| SWAMPLORD – Mermaids Of Tahiti |  |  |  |
| TUESDAY, 15 DECEMBER 2009 | |
 (Bedroom Suck)Madness? This is … oh STFU Jakeb Swamplord is Jeremy Hindmarsh, the creative force behind local psych outfit The Swamplords. Mermaids Of Tahiti is a document of his madness. It’s a gorgeously lo-fi mess of swampy, surf-y psych guitar jams and abstract, heavily-effected noise – recorded to cassette on a four-track in a steamy suburban bedroom somewhere in Brisbane. It’s experimentally self-produced, utilising delay and panning effects to smear stuttering vocals or introduce heady, dub-like instrumentation. Each new production technique is aesthetically curious, but there are no songs here to apply them to. The sporadic guitar riffs and raving vocal lines are great, but they’re so disjointed, like dot points arrayed on a page. Bored With Pain repeats a motif and manages to sound vaguely self-contained, which gives some context to the song’s central tempo change (Hindmarsh creatively messes with the tape speed). The rest of the tracks never feel as complete. You could have made two amazing psych records out of the ideas on Mermaids Of Tahiti, unfortunately all we got is one impressive list of cool sounds Jeremy Hindmarsh can make in a bedroom. JAKEB SMITH |
