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infinity broke

  • before beforeOne thing about being a reviewer, apart from the teetering pile of CDs getting in the way of real life, is that you encounter bands you probably would never go near.

    La Bastard is such a great name for a band that, if you were schlepping past a pub on the way to nowhere in particular (as so many of us are) and you saw that a band called La Bastard were playing, you’d stop dead, turn and walk right in. No question. If you instead saw an Aussie band named “Infinity Broke”, you probably wouldn’t.

  • He was a fixture on the Aussie live circuit until recently and Bluebottle Kiss main-man Jamie Hutchings is returning to the fray with a new album and band, Infinity Broke.

  • this mastheadThis Masthead – Infinity Broke (Love As Fiction Records)

    If Jamie Hutchings’ better-known band of the ‘90s, Bluebottle Kiss, was a child of grunge (at least in the ear of the major label to whjich it signed), Infinity Broke owes its parentage to something less well defined and commodified: Dissonance.

    “This Masthead” is the band’s fourth album and now on Perth label Love As Fiction, usually a home for ‘90s re-issues. The quartet is loosely built on a drums-guitar base that brings a stack of influences to bear. The PR blurb says: “Hypnotic avant rock with teeth” and (for once) it’s accurate.  

    Formed in 2013 by Hutchings (vocals and guitar) after Bluebottle Kiss wound down (for the time being, as it turned out), the rest of the band is his brother Scott Hutchings (drums and guitar), Tyrone Stevens(drums and percussion) and Reuben Wills (bass). “This Masthead” grew out of jamming, and the loose spontaneity at its heart is immediately apparent. Its nine songs balance noise rock with faint melodies. It’s not straight up rock. It is addictive. Take the plunge.

  • river-mirrorsInfinity Broke is the new vehicle for Sydney’s Jamie Hutchings and Jared Harrison, post the dissolution of Bluebottle Kiss. They were longtime acerbic indie fixtures on the Australian scene before Hutchings decided to go solo so the air is misty with expectation.

    The first thing to say is that the self-released “River Mirrors” sounds superb. It was recorded in a shearing shed on a sheep property with a live ambience and stark glow.