Five For Friday: NEXT 2

A love of shoegaze bands of the late 1980s to early 90s provided the catalyst for the formation of Melbourne Australia’s Bloodhounds On My Trail. Since then, members Johnny Green (guitar, vocals), Chris Donaldson (guitar), Jonny O’Hara (bass) and Nik Donaldson (drums) have sought to fuse the rhythmic underpinnings of bands like the Velvet Underground and the Stooges with the dream haze of Cocteau Twins and Slowdive. The band collectively selected some of their favorite bands for this weeks “Five For Friday” feature. Guitarist Chris Donaldson says “Our five for Friday” is a little bit of a mix of songs that have inspired us new and old. We released our debut EP ‘Escape’ a few weeks ago and couldn’t have done it with out these songs. We are a band that like to get you in to a certain head space when you listen to the music. Similarly these songs do the same thing. We are Bloodhounds On My Trail & we are inspired by what these bands have done & are doing.” Enjoy the bands first single “Dreamless” as well as their inspiring selections below.

The Stone Roses “I Wanna Be Adored”

Aside from maybe ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ no song comes close to being as effortlessly cool as the opening track off The Stone Roses 89′ debut album. ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ set the scene perfectly for the roses – ‘I don’t have to sell my soul, he’s already in me’ – they knew they had it and well, there isn’t a better opening line than that!

Contrast “Drum Machine”

Since forming Bloodhounds On My Trail we have met a heap of great local Melbourne shoe gazey bands, which makes for inspiring bands to play with and shows to go and see! Contrast one of our favourites played our Escape EP launch at Ding Dong in October and recently their guitarist James made a kick ass video for ‘Drum Machine’. The tune is off their EP Less than Zero, check it out!!!

Bailter Space “X”

Making their name around our neck of the woods Bailter Space were a really inspiring band in the mid 90s & this tune is massive. Almost everything gazewise during this time came out of Europe so it was great to have something from our side of the world to look up to. It’s no 2nd rate music either. I think X is among the best and certainly a favourite of ours.

Tripwires – Shimmer

We’ve been loving these guys recent album ‘Spacehopper’. Plenty to pick from including ‘Spacehopper’, ‘Catherine I Feel Sick’ and especially ‘Clusterfuck’ (bonus track) but decide to go with their lead off single ‘Shimmer’. This song has an eyes closed sway about it. It makes you feel calm and you can’t help but fit right into the phych gaze headspace Tripwires created for you in this song. It’s a soothing mold of great chords, a slightly withheld voice and beat that sits right in the pocket.

Lowtide – Wedding Ring

We’ve been going to Lowtide’s shows for years now. Recently we got to support them for their album launch. It was great exposure for us having not been around for too long. Needless to say Lowtide were a big inspiration in pushing ourselves to be better as a band. There is plenty of good things to say about all their releases but in a way their latest single ‘Wedding Ring’ off their debut self titled LP sums up all the songs they’ve put out previously perfectly. Its got everything you’d love about Lowtide with song writing maturity, a wonderful pop sensibility & a really nice tone.