East Brunswick All Girls Choir

East Brunswick All Girls Choir emerged in the late 2000s amidst Melbourne's strong music scene and promptly marked themselves out from the crowd. Frontman Marcus Hobbs' anguished yowl, and a musical affinity with the noise rock of fellow Australians the Drones, differentiated them from their contemporaries via their debut EP, Dead Air, released in 2009. By the time they released their debut long-player, Seven Drummers, in 2015, the band had come to the attention of Milk! Records, who went on to sign them and issued their second album, Teddywaddy, in 2018. What would become a quartet originally started as Marcus Hobbs' solo project in his native Bendigo. It was there that he first played solo shows before moving to Melbourne and deciding to form a band. The first recruit was Robert Wigley on guitar, who was an acquaintance from Bendigo, before Ria Nakayama joined on bass. Finding a drummer proved to be more difficult, with Hobbs complaining that all the good ones were either already taken or too busy to commit to his band. For the first few years, they went through a series of drummers before Jen Sholakis (Jen Cloher, Orbweavers) eventually joined, making the quartet complete. In 2009 the group self-released their first EP, Dead Air, and they followed it up with 2010's live album Essendon 1986, which was recorded at Auckland's Wine Cellar. Their aptly titled debut album, Seven Drummers, appeared in 2015, and it was around this time that the band signed to Courtney Barnett and Jen Cloher's label Milk!, with the label releasing the album on vinyl later that year. Three years later, East Brunswick All Girls Choir returned with their follow-up, Teddywaddy. As intensely visceral as anything they had recorded to date, the record was co-produced with Anna Laverty (Courtney Barnett, the Peep Tempel). ~ Bekki Bemrose