Finally! After twelve months of having Miranda Soileau-Pratt’s name hovering around a bunch of much loved releases here (the latest Lavender Flu, Lily Mullen, etc), we’ve now got the chance to check out the project she leads, Spatulas. (Here also featuring another familiar name, Lila Jarzombek AKA Nowhere Flower). A record of jangle rock that tips into the red and overflows with great melodies, searching lead guitar lines, high up the neck bass lines, and a driving drum and maraca percussion. To make the record-store-dude-tree-of-reference-points to situate this album, it makes me think of a Moe Tucker-led VU or the Raincoats, flowing through the Antipodes with The Garbage & The Flowers and the ramshackle melodicism of The Clean, through to recent histories of scrappier jangle pop (Pop Singles, Eat Skull, School Of Radiant Living, Woollen Kits, etc), through to contemporaries such as Famous Mammals, the first few Mordecai LPs, even the sonic space of David Nance’s More Than Enough. On regular rotation on the shop stereo now and I’m sure, well into the future!-Mitch Beehive Mind by The Spatulas
