Suffering Jukebox

This morning's episode features an interview with Pure Mass guitarist Dean. Pure Mass will be playing Namba and Meanjin/Brisbane this coming Friday (18th September) and Saturday (19th September) these will be their first South-East Queensland shows. In Namba, they will be at the Nambour Bowls Club alongside Raw Impact, Leaker and Asbestos, whilst in Brisbane they will be at Season Three Space performing with Ghost Variations and Raw Impact.

Find out more about Pure Mass (and purchase their music) here: https://puremass.bandcamp.com/album/fire-sale - All proceeds from this release will go to Black Rainbow, a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer, Sistergirl and Brotherboy (LGBQTI+SB) organisation.

Nick's Pick of the Week is Sly & The Family Drone's With Love, you can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here: https://familydrone.bandcamp.com/album/with-love and my review can be read below.

Sly & The Family Drone: With Love (Self-Released)

Released August 28 2026

Sly & The Family Drone have been producing their own unique kind of noise for almost two decades now. Each new album is both a continuation and an expansion on past ideas, incorporating elements of noise, free jazz, electronica and drone. With Love is their sixth studio album, a half-hour slab of skronk infused mayhem, that may be the group’s best effort yet.

As is per usual for Sly & The Family Drone, With Love is entirely instrumental. It contains six songs that twist, weave and meander their way from genesis to conclusion —whilst rarely taking the predictable route. The band, however, does not lack a sense a of humour, as is evidenced by Under The Rainbow, a riff on Over The Rainbow that comprises mostly static noise and a plaintive variation of the classic melody famously featured in the film The Wizard Of Oz.

Elsewhere, Psychic Surgery imparts a frantic, tribal rhythm, whereas In The Oils provides a meditative break from the rest of the madness. The Guts Of Albion is —perhaps— the album’s centrepiece, a gloriously noisy but slightly slow burning slab of ecstatic free jazz bliss that drags the listener (perhaps kicking and screaming) down roads less-travelled and through realms unknown.

With Love isn’t an album that invites or encourages passive listening, this is an immersive experience that assaults the senses and alters perceptions. It may be a bumpy ride, but the damage to the vehicle is worth it —sit down, strap in, open your mind and enjoy the journey.

Nick Stephan