Bedhead

Beheaded
Trance Syndicate, 1996

For a group with three guitarists, Bedhead were remarkably gentle. They were one of the slowcore bands who sprang up around North America in the early '90s – though, like most musicians, they disliked the label given to them. Perhaps they were right. For every comparison to Low, the genre's most iconic band, and each song like theirs that lulled the listener into a dream-like state, there was another that woke them up. The best track along these lines was 'The Rest Of The Day', a song about waking up depressed that began with the band's trademark vocal delivery – slow and passionless, like the drawl of a drunk man but with none of the slurring – and bloomed into euphoria. "Since there's a dead black cat scattered on my street/ I'd rather stay here under the sheets," murmured Matt Kadane, before the song suddenly shifted tempo and the guitars started to chime in sync, playing the same melody over and over for at least ten repetitions, getting a little louder and more forceful each time. Listening to it still gives me a rush of blood.

Bedhead were founded in Texas in 1991 by brothers Matt and Bubba Kadane, who had played together since they were young. They were joined by drummer Trini Martinez, bassist Kris Wheat and guitarist Tench Coxe, and released a string of gorgeous singles, EPs and three albums before breaking up seven years later. Apparently the idea behind the band was to recreate the texture of classical string instruments like the violin and viola, on which the Kadane brothers had experimented in their earlier projects, with guitars. It probably helped that they had a knack for incredible pop melodies as well. Beheaded, their second album, took eight months to mix until the band was "happy with every single second". It paid off. While their more-famous peers like Galaxie 500, Codeine and Low recorded the most recognisable songs of the slowcore sound, Bedhead made the best albums – as in, a cohesive collection of songs. After they broke up, the brothers formed The New Year with an ensemble of other underground musicians, while newcomer on the scene David Bazan picked up their gently layered guitar sound and incorporated it into his stories about falling in and out of love with girls and God under the name Pedro The Lion.

Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side

The Sober Light Of Day
Spooky, 2005

Sixfthick are a monstrous rock'n'roll band from Queensland who roar down the east coast every six months or so and leave a trail of broken glass from Byron Bay to Brunswick Street. Their live shows are infamous. Fronted by brothers Geoff and Ben Corbett, the band churn through cacophonous songs with names like 'Dogshit Blues' and 'Beat Myself' that sound like they were written during a fit of rage in a gutter somewhere. Geoff, the older brother, tells stories about alcoholism while his younger sibling variously stalks the stage, dives or slips and falls into the audience, covers his chest in shaving cream and lights it, smashes glasses against his head, picks fights with hecklers and as often as not ends up shirtless and streaked with blood.

When he isn't hanging over the side of the stage writhing in piss and sweat, Ben is a strikingly handsome man – a mix of tall, dark stranger and weather-worn farm boy, one part sensual and two threatening. He fronts his own band, Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side, dressed in tight silk shirts and snakeskin boots, gyrating his way through love songs and tales of heartbreak like a sinister version of Elvis in his youth. The name of the band is only half-sarcastic. Gentle Ben is a mix of Corbett's Sixfthick persona and a man struggling to be a thoughtful suitor despite himself. "If I lose my self-control and some cunt ends up bleeding," he coos sweetly to his lover in 'Help Me Make It Down The Street', "Please don't let it run your evening."

One of the best tracks on The Sober Light Of Day is a cover of Spencer P. Jones's 'Execution Day'. The original Beasts Of Bourbon version is one of their more deafening numbers, a relentless and melancholy churn of guitar noise with muffled lyrics about a failed romance. Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side pluck out the main melody and turn it into a sultry flamenco track with maracas and acoustic guitar. When the chorus comes around, the band let loose with a trash-rock blast of noise in the spirit of both Sixfthick and the Beasts. It's the most elemental expression of the band's raison d'etre, a strange but captivating mixture of sexuality and violence.

Praise

Various Artists
Praise
Best Boy / Festival, 1999

There is a shot in the opening sequence of 1998 film Praise that is burned into my mind. It's a close-up of a spinning Holden hubcap on a car driving along a dusty road at night, set to The Dirty Three's 'I Remember A Time When Once You Used To Love Me'. It isn't blatantly jingoistic, but it carries an unmistakable message that this is the opening shot to an Australian film – one that couldn't possibly be made anywhere else. The man behind the wheel of the car is Gordon, played by Peter Fenton from the rock band Crow, a maliciously passive asthmatic who lights each cigarette with the last and becomes caught in an ill-fated affair with a tornado of a woman, played by Sascha Horler, who is as determined and single-minded as he is useless.

It was Praise, based on the 1992 "grunge lit" novel of the same name by Andrew McGahan, that first piqued my interest in Queensland as a sort of mythical wasteland north of the border – a humid and sinister place imagined by Sydneysiders in the same way New Yorkers have nightmares set in the swamps of Louisiana. The whole film is shot in shades of orange and set variously in Gordon's empty boarding house room, where the heat seems to condense in the paint on the walls, and a mixture of pubs, beer gardens and bottle shops. When a character appears and says he is from Melbourne, the southern metropolis seems as far away as Antarctica.

For the last decade that idea of Queensland has been kept alive, for me, by other works such as Andrew Stafford's extraordinary history of the Brisbane music scene, Pig City, the records of "canetrash" punk band Sixfthick and McGahan's other books, including 1988 and Last Drinks. It is also now what comes to mind whenever I listen to The Dirty Three, who feature heavily on the soundtrack to the film, along with Crow and John Ellis. They may have been from Melbourne, but there is something about the compressed tension in their songs and the flailing outbursts of Warren Ellis's violin that, in my head, only seem to make sense when placed in the hopeless nowheresville of Praise.

Mclusky

Mcluskyism
Too Pure, 2006

If Mclusky were still around I would overcome my fear of flying, jump on a plane to Wales and have a sex change in the hope of carrying their children. I love the way that, in 'Whoyouknow', vocalist Andy Falkous alternates between the descriptions of someone's heart as "the colour of Coca-Cola" and "the colour of a dust-bin" in a childish sort of sing-song rhythm, as if it was such a brilliant insult that he should be crowned king of the playground. And in 'There Ain't No Fool In Ferguson', where he just reels off unrelated naughty-words while his voice hurtles up and down like a rollercoaster: "Hopeless!/ Hepatitis piss-rag!/ Molotov cocktail!/ Monobrow shit hole!" It's no surprise that their deranged mix of humour and scattergun malice led to constant comparisons with the Pixies. I would go so far as to say they were the second coming.

Mclusky formed in Wales in the late '90s and released three brilliantly-titled albums before calling it a day: My Pain And Sadness Is More Sad And Painful Than Yours, Mclusky Do Dallas and The Difference Between You And Me Is That I'm Not On Fire. The second and third are the best, but if you haven't heard any of them before go instead for Mcluskyism, a compilation released in 2006. I know it's not very cool to champion a "best of", but seriously it is the best 30 minutes of noisy rock and roll to be released this decade.

After Mclusky broke up, Falkous and drummer Jack Egglestone went on to perform in Future Of The Left while bassist Jon Chapple relocated to Melbourne and formed a new line-up of his outfit Shooting At Unarmed Men. Neither are quite as good. One of the biggest disappointments of 2007 was Future Of The Left's much-anticipated debut album Curses, a giant pile of averageness that seemed to earn favourable reviews from all corners of the globe without even lifting a finger. With the exception of one or two good tracks, especially the rollicking 'Fingers Become Thumbs!', the whole thing sounded stale and staged in comparison with the spontaneous combustion that was a typical Mclusky song – perhaps it's just that no one had the heart to tell them.

Xiu Xiu

The Air Force
5RC, 2006

Xiu Xiu records are some of the most consistently bleak to pass through magazine review piles. The themes they cover are often personal and uncomfortably frank, including such party favourites as suicide, AIDS, sadomasochism, war, sexuality and emotional desperation. Jamie Stewart and Caralee McElroy's history is as disturbing as the music, which goes some way as an explanation. Shortly after the release of their first album Knife Play, Stewart's father – who was also a singer – killed himself. Since then the pair have revelled in the grotesque. On the cover of 2004's disturbing Fabulous Muscles, Stewart was seen posing with a stuffed toy named Dr Phil that he used to teach pre-school classes with. The refrain of the title song was: "Cremate me after you cum on my lips/ Honey boy, place my ashes in a vase/ Beneath your workout bench."

Over the last eight years the pair have hollowed out a unique space in the indie soundscape with a mix of electronica, experimental noise and folk. The Air Force continues in the style of its predecessor La Foret, with the band's electronic clangs and more traditional rock and acoustic sounds swirled together rather than separated. It’s also slightly more accessible than usual, produced by Greg Saunier from fellow Californian experimental band Deerhoof. McElroy, Stewart’s cousin, flautist and percussionist, sings on 'Hello From Eau Claire', a tinkly, jewellery-box tune with a dose of childish bravado and gender-bending: "I can buy my own cigarettes, I can pluck my own moustache/ I read it's lame to wish that you won’t walk out on me."

Stewart is at his best on 'Boy Soprano' and 'The Pineapple Vs The Watermelon', an obscure track that seems to be about his father's death. "Someone felt something pure and told it all to you," he reasons, and "that was why you killed yourself, to prove it wasn’t true." The lines which follow sum up the world Xiu Xiu inhabit: "Say hello to Cory's mum, say hello to Freddy's mum, say hello to Ryan's mum..." It is plainly odd that a record like this should be plastered with an endorsement from The New York Times. For a group who were once described as having to worry less about selling out than losing their fans to suicide, Xiu Xiu have come further than anyone anticipated.

Andrew Ramadge is on holidays. This is a mash-up of pieces written about Xiu Xiu between 2004-06.