written by Chris Familton

Subscribing to the punk aesthetic of anyone can create music, Coolies emerged from South Auckland, New Zealand in the mid to late nineties with a rough and ready sound that combined splatter punk, deconstructed art rock and no-fi hip hop. They played shows, released a 7” and became underground heroes. Master collects a bunch of songs the trio recorded over the last four years with their drummer and lo-fi pop star in his own right – Stefan Neville of Pumice.

At twenty four minutes it isn’t much longer than some of the EPs that get released these days but it’s brevity suits it’s ADD stutter and attack. Thankfully they mix up things stylistically so that their limited range appears wider than it probably is. Ghost Baby is a post-punk/goth bass rumble that intermittently descends into Sonic Youth guitar disintegration. Throwaway sounds like the first cassette demo that every garage band records with its levels blown out and an over enthusiastic drummer. Shift enters manic, twitching Deerhoof territory while Searching is a call and response digital bleepfest. The best moment on Master comes with Holiday, their straightest garage rock song that possesses a brilliant set of chords and shouty distorted girl vocals. It is wonderfully shambolic and jangly and barely holds together long enough to get to it’s conclusion.

Coolies are hip with the ‘so lo-fi it hurts’ crowd and it is an approach that has served them well. When their best moment is the closest thing to a ‘normal’ song you do begin to wonder whether dialing back the murky skronk and noise and editing their raw enthusiasm would allow them to produce an album of truly engaging noise pop.

this review first appeared in Drum Media.