Mad Nanna – ‘In Glasgow’ LP [Golden Lab Records]

It was only a few weeks ago when I first hear of Mad Nanna, a group out of Melbourne actively releasing from 2010, occasionally toted as a four-piece but also, and in this instance a duo. And while I’m yet to dig through their catalogue at all, I’m totally smitten by this live album that I picked up on a recommendation upon it’s limited release.

While not nearly common enough, I’ve got think it’s a better way to discover new music through a live element, if not a show then a recording. In Glasgow was recorded, surprisingly, in Glasgow, last year at an in-store for a place called Volcanic Tongue.

Forty minutes of lo-fi, sloppy, electric guitar with only rare smatterings of primitive vocals, it’s maybe not the type of thing that we’ve been vibing on the rest of the year. But throw in the fact that it seems to have been field-recorded and you’ve got raw, unmanufactured music that takes you on a trip. No bullshit, just emotional music translated through guitar and voice for us.

We need more of this, and fans of Jandek as well as the John Fahey late-experimental years will find common ground to get lost in here. Arguably more repetitive with the relentless loose-strumming, but equally as rewarding for an end result.

Pre-orders were a few months ago and the plate was limited to 250, straight from the label, Golden Lab Records. It’s worth hunting down via Discogs or a few stores that may still have some though. Throw it on start to finish, it’s a record well worth investing some time in.

Press release below that, with a youtube jacked track just above it. And whilst it sounds a little weird having one track from the album on it’s own, almost taken out of context, there’s not much else around to check the sound from, so worthwhile tapping in to it for a digital preview.

via Golden Lab Records
There’s something about the drummerless version of Mad Nanna that just gives them all this scope to stretch out into their own strangeness. The much-lauded Australian duo was captured live, here, at their seminal Volcanic Tongue in-store performance in Glasgow, Scotland, and it’s one of those recordings to make you depressed that you weren’t there. The guitar playing – slow and sparse and slimily sliding and chugging – just has all this amazing drag to it, propelled by the wavering internal body clock of singer Michael Zulicki whose voice has all the deadpan charm of The Dead C’s Michael Morley but whose songs are reminiscent of Supreme Dicks most out-there shuffles. Splurged over the top of that like hot oil on a skillet are the ultra-slo-mo, totally untutored and blindingly great ‘solos’ (in the loosest sense) of guitarist Pat O’Brien. This one is gonna go like shit off a shovel, so get your orders in quick. Already hearing ‘record of the year’ claims from certain corners of the Glasgow underground.