Driving Past - Real Estate CD

The past five years or so have seen a welcome campaign of revisiting the work of various Australian guitar pop (some may say… jangle) bands of the 90s and very early 00s, with a number of these groups making fairly substantial intergenerational connections on bills. Fairly extensive reissue campaigns around the work of Cat’s Miaow and Hydroplane have entered circulation, both bands are back playing live shows again, and to my knowledge The Cannanes seem to be playing more regularly in Sydney than they have I can remember in my gig-going lifetime.

So why is no-one talking about the criminally underrated Driving Past???

Formed by former Cannanes member David Nichols and the poet Gig Ryan* (one of Oz’s best—why wasn’t I taught her work in school or university???), alongside Andrew Withycombe of Cat’s Miaow and Hydroplane, and Mia Schoen of New Estate (and more recently the excellent Blueprints), the lineup seems ripe for a 20’s revival!

The songs on Real Estate  skitter past the listener; the guitar and drums locked into rhythmic patterns with organ and bass drifting through the mix and Ryan’s idiosyncratic vocals at the forefront, like a meeting of the looseness of The Garbage & The Flowers with the forward momentum of Small World Experience, with a bit of wonkiness that would appeal to fans of Mad Nanna.

Even though some of these members are seeing a contemporary renaissance with their other projects, I suspect that the same renewed interest hasn’t reached Driving Past because (to evoke Nic’s recent review of The Spatulas’ latest LP) these recordings don’t sit within a kind of the twee, atmospheric sensibility favoured by trendy tastemakers with digital radio shows. Music at its honest, vulnerable, and strange best!

–Mitch

*No relation. if you’re wondering.