STRANGERS FROM NOW ON

From the moment opening track Midnight Town, punched my eardrums, a thousand adjectives leaped into my head. Like images, pictures, visions. Dense, hallucinatory, suspenseful, haunting, crazed, poetic, neurotic, mesmerising.

A grotesque, Berlin-ish, allegorical film noir. Dark, disturbing and beautiful.

Thumping, crashing drums from Miranda Holt, Dan Myle’s obscure droning bass, Aidan Kelly’s psychotic, discordant guitar and the evocative, frantic gasping and shrieking from vocalist Gabriel Santos.

Intriguing, exciting, foreboding. Like eerie black clouds rolling in.. heavy, ominous. Waiting, waiting for that crack of thunder, that flash of lightning. BOOM.

The four ‘strangers’ formed in Melbourne in 2010. Early this year they blitzed it at All Tomorrows Parties alongside The Drones, My Bloody Valentine and Beasts Of Bourbon.

Strangers From Now On tease and taunt, lure you in, take you on a schizophrenic roller-coaster ride and hurl you into a chaotic yet beautiful abyss.

Midnight Town feels like manicured nails scratching seductively, dangerously, down a blackboard … or down your back. - Blank Gold Coast

Melbourne based STRANGERS FROM NOW ON recently released their Self-Titled debut EP, with the single ‘Midnight Town’ heading the charge. Describing themselves as drunken noise to quiet grace, Robyn Morrison caught up with guitarist Aidan Kelly to probe further into their musical world.
As we kick off our chat, Kelly explains this EP has seen the band working 12 hour days to produce the final product. And if you’ve heard the EP, you’ll nod when I say all that hard work has paid off. “It’s kinda good to have it all done,” says Kelly, with relief. “When we released that (our older EP), we recorded that and got that out in a rush when we started the band, just so we had some kind of material. That being the case, we didn’t have the time or the facilities to release it properly. Now we have a partnership with MGM, we have the ability to release it in states other than Victoria.”
According to Kelly, their older material was much more their vocalist’s (Gabriel Santos) concept. “He would bring the ideas and the bones of the songs that we’d all work on together. Since then, we’ve grown as a band and we’ve developed skill-wise. Now, when we write a song, any one of us could bring it. It’s pretty even. It’s much more of a collaborative thing now.”
‘Midnight Town’ received a lot of positive feedback according to Kelly, and that’s how it became the EP’s lead single. “My favourite songs are the noisy ones but trying to put 10 minutes of noise on the radio doesn’t really work. A lot of the ideas come from sporadic inspiration. So far it’s been positive for us. The EP is a lot more diverse than just that track but it’s a good idea, a good start.
“The main thing that people talk about us, at least in a live sense, is the dynamic changes – from loud to quiet,” continues Kelly. “You get a good response from that when doing it live. We just love playing and we’re going to try to play as much as we can.”
STRANGERS FROM NOW ON Self-Titled EP is now out via MGM. - SF Media

- The only thing to hate about the Strangers From Now On EP is how little of it there is. Dark and focused, there is so much potential in this four track promise that you can’t help wondering what a full release might contain.

Melbourne quartet Strangers From Now On inhabit a strange genre limbo. Working a blend of spartan garage instrumentals, dark rock refrains and powerful, directed, yet sometimes subdued vocals, they manage to carve their own niche somewhere between the likes of Nick Cave and Portishead. The EP as a whole manages to evoke a slew of influences without letting itself be anchored by them. Shades of Jack White, Tool, PJ Harvey and Jeff Buckley flit throughout the tracks, making themselves known but never as more than the shadows of the past.

Lead singer, Gabriel Santos slides his voice effortlessly between the feminine innocence of a breathy ingenue and the lashing unpredictable rage of driven angst. The effect is a snappy juxtaposition that always feels purposeful, where even the violent outbursts are smooth and evocative. The rest of the band, guitarist Aidan Kelly, drummer Miranda Holt and Bassist Daniel Myles, perform admirably, crafting exquisite scenery for Santos to drape his lyrics upon. Melancholic and enthusiastic, the instrumentals here manage to be both delicate and aggressive, never straddling a line but swinging themselves over it repeatedly with perfect timing and an understanding of silence as simply another tool.

Formed in 2010, it’s a pity that Strangers From Now On haven’t put together a full release yet. What we’ve been given so far is an amazing promise and a niggling itch, hopefully one that will be scratched before too long, because this is more than just an debut worth listening to, this is a band to watch out for.

- Nic Addenbrooke. - 4ZZZ (102.1FM)

.....Before all the sweat and swearing took hold, the (All Tomorrows Parties) festival was opened by the completely unknown (to me at least) Strangers From Now On. It’s not often that I’m utterly enthralled by a band first time out but the mix was top-drawer, carving clean spaces around Gabriel Santos’ allusions to sexual violence; evocative lyricisms sat atop the rhythm section’s (Miranda Holt and Daniel Myles) always grooving swamp-stomp. Santos’ vocal style teeters on the edge of histrionic without ever spilling over into the ridiculous. Neatly placed screams and yelps never seemed forced or contived. The swirling echo of Aidan Kelly’s guitar lassoed things tight to Lynchian-nightmare motifs. Dramatic,captivating stuff and easily the finest thing I saw all day. Yes, they even bested Ben Frost.

I muttered to a friend that Strangers From Now On probably wouldn’t translate that well to record. I was wrong. Way wrong. Their 2011 EP is four slices of neatly-distilled drama that owes more to Californian desert towns than the band’s Melbourne homeland.

Grab the EP for $4 from Strangers From Now On’s bandcamp page. Bandcamp means you get the choice of both lossy and lossless formats. Thumbs up. Go on. $4 – that’s the cost of a cup of coffee fercrissakes.

Otherwise, tight-arses can grab three MP3s – including one not on the aforementioned EP – from their Triple J Unearthed page.

Strangers From Now On. What a find. - DAR : John Drako

.....with Strangers From Now On first up on Stage 2, a dark and comfortably air-conditioned bar space which is easily the festival’s preferred venue and a sanctuary from the scorching heat. The local four-piece get a positive response from the early arrivals, with their slug-like crawl of a sound conjuring thoughts of Tiny Tim fronting Berlin-era Birthday Party, as frontman Gabriel Santos’s voice moves from tremulous croon to enraged scream over the course of a track (best scream of the day, perhaps?). - Mess and Noise

Midnight Town sounds like music made by the cast of Draculas themed restaurant. Still, this unapologetic gothic rock melodrama is actually really successful, if taken as performance art rather than pop. In the same way that Nick Cave once wrote lurid, convincing pulp characters into his songs, these guys have created an androgynous, neurotic sex-pot in a world of sleaze, and their schtick is fairly seamless. - Beat Magazine. (Simone Ubaldi)

"Even as they revel in their own Ugly, the delivery of the melodrama has a sincerity to it. You are carried along, almost in spite of yourself".
Ross Clelland

Let's start with their Bandcamp descriptors: ‘alternative beautiful heavy post-punk sexual violent Melbourne'. Yep, about covers it. Strangers make scarecrow-haired, lurching-out-of-a-St Kilda-alley-blues traceable back to when Nick Cave was still working out one end of a needle from the other. Gabriel Santos' pitches are somewhere between whimper and hysteria as Porajmos' repeated pleas to “Kiss me till we die…” bounce off the walls. And yet, even as they revel in their own Ugly, the delivery of the melodrama has a sincerity to it. You are carried along, almost in spite of yourself. - The Music.com.au

Strangers From Now On are a 4 piece alt-rock band from my hometown of Melbourne. Bassist Dan Myles sat down for a chat about the band, the music and everything in between on the eve of their December 5th show in Melbourne at Boney.

Who are Strangers From Now On?
Ex-lovers who left things irresolvable, the person next to you on the tram, awkward one night stands, old friends that fall by the wayside, the jerk from the bar last weekend, the people you meet traveling and never see again. Either way… an odd name for a band

Describe your music in a tweet
One of our first reviews described as us as an “androgynous, neurotic sex-pot in a world of sleaze.” More or less appropriate…

How was the experience of recording your EP?
The first EP was recorded some time ago, at the time we only had the money for half a day in a studio. In the end some of the tracking was done in Gab’s garage, some warehouse in Footscray and with Mic Letho at his home studio in Elsternwick. Mic was fantastic and really patient in running us through the mixing process, which was a first for me at the time. We were really very lucky to have his help on it and he managed to create something out of such piecemeal tracks.

We have actually just finished recording our second EP a few weeks ago. This time around we had worked hard to get the resources for more studio time which made a real difference. We were also keen to work with a producer throughout the whole process and got in touch with Lindsay Gravina at Birdland studios.

Having the time to work through some the songs in the studio and transform them a little with Lindsay allowed us to squeeze a little more life out of them. There were a few moments of surprise as old and new tracks came out sounding better than you had expected. We had a week of tracking and then a couple of days mixing, though a lot of the work behind a recording comes in the weeks before you get into the thick of recording. There are a number of tracks in their from our recent live set, but we also put two new ones together in the weeks leading up to recording. It’s set for a release early next year, it will be exciting to move past the first EP and on to new things!

Tell us about your song-writing process...
Our process usually begins at rehearsal just playing until something interesting starts to stick. Gab and Aidan have both been spending a lot more time tinkering with synths and that’s certainly changed the way the songs are coming out. We are spending more time in our bedrooms as Aidan fiddles with filters building the skeletons for songs and synth parts which we then all work on developing the song around. The newer stuff has come out of a lot of evenings like this.

As for the inspiration for the lyrical material you’d have to ask Gab to get the whole truth. But I think for him, like for a lot of writers, his lyrics are often abstractions of real life problems he has been experiencing. Thematically there is a focus on the darker aspects of sexual politics and human relationships; guilt and shame, dominance and submission, gluttony these sorts of things.

How long have you known each other? How did you all meet?
Some years now, we all met through mutual friends, gigs the usual sort of things. Miranda joined us after trying out for a mates band and we all became fast friends, we’ve traveled together and spend a fair bit of time with each other. We’re all pretty close these days.
What should the audience expect from your live shows?
We all like to get a bit crazy, it’s a really positive way to blow off steam in a way that people seem to appreciate. We really enjoy dynamics, going from wild and loud to tense and quite, that sort of thing can be really effective in a live situation.

If you could ask for anything in your rider, what would it be? What do you currently ask for?
Usually it’s just a pint or two of whatever is on tap, nothing fancy. There’s this little cafe where we often all eat called Sonido, I’m sure we’d all be happy with an unlimited supply of their Arepas!

What music did you grow up listening to?
A generous helping of great Australian music Nick Cave, Rowland Howard and the Go-Betweens, more or less what you would expect listening to the first EP I guess. Then there’s your average Neil Young, Pixies kind of fare.

What music are you listening to right now?
I’ve been really enjoying the new Darkside album.

What’s next on the cards for Strangers From Now On?
We have our last Melbourne show for the year coming up on December 5th at Boney. We have some time off over summer before releasing our second EP early next year. It’s exciting, the new EP is a bit more restrained and moody than the last and it will be interesting to see if whatever audience we have will follow us on it. We are certainly ready for new things! - String of Events

Over the course of these four songs, the band aligns itself with the current post-punk revival. Unlike similar bands, however, SFNO have a secret weapon that makes them more than a mere genre retread – Gabriel Santos, their expressive frontman. That’s not a dig at the rest of the band; the rhythm section is tight and hits hard, and the reverb-soaked guitar work of Aidan Kelly is enigmatic enough to keep things constantly interesting. But this is Santos’ show. His is a style that lands somewhere between Brett Anderson from Suede and Timmy Taylor from Brainiac, and he performs with more charisma than any singer from the original crop of post-punk bands. Opener ‘Midnight Town’ proves it. It’s a reverb-heavy, blues-based groove, with Santos using the music as a bed for his schizoid flights of fancy. Whispering “fuck me” before the solo, then breathing heavily over it doesn’t help dispel the notion that he’s the star. ‘Ugly’ then follows, which sees Santos shouting the title hysterically and repeatedly throughout the chorus, pummelling it to the ground. The last two songs aren’t as thrilling as the opening two, but they aren’t bad either. They’re helped by the fact that, for a debut EP, the production is surprisingly close to perfect. After these 15 minutes fly by, you’re left thinking what SFNO want you to think – how long until we hear more? - See more at: http://www.thebrag.com/music/strangers-now-strangers-now#sthash.SR1vGiC3.dpuf - The Brag

Describing themselves as an “androgynous, neurotic sex-pot in a world of sleaze”, Strangers From Now On are making dark and dirty waves in the Melbourne music scene. With their first official self-titled EP release under their belt, the foursome are already well on the way to smashing out another. Despite the drug raid/paramedic training exercise going on outside his place for the duration of the interview, Vulture managed to swap some decent words with guitarist Aidan Kelly.

VM: Hey hey hey! Congratulations on the EP, it’s killer! Have you had a lot of feedback?

SFNO: Yeah! Well actually this EP is a re-release or the first “official” release of one we did. It’s almost two years old now, I think, but it’s kinda all part of a wider setup for our next one which we just finished recording. When we first did it, we were a very new band and it didn’t get its proper audience, so now it’s done through the distribution label and I guess a lot more people will hear it.

VM: How do you feel, this early on, being compared to artists like Nick Cave?

SFNO: I dunno… it’s nice. I mean, obviously they’re big influences on us, but they’re also very intense artists. I like to think our work is a bit more light-hearted.

VM: You played at All Tomorrow’s Parties not long ago. What was that like?

SFNO: Yeah, we played with a bunch of bands – a handful of our favourite bands in the world, including My Bloody Valentine and The Drones. It was probably one of the most exciting things we’ve done. I think we met most of them but it was always in these weird kinda after-party situations where either we were too drunk or they were too drunk or they were being swamped by people.

VM: You guys have some pretty dark lyrics at times, which is great but, you know, your parents might be at your gigs and suddenly you’re singing lyrics like, “I want to fuck you.” … What does your mum think?

SFNO: Well my mum comes to nearly every gig I play! (ed: kewwwt!) I think I probably owe most of any kind of musical influence I have to her own taste, so she doesn’t mind at all. I find it funny telling the people on the door to write her down on the list. I won’t give them her name – I make her say “Mum” to get in.

VM: Are there plans for an album?

SFNO: Hopefully! I think the aim is to get into production as soon as possible, so we’ll head back into the studio as soon as we get the chance to… as soon as we get the money back together…So, yeah, an album or an EP.

VM: You started off with just two of you jamming and now you’re a fun-filled four piece. How has your sound changed across the last few years?

SFNO: When we started it was a lot of Portishead and stuff, almost even trip-hop. And I think over the years the electronic aspect of that has kinda come out a bit more. On the new EP there’ll be a lot more synths and samples and stuff like that. - Cat Wall

Strangers From Now On aren’t particularly fazed by their likening to bands such as The Birthday Party, Portishead and The Drones. There’s simply no time for them to be bothered by comparisons. Having played their inaugural set at All Tomorrow’s Parties in February, the Melbourne four-piece have been kept well and truly busy by the release of their first EP and preparations for their second. Vocalist and guitarist Aidan Kelly discusses their upcoming EP and explains why their newly-released EP is not so new after all.

Describing the feedback so far for the self-titled EP’s as “glowing”, Kelly elaborates on the belated process of its official release.

“It’s been re-released. We recorded it [two] years ago now but it was at the start of our life as a band so it never really got a full release… we didn’t do it officially through a distribution label or anything. So we sold it at shows and stuff, and we had a much smaller following back then.”

Since it’s creation two years ago, the songs on the EP have remained unaltered. The long time gap between the EPs has allowed Strangers From Now On to undertake a “natural progression to add an extra layer in”, shifting their sound to include more “synthesizers and stuff”. On the progress of the EP which is due to be released in February, Kelly explains that it is almost completed.

“There are a couple of minor things we still need to do like mastering and stuff but the product itself is finished.. It’s kind of exciting but strange having the completed project next to us that we can’t really show anyone yet.”

Kelly does not mind the band’s frequent comparisons to other bands, siting Portishead as an act who they are frequently compared to; “a lot of people have said Portishead, especially the way Gabbie [Santos]’s voice sounds sometimes.”

“It’s great, I mean obviously everybody learns from other people and gets inspiration from other people, so there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Earlier this year the band played to a “completely packed out” room at All Tomorrow’s Parties. Kelly remembers the set as their best show of the year, commenting that the gig “could not have gone any better”. Since February, Strangers From Now On have gone up and down the east coast and are preparing to do it all again. Perth, however, is not yet on the cards.

“I’ve lived with a lot of people from Perth and a lot of my good friends are from Perth, so I feel like I’ve been there… but it’s just so expensive. It costs more to go to Perth from Melbourne than it does to go to New Zealand sometimes. It’s ridiculous! “ Strangers From Now On will recommence touring to promote their next EP following a rest over Christmas. They play at Boney on Thursday December 5th and at The Factory Theatre in Sydney on December 6th. Buy tickets to the Boney show HERE. - NIAMH CROSBIE

Forming in 2010, noisy Melbourne four-piece Strangers From Now On have quickly developed an underground reputation as a must-see live act. Known for their acrid jams and the sheer unpredictability of their gigs, the outfit form a bridge between the noise rock of past and present.

Garnering comparisons to everybody from the early days of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds to The Jesus & Mary Chain and Rowland S Howard, the outfit unveiled their self-titled debut EP last month, which served as the declaration of arrival for a unique and confronting new band.

Ahead of their official EP launch, we spoke to bass player Dan Myles, who told us about the process behind recording the EP, what the band have coming up for fans, and what it was like playing a game of pool with Bilinda Butcher and Debbie Googe of My Bloody Valentine.

Music Feeds: You guys have quickly developed a reputation as a raucous live act, how much of that would you say translated into your debut EP?

Dan Myles: Not so much to be honest, I think we have always been more confident with our live set than with our first EP. It’s hard to carry the kind of energy you can create in a live show and put it on a record. You can get away with a lot more in a live show. Perhaps it’s best to think of the two things as entirely different mediums. You shouldn’t be trying to recreate the live set but rather just create the best recording you can. That’s certainly the attitude we have taken whilst working on the next EP.

MF: Can you describe the recording process behind your debut?

DM: It’s actually been quite some time since we recorded that EP. At the time we had very little resources and only had a half day in a studio, other than that we did some of the tracking in Gab’s garage, a warehouse in Footscray and with Mic Letho at his home studio in Elsternwick. We spent a lot of time with Mic throughout the mixing process, he was really patient in guiding us through each painstaking step. It was very much a first time type of effort. We have actually just finished recording our second EP and there was much more in the way of process the second time around. We spent more time in the studio and in pre-production, demoed a number of the tracks before getting to the studio and spoke at length about what worked and what didn’t. It’s a skill and definitely feels like we are developing more of a process each time we go through it. Each time there is more preparation and more of an understanding of what works in a recording environment and what doesn’t.

MF: Was there any difficulty in putting down some of the more acrid and non-conventional sounds that make up such an integral part of your live set?

DM: You get a good chance to tweak things, and play around as the recordings are mixed which is always fun, but on the whole not so much. Those sounds really come together at rehearsal, once performed and rehearsed endless times they are easy enough to recreate in the studio.

MF: You guys have drawn many comparisons to the early days of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. How valid are these comparisons? What are some of the other influences on the band? Your lead single Midnight Town, for example, sounds like it has some country shuffle behind it.

DM: We have all listened to an enormous amount of Nick Cave, from the The Boy’s Next Door to The Birthday Party through to Grinderman, so it’s not surprising it comes through in the music. We are also huge fans of Rowland S. Howard, which is probably even more apparent. More recently we have had less of a focus on that kind of sound though and it feels like things are probably shifting away from that influence a bit.

MF: Word is you guys are already back in the studio. Does songwriting come easy to the group? How does a Strangers From Now On track form?

DM: Yeah we just finished recording our second EP a few weeks ago. This time around we had worked hard to get the resources for more studio time and had the pleasure of working with Lindsay Gravina at Birdland Studios. Lindsay has worked with a number of our favourite Australian artists and it’s been an incredible opportunity working with someone with such a wealth of experience.

As for the ease of songwriting, it’s yes and no. We have gone through months where we have scrapped dozens of ideas and then there are those times when the song seemingly writes itself and comes together in moments. Often the songs start to take on a life of their own, they really pull you in a certain direction and the track comes out easily enough. It often feels that way when you are writing something you really connect with.

Our process usually begins at rehearsal; we’ll just start playing something and slowly it will come together into an idea. From there you go away, come back, go away etc. If the song wants to live you get a feeling that you really want to play it again. More recently Gab and Aidan have both been spending a lot more time tinkering with synths and that’s certainly changed the way the songs are coming out. We are spending more time in our bedrooms as Aidan builds synth sounds and we discuss how the structure should come out, then we’ll take it to rehearsal work out the problems, correct them and whittle it down like that step by step. The newer stuff has definitely come out of a process more like this.

MF: What role would you say Melbourne plays in the band? Is there something inherently dirty and raw about Melbourne rock & roll?

DM: Melbourne has played a huge role in allowing us to play music. We are so lucky to live in a city where you can get a gig as a reasonably inexperienced band, draw a crowd and get paid for it. That’s really rare and very special. We developed everything we do by playing these small venues and connecting with the people who go there. If we ever end up doing anything of note it will be thanks to these small music venues.

There’s more to that actually, because Melbourne has this amazing small venue music scene there is a great community of bands that form up around these areas. We have all learnt a massive amount from the bands we have shared bills with. It’s such a shame that these venues seem to be struggling so much in recent years as they are right at the heart of what makes Melbourne so special.

MF: Can you describe your All Tomorrow’s Parties experience for us?

DM: Wow yeah, that was fun! It came completely out of nowhere. We had been more or less on hiatus for some months when we got the call. I remember wanting to squeal like a child when I heard the news, in fact I’m pretty sure I did. The opportunity to play to a bigger room to that kind of crowd was fantastic and free tickets to a festival with one of the best bills I’ve ever seen. Wow. We also met our current manager after that show and she has been really great in the last few months in bringing things together and really opening doors for us. It really was a kind of turning point.

MF: Was there anything you took away from watching or hanging out with some of the other ATP bands?

DM: Oh yeah, so many of the performances that day completely blew me away. The Drones are always amazing and despite having been a punter at a handful of their shows they always impress me. Swans were really great, though we all could have done with the air-conditioning that day. Einstürzende Neubauten were easily the highlight of the festival, just one of the best gigs I have ever seen in my life. Also playing a game of pool with Bilinda Butcher and Debbie Googe of My Bloody Valentine was lovely, one of those, “I can’t believe this is real” moments.

MF: You’ll soon be launching the EP at Boney in Melbourne. What can fans and newcomers expect from the gig?

DM: We have a handful of new songs in the set now, all of which we have just recorded and will be on the next EP. The new songs are a little more restrained and brooding and are a good indication of where we are headed with our sound. It’s also the night before my birthday and our final show in Melbourne for the year so I’m sure we will all be celebrating and keen to play a wild set.

MF: What do Strangers From Now On have planned for 2014?

DM: We will be releasing our second EP early in the year, and will hopefully be up and down the East Coast on a tour to support it. We’ll also be back in the studio again before the year is out to record our third EP. It should be a fun year! - Greg Moskovitch

Next were Strangers From Now On, a band who've found considerable buzz on gigs alone. As of writing there are no songs available anywhere online, so in this single instance this reviewer encourages you to believe the hype, just this once. Of the many things that are exciting about Strangers From Now On is that they're so new- despite having played only a handful of gigs they sound like a band that's been together for years. All their songs have a palpable energy, a force behind even the quietest moments that compel everyone in the room to shut up and listen. This is in no small part due to enigmatic front man Gabriel Santos, who whispers, shrieks and wails like a man possessed, and one who's having all the fun in the world because of it. Guitarists Aidan Kelly and Tyson Slithers provide a cavalcade of swirling guitars and otherworldly sounds, creating feelings of both excitement and menace which is not unlike finding blue food in the wild. Miranda Holt rounds out the four piece with an expressive drumming style that also helps ground some of the more freeform sections. These guys have everything necessary to get really big, so go see a show now so you can tell your grandkids you were there at the beginning. - AU Review

Saturday marks the launch of the first EP from Melbourne band Strangers From Now On. This is exciting for many reasons. The first being that the band, made up of four musically talented individuals, takes some of its inspiration from artists such as Portishead, Nick Cave, Roland S. Howard and the later work of Leonard Cohen. Sometimes it's a band's dashing looks and disregard of savoir-faire that stokes the inner groupie in each of us. More rarely, however, it's the fact that the band is unlike any other on the Melbourne gig circuit right now. Be prepared for total enchantment. - AC - Three Thousand