Veople: EP_001 | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- Of all the things I was looking for at the end of 2020 (like my immigration visa to New Zealand being approved), a new chapter in the story of post-rock was definitely not one. It’s been written on the Gold Coast too, of all places - who knew? Veople, that’s who.

Or that was sort of the plan, anyway. The manner in which Jay Jermyn and Julian Currie talk about music is often quite abstract and philosophical, with little descriptors like “Veople is an experiential sound and collaboration lingering in the space between tension and release through textural, house-orientated rhythms and electronic production”. Genre gets a look-in, but it’s as though Veople have grander ambitions: to take ideas and filter them through hardware and form, trying to sculpt some elusive effect.

Veople are actually an interdisciplinary outfit, taking in visual and installation elements as part of their “mission statement...to merge the organic and inorganic worlds of art, music and environment”. With a wide-ranging stylistic playbook and strong technical capability, they settle on an interpretation of that screed which involves unstoppable forward momentum and maximum volume, making sure they fill any space they happen to be working in with all the sound and energy they can muster.

It wasn’t always this way. Releasing tracks since 2015, the duo put their eclectic sensibility to different purposes. Citing the influence of makers of thoughtful, cosmopolitan and fusion pop like Digitalism and Tourist, you can hear those sounds quite clearly back on early cuts like Riviera or Distant Bodies. Veople were blending a wide variety of elements but in a way that was easy-going, chill even, replete with James Vincent McMorrow-style heart-throb, singer-songwriter vocals.

More unexpectedly -back then at any rate- the band also selected the euphoric noise-rock of Japandroids as a touchstone but it’s there we start to approach the contemporary intensity of Veople. This process of “trial and error, wild experimentation and progressive change” only ever seems to have increased the sonic pressure of the band. Whatever else they tried, it’s as though volume and forward momentum had to be ratcheted up with each step. This uncompromising approach has driven Veople into unusual territory: a monumental soundscape that is structured by frenetic dance rhythms and given fiery life by an incendiary wall of synth thunder. It has something like the impact of Japandroids, without really being like them. You can say that of quite a few artists: there's a familial connection to the electronically charged post-rock of This Will Destroy You and 65daysofstatic, or the dance maximalism of Dan Deacon and Blanck Mass, but Veople have pushed themselves beyond, to a place where you won’t find many others. It may be surprising, therefore, to hear how often the unusual muse that governs the band’s output will throw hints of other things into the mix, like the Daft Punk quality that -thanks to that vocoder adorning the propulsive dance rock- pervades the blissful Empathy. It caught me offguard, but perhaps Veople’s strongest influence may have been sitting under my nose: their producer for EP_001 is Aussie expat Aaron Cupples and his band Civil Civic do a synth-noise-rock sprint that could go toe-to-toe with Veople; guess I'm adding them to the playlist too.

The track Maverick is named, surprisingly, for the hair salon where Veople held an artshow and filled the space with the wild cacophony of live drumming and shimmering synth. I think it would be a fair bet that space never heard its like before and hasn’t since; but it isn’t just hairdressers experiencing a revelation. Veople’s desire to be harder better stronger faster is a new moment in post-rock, one which fills every nook and cranny of any space open to it, with a new and welcome noise.

- Chris Cobcroft.
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