Cloud Control - Gold Canary

Tribal chanting, shrieking and whooping provide the backdrop for singer Alister Wright’s raw and imperfectly honest voice on the new single from Sydney songsters Cloud Control. Prepare to be hypnotised as low male voices, a steady drumbeat and intermittent handclaps that wouldn’t have been out of place on the Lion King soundtrack transport you to another world. You can just envision enrobed African men shifting and swaying on the red ground - that is, until rocky electric guitars erupt into the tune from nowhere and jolt you out of the daydream. It’s a weird yet surprisingly pleasant sensation: several different influences are at work here that shouldn’t really fit together, but the combination is mesmerising.

There is a slight sense of a band trying out new things and not being too sure of their footing - but it is accompanied by a confidence that those feet are moving in the right direction. How they arrived at the zany ‘Gold Canary’ is a mystery and it will be interesting to see where this quirky little group go from here. Whatever these kids are on, I want some.