Th Blisks. The closest comparison I can offer to this Australian trio are Bristol’s do you have peace? collective. Just like artists, such as Jabu, their music is an experimental, dream-like, drifting blend of dub and indie-rock. 

Constructed from a rudimentary tool kit, and built around heavily treated samples the tracks – nearly – all feature slow, shuffling rhythms and ethereal vocals. The exceptions are A Salve, which races along, driven by scratchy guitars and countered by ripples of piano – recalling the early Cure – and I Don’t Fade – a drum machine driven dose of dubbed-out cold wave. 

However, in the main, the music is a kind of haunting, hypnotic worn and weathered trip hop. Loose, and funky, created from layers of Lo-Fi loops. Breaks are broken. Keys wah-wah-ed. Bongos echoed.There’s the honk of what could be a tuba. Hardware buzzing with a soft ambient hum. A melodica carrying minor chord melodies in a manner that nods to both Nafi’s Brenda Ray and New Order’s Barney Sumner. Delay drenching, delicately fracturing everything. There’s a definite mood, and for an old fella like me, it’s one of young love. Of youthful possibility. Listening it’s as if I were back at Uni. Living on baked beans and weed.* Happy. Free. 

The closing number, Taipei Dubble, had me picturing Grouper, cutting a rug, in the Ruins of her empty rooms. Dancing alone. Or the Two Lone Swordsmen, more than elegantly wasted, after the afters, winding their way home. 

Originally released in 2022, by Altered States Tapes, the vinyl edition of Th Blisks’ How So? can be ordered directly from Efficient Space.

*I say weed, but back then it was much more like squidgy black hash or crumbly Red Leb.