuffled into the Northcote Social Club to witness the new creation of Tom Iansek (Big Scary, #1 Dads) and Tom Snowdon (Lowlakes), No Mono. The pair have previously been seen together in the #1 Dads song Return To, which placed Snowdon’s otherworldly vocal range at the forefront, with spine-tingling results. A little part of me hoped they’d dust it off for tonight but I got my wish and then some…

Tom Iansek

Although, for the moment we were watching local band Jade Imagine open things up. I instantly saw who I thought was Stevie Nicks fronting a local Melbourne band. The Fleetwood Mac feel was present and enveloping, with this group being one of the best openers I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in a while. Super groovy bass lines and some pretty neat guitar work coupled with the full sounding vocal line made this group a great start to the night for all.

Jade Imagine

About an hour or so later, the two Toms walked out onto the modest stage to present an immensely enveloping sound that I’m still having a hard time processing. As it is just the two of them, an Abelton Live setup handles most of the backline, purring to life with that familiar syncopation I’d heard somewhere before. But as Ianseck laid the foundations, Snowdon cut through the suspense with the sharpest tool in his toolbox, the voice. His operatic, flowing falsetto has so much range and style, eBay would struggle to match him in at 50% sales. It mesmerizes the crowd, fitting so deservedly into the soundscape the two have created. As each member handles multiple instruments, each song builds and builds into the godlike crescendos from the bellowing Tom #1 and Crooning Tom #2 until they decide when you’re satisfied. Strangely they seem to know when that perfect moment is every time.

Tom Snowdon

As this is a new project, I couldn’t say I was familiar with many song titles. In my eyes, the set flowed between this track and the next very smoothly. Minimal time was allocated for interactions, but the two Toms made sure they were extremely thankful for the sold-out crowd “taking a chance on brand new music on a brand new tour”, one which on paper probably should have happened a long time ago. Thankfully for my little pre-show wish, this project did happen a long time ago (sort of). So, without further ado, the two brushed off Return To, which was welcomed back with open arms by the crowd. All the while Snowdon is passionately extracting the notes from his arsenal, beating his chest and creating flowing movements to the lush instrumentation which truly was an emotional display for everyone in the room.

Finishing on their recently released Butterflies, the mesmerizing crescendo bowed it’s head for one last time as Iansek’s lovingly crafted instrumentation and Snowdon’s towering voice brought an end to the first show with a hometown in attendance. The humble feelings were shared by all as one punter’s consistent shouts of “THANK YOU” resonated within the crowd and the band members themselves. Heading out into the mild night, my friend and I came to the obvious realization that it was all in the name.

They aren’t Mono at all, instead a beautiful stereo pair. 

No Mono played: 

Violence Broken Blacklight* Desert Tidal Fight  Frostbitten Return To Otherside City* Quadbike* Butterflies

*Actual song title may vary A full album of photos can be found here.

[tanya-ali]

Review: About Face by #1 Dads

Melbourne's Tom Iansek is a busy, busy dude. Not only is he one half of the excellent Big Scary, but in 2011 he released a full-length LP under the moniker #1 Dads. This year, he's come out with a sophomore full-length titled About Face. There's been a bit of hype around this record and after just one listen, it's clear why. About Face is a truly accomplished album, and it has elevated #1 Dads from simple side-project status, that’s for sure.

About Face is guitar-filled, with many riffs that linger with you. The words stay with you too – Iansek is a phenomenal songwriter, one of the best of his time. There are so many deep gems on this album that it's so hard to pick highlights – each song is breathtakingly special in its own right. Opener "My Rush" is driving and heartfelt, while closer "Homeward Found" is sprawling and contemplative. There are some great featuring vocalists, like Ainslie Wills on the strum-heavy "So Soldier" and Airling on piano ballad "God Can Promise" – both artists' voices blend wonderfully with Iansek's. "Camberwell" is poignant in a ridiculously effortless way, and a solo saxophone outro that may otherwise have been out of place is oddly fitting.

The first single from About Face, "Return To", features Lowlakes vocalist Tom Snowdon who adds a stunning vocal line. The track grabs firmly onto your heartstrings you and tugs them. The main piano riff is reminiscent of something you might hear on a Big Scary record, too, but it’s simultaneously not derivative at all – the two projects definitely have distinctive sounds. "For Randy Robinson and Cassidy" is a classic road-trip jam if ever you've heard one. "Blood pt. 2" warms you with understated vocals, a gorgeous finger-picking accompaniment on nylon-string guitar and backing vocals that add incredible toned colour.

About Face is a honest, unguarded album – this is one of the things that makes it so accessible and unique. Iansek is exploring things that we've all known, in simple ways – yet never simplistically. The production is exceptional – deliberate and relaxed at the same time, and tweaked for each different song, each slightly different style Iansek explores. There's a sense of nostalgia while maintaining such a fresh, yet timeless, sound. It's a short album, clocking in at just under 40 minutes, but it's so substantial that you're not left wanting more – instead, you're left needing to repeat the album over and over again, discovering new intricacies on each listen.

Rumours Iansek is not touring the project have been proven wrong via a Facebook post: "for those who've been asking... YES there will be some live shows, announce coming soon" - and thank goodness for that! These songs live will be nothing short of magical. This year is a fantastic year in music, both locally and overseas, and so many of my favourite artists are releasing or have already released new LPs this year – so it says a lot that I'm 99% sure that About Face is going to be my favourite record of 2014. I can't find a single flaw with it, because this is a record that is perfect in its imperfections. It is from the heart, for the soul.

10/10

Originally published on September 5, 2014 for the AU review: http://www.theaureview.com/albums/number-1-dads-about-face-2014-lp