Witness K - s/t

Knockout debut from Sydney's Witness, a new four/five piece configuration made from a few spare parts from the great Cured Pink. That parent band aren't a bad place to start when first grappling with the sounds on offer here, skirting round the edges of no-wave, dub-punk dynamics as it does, and if they've any currently active Australian peers, then those first few Exek records provide some kind of anchor. Read that as a starting point only though, because Witness K are charting their own course here, employing flute, sax, xylophone and accordion alongside the usual rock set up in a probing, open-ended manner that sees them spiral off into some enticingly elusive dirges and drones. If the song structures wander and roam, then they're brought into focus by Maeve Parker's half-spoken/half-sung (depends which half you look at) vocal, an off-key melodic guide through the shock and awe. The press releases namechecks Dry Cleaning's Florence Shaw, which i didn't hear at first myself, but i do see evidence of some elements of DC DNA (if not sound), mainly in the way that Witness K have freed themselves of verse-chorus orthodoxy, riding an idea to whatever formless end. There's an eerie quality to the record as a result, a ghostly drift you can't quite put a finger on, yo-yoing between Cold Storage abrasions, Shadow Ring improvised clang, and the monochrome gleam of European DIY synth experiments. Let it be clear, this lot have heard some great records, but they're not just those records either - consider them instead a new force standing at the same fringe, pushing the margins.