Music / Features
Track by Track:
Secret Towns - Maps
Secret Towns - Maps
Following the release of their debut album earlier this year, Castlemaine natives Secret Towns have taken us on a journey through Maps, a collection of salt-of-the-earth rock ’n’ roll that isn’t afraid to embrace the starker edges of their jangle-pop sound.
Formed in 2018 and bonded by a love of indie titans like The Clean and The Velvet Underground, there is much of the former in Secret Towns’ sound, however, Maps hums with other influences too. The sonic terrain covered over its eight songs strikes out in a pleasingly layered variety of directions - to sketch the geography of Secret Towns would make for a big map indeed. On this album, they journey from the post-punk of Northern England, to the krautrock of Central Europe, to the jangle of Melbourne, yet link it back to their home-base of Castlemaine with some distinctly rural guitar-pop charm.
The band are actually friends of jangle-pop enthusiasts The Great Divides, but they mostly deal in heavier territory than their Castlemaine compatriots. The only time they melt into the mellower jangle sound is on the pleasant opener ‘Kevin’s Walking’, and while following track ‘Maps’ seems to be going the same way, its descent into Sonic Youth-esque fuzz at the outro sets the tone for what is to come next. Moments later, with tracks ‘Khan to Khivia’ and ‘Turncoat’, the wiriness of The Fall comes to mind, singer Matt Rolfe’s spat vocals dripping with venom and confidence.
Letting Rolfe discuss his own music reveals a keen literary sensibility. One song takes its name from the wild experimental work of Italian writer Italo Calvino (‘Invisible Cities’); another is inspired by a character from Haruki Murakami’s The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Even bassist Josh Meadows previously played in a band called The Steinbecks - East of Eden and northwest of Melbourne.
Rounded out by Lloyd Meadows on drums, the three-piece spent the first part of the year touring the record around wider Victoria - to spots like Ballarat, Beechworth and their own Castlemaine before lockdown. As a debut album though, Maps should position them on listener’s radars further afield in the coming year.
Read below as Rolfe takes us through the inspiration for the instrumentation and narratives of each track.
The band are actually friends of jangle-pop enthusiasts The Great Divides, but they mostly deal in heavier territory than their Castlemaine compatriots. The only time they melt into the mellower jangle sound is on the pleasant opener ‘Kevin’s Walking’, and while following track ‘Maps’ seems to be going the same way, its descent into Sonic Youth-esque fuzz at the outro sets the tone for what is to come next. Moments later, with tracks ‘Khan to Khivia’ and ‘Turncoat’, the wiriness of The Fall comes to mind, singer Matt Rolfe’s spat vocals dripping with venom and confidence.
Letting Rolfe discuss his own music reveals a keen literary sensibility. One song takes its name from the wild experimental work of Italian writer Italo Calvino (‘Invisible Cities’); another is inspired by a character from Haruki Murakami’s The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Even bassist Josh Meadows previously played in a band called The Steinbecks - East of Eden and northwest of Melbourne.
Rounded out by Lloyd Meadows on drums, the three-piece spent the first part of the year touring the record around wider Victoria - to spots like Ballarat, Beechworth and their own Castlemaine before lockdown. As a debut album though, Maps should position them on listener’s radars further afield in the coming year.
Read below as Rolfe takes us through the inspiration for the instrumentation and narratives of each track.
Kevin’s Walking
I recorded all the guitar parts in a hall down the road from my house, so there is some natural reverb there. The lyrics are inspired by a dog who wanders freely around my neighbourhood, making friends with everyone. This song makes me think of the neighbourhood at sunset, and you are about to skip town.
Maps
I was trying to write a Clean-type guitar riff, like David Kilgour’s licks on the album Vehicle. This is one of our favourites to play live, with the Meadows rhythm section really nailing it down. The lyrics are some psycho-geography of central Victoria. I played a Rickenbacker on the overdubs in the final section with a lot of reverb - Lloyd Meadows did some great production on this one.
Khan Of Khiva
I got obsessed with the history of central Asia and secret agents meeting khans in mystical frontier locations. I had just bought a Hotcake overdrive pedal and gave it a good run on this track. I recorded everything myself with the drums being a loop using scraps from a session for another song that I had to abandon. I love the feedback and the crunchy drive on this number.
Turncoat
Our bass player Josh Meadows reckons that this one is a cross between the Fall and Elvis Costello. There is more espionage inspired by the TV show The Americans and I kept thinking about shady guys with code names making drops in parks. It was a lot of fun playing the fuzzy wah overdub in the last section.
Raven Sentry
This is also set in the local landscape and here I try out a colonial murder ballad. Josh wrote some beautiful melodic bass parts for this inspired by The Field Mice. Lloyd plays some lovely piano in the final section where we jangle off into the hills.
Cacique
This is one of the more psychedelic, Kraut inspired numbers. I came up with the main guitar loop by accident - I took the one decent part of a song that I had abandoned and layered some more guitar parts over it and then started ranting the vocal melody in a nonsensical French accent. We did the main live track in one take.
Malta Kano
This one is about the character from Haruki Murakami’s The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, divining all the waters flowing through Tokyo as she drifts between different dimensions. The images of hotels, trees and wells are drawn from the book. The chuggy bridge part was inspired by Dinosaur Jr., and I wanted it to sound like the well that Mr Wind Up Bird finds himself in. Lloyd did a great job mixing all the guitar textures and feedback. I keep meaning to send Murakami a copy hoping it could become part of his vast record collection.
Invisible Cities
I recorded this all at home. It was a lot of fun making loops with a Count to Five pedal. I was reading the Calvino book Invisible Cities at the time and I kept picturing the different cities with platforms, canyons, cat walks and catacombs. Short loops played forwards then backwards trail off at the end.
I recorded all the guitar parts in a hall down the road from my house, so there is some natural reverb there. The lyrics are inspired by a dog who wanders freely around my neighbourhood, making friends with everyone. This song makes me think of the neighbourhood at sunset, and you are about to skip town.
Maps
I was trying to write a Clean-type guitar riff, like David Kilgour’s licks on the album Vehicle. This is one of our favourites to play live, with the Meadows rhythm section really nailing it down. The lyrics are some psycho-geography of central Victoria. I played a Rickenbacker on the overdubs in the final section with a lot of reverb - Lloyd Meadows did some great production on this one.
Khan Of Khiva
I got obsessed with the history of central Asia and secret agents meeting khans in mystical frontier locations. I had just bought a Hotcake overdrive pedal and gave it a good run on this track. I recorded everything myself with the drums being a loop using scraps from a session for another song that I had to abandon. I love the feedback and the crunchy drive on this number.
Turncoat
Our bass player Josh Meadows reckons that this one is a cross between the Fall and Elvis Costello. There is more espionage inspired by the TV show The Americans and I kept thinking about shady guys with code names making drops in parks. It was a lot of fun playing the fuzzy wah overdub in the last section.
Raven Sentry
This is also set in the local landscape and here I try out a colonial murder ballad. Josh wrote some beautiful melodic bass parts for this inspired by The Field Mice. Lloyd plays some lovely piano in the final section where we jangle off into the hills.
Cacique
This is one of the more psychedelic, Kraut inspired numbers. I came up with the main guitar loop by accident - I took the one decent part of a song that I had abandoned and layered some more guitar parts over it and then started ranting the vocal melody in a nonsensical French accent. We did the main live track in one take.
Malta Kano
This one is about the character from Haruki Murakami’s The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, divining all the waters flowing through Tokyo as she drifts between different dimensions. The images of hotels, trees and wells are drawn from the book. The chuggy bridge part was inspired by Dinosaur Jr., and I wanted it to sound like the well that Mr Wind Up Bird finds himself in. Lloyd did a great job mixing all the guitar textures and feedback. I keep meaning to send Murakami a copy hoping it could become part of his vast record collection.
Invisible Cities
I recorded this all at home. It was a lot of fun making loops with a Count to Five pedal. I was reading the Calvino book Invisible Cities at the time and I kept picturing the different cities with platforms, canyons, cat walks and catacombs. Short loops played forwards then backwards trail off at the end.
Maps is out now.
