Specialising in grimy punk that sounds as though it was scraped off a pub floor, the Sydney indie label is celebrating its fifth birthday at the Vivid Live festival. Here are its best releases so far

Given the currency that Australian music has overseas right now, it’s hard to believe Nic Warnock had trouble getting the word out about the first few releases on his DIY label – both at home and abroad. Five years later, R.I.P. Society is still a one-man operation but also an influential showcase for the Aussie underground. Kicking off in 2009 with a 7” single by Circle Pit, the Sydney label saw its profile skyrocket two years later with Royal Headache’s debut album, a word-of-mouth hit that travelled well beyond enthusiasts of lo-fi punk.

Since then Warnock has introduced us to weird and great bands from Hobart, Perth, Brisbane and beyond, establishing a noisy garage and punk aesthetic before dismantling it with more and more interesting releases. A long-time employee of the Sydney record store Repressed, Warnock has also served as director of the Sound Summit, and courted controversy by questioning the actual independence of acts at the 2012 independent music awards – where Royal Headache picked up best independent album.

Ahead of a five-year birthday celebration during Sydney’s Vivid Live festival, we look back on the label’s best releases so far.

1. Kitchen’s Floor – Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress (2009)

The first LP released on R.I.P. Society, this offers up one- and two-minute tunes that take shambling garage to the point of disintegration. Matt Kennedy’s songwriting reliably triggers an extreme emotional response – typically love or hate – on the way to falling apart. Kitchen’s Floor was ground zero for Brisbane’s underground at the time, and this album spawned several other bands plus the mini-festival Deadshits. Here the band borrow the droning vocals and shabby delivery of Beat Happening, charging it with festering noise and a jaded intensity.

2. Royal Headache – Royal Headache (2011)

This is the record that put R.I.P. Society firmly on the map. While an earlier EP started the buzz around the Sydney garage band, this album sent it through the roof. It’s held up well, with vocalist Shogun’s punk yelp and soul flourishes still leaping out from the lo-fi riffing on the Jam and Buzzcocks. Shogun has since left the band, though they’re finishing a follow-up together. Whatever their future, Royal Headache scored global fandom for a record that sounds scraped off a pub floor.

3. Raw Prawn – None Left 7” (2013)

It’s just three songs, but this is one of the label’s finest moments. The dog in shades on the cover doesn’t broadcast seriousness, and neither does the band. It’s shouty garage-punk with a dodgy surf quality to the title tune. Like a lot of Aussie groups, the members of Raw Prawn play in many others too. But it’s hard to match the primitive perfection of this one. It’s patchy, bratty and wildly poppy, spitting out sing-along choruses like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

4. Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys – Ready for Boredom (2013)

A certain puerile abrasiveness comes naturally to a band called Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys. What a surprise, then, how mature this debut album (mostly) is. Slack and anthemic at the same time, it locates the rough-hewn heart of defining indie bands such as the Replacements and Guided By Voices and then pours beer all over it. The hoarse single Any Day Now threatens to unravel into mere clowning around, but then Bite My Tongue comes along, guitars sloshing, to punch you square in the gut.

5. Zond – Zond (2010)

Well, this is just crushing. Zond absorb the choicest bits of psych, punk, shoegaze, krautrock and noise, emitting something else entirely. Their first (and so far only) album starts off like the soundtrack to a vintage Italian horror flick – but quickly descends into a gnashing tumult. There are vocals in there somewhere, although really they’re just another instrument. While you could argue that this record can’t quite match the unpredictability of the Melbourne band live, it sheds as much light on their mysterious, oversaturated sound as we’re likely to get.

6. Holy Balm – It’s You (2012)

Holy Balm may have seemed like a left turn after the garage and punk that R.I.P. Society made its name with, but the Sydney band’s take on dance music is still a direct conversation with the underground. It’s a misfit concoction pairing outdated synths and pallid beats with nonchalant singing. At first the whole package can be jarring, yet it’s oddly hypnotic. Even the band’s daggy exterior can’t hide their melodic gifts.

7. Woollen Kits – Four Girls (2012)

You wouldn’t think scrappy power-pop tunes about gals named Susannah, Cheryl, Sandra and Shelley (thus the album title) would feel so fresh, but Melbourne band Woollen Kits found the perfect friction between springy melodies and frayed urgency on this second LP. If not exactly ambitious, it’s bursting with ropey jangle and haphazardly great choruses.



8. The Native Cats – Dallas (2013)

Hobart duo Julian Teakle and Peter Escott can loosely be classified as post-punk, but really they’re their own genre: one where relentless bass lines, repurposed, handheld videogames and scathing, deadpan lyrics are all that a band needs. Dallas is more punk in spirit than in sound, bottling the Native Cats’ gripping live show. As with most R.I.P. releases, it's firmly planted in the underground but has a real fugitive catchiness to it, like radio hits from the next world over.

9. Golden Staph – Golden Staph (2011)

This Perth band had already decided to part ways before their first album came out, but it certainly deserves preservation; it’s one of the more underrated releases on R.I.P. Society. Fans of the Slits will especially gravitate to Amber Gempton’s animated vocals, while bruisers such as Last Caesar blur the lines between punk, garage and post-punk. Members have since popped up in Diät, Basic Mind and School of Radiant Living, while Gempton can be found in Astral Travel.

10. Ruined Fortune – Ruined Fortune (2014)

Call this the R.I.P. Society house band. Ruined Fortune is the label’s Warnock teaming up with Angela Garrick of Circle Pit, Straight Arrows, Angie and Southern Comfort. Royal Trux fans won’t be disappointed by the results. This is more a sporadic collaboration between close friends than a proper band, yet the pair’s lurching songs are more satisfying than you’d think. Beneath the constant noise and lazy drawl, there’s a burning love of left-of-the-dial rock‘n’roll.

