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 Cursing at the wind, mud-spitting DENIS SEMCHENKO braves the dust storm to catch up with the similarly afflicted BUTCHER BIRDS’ guitar-slinger JACINTA WALKER.
Wednesday September 23, 2009. Having woken up to the sight of an unearthly, yellowish glow outside my window, it takes me some time to realise Brisbane was gripped by a dust storm that had blanketed Sydney just earlier and travelled north. Come the afternoon, the atmosphere is positively eerie and somewhat Martian, the orange skies over the city bringing to mind the 2003 bushfires in Canberra (which I, being an ACT resident at the time, had witnessed in person as the fire had stopped barely 50 metres away from our then house). Coughing and sneezing profusely, I walk through the largely deserted Valley thinking that if there’s any freak nature event NSW can do, QLD does it slightly less impressively but no less annoyingly; over coffees at the Cosmo’s, blonde-topped Butcher Bird Jacinta Walker shares my notion and complains of a sore, dusty throat before we begin the interview.
“It took some time finding a new drummer and writing songs – and in addition to that, getting the money together was a little bit difficult,” she lists the reasons BB’s long-awaited debut LP Set My Bones took so long to materialise following the Eat Their Young EP release in 2006. “Also, everyone’s kinda busy and we all play in other bands … in the future, we’d like to release more frequently and we’ve been talking about releasing something next year after recording it over a couple of days – getting it out there a lot quicker than this album.”
Dripping with saturated crunch and fuzz, Set My Bones is an uncompromising sludge-pop record that is 100% Butcher Birds, its wall-of-sound guitar bluster overseen by local rock producer du jour Jeff Lovejoy and approved by Triple J tastemaker Richard Kingsmill.
“I think we’re a still a small Brisbane band – I mean, we have toured a couple of times, but it’s kinda hard to say if we’re going to have any luck … although my mum actually texted me and said she heard us on Triple J last night!” she reveals. “Jo [Nilson], our bass player, checked it out today and apparently they played us on Home & Hosed; it would be nice if people bought our album so we could record and tour again.”
The arrival of drummer Donovan Miller (whose sticksmanship and vocal talents – albeit on one song for the latter – got a wide showcase at last year’s Sounds Of Spring) in 2008 having solidified the 75% female collective, Butcher Birds are taking Set My Bones on the road, with a hefty bunch of dates to chalk off before Christmas.
“Our launch is on Saturday and the week after we’re in Sydney, and the week after we’re in Melbourne, and then we’re coming back for The Valley Fiesta … and then two weeks after that we’ve got Merenoise Meltdown, which is kinda like our record label’s Christmas party,” Jacinta fires off. “That one will be our last show of the year, but we’ve got around ten shows before then.”
BUTCHER BIRDS launch their debut album at The Zoo this Sat Oct 3, with locals Loomer and Dirtybird supporting. SET MY BONES is out now through Merenoise/MGM.
   
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