Dr Sure's Unusual Practice

Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice (DSUP) & Bench Press have teamed up for ‘A Split 7” Between Friends’. The first new record since Bench Press’ ‘Not The Past, Can’t Be The Future’ (Poison City, 2019) and Dr Sure’s ‘Remember The Future?’ (Marthouse/Erste Theke Tontraeger, 2021). The future - it seems - is now, with the arrival of 2 fresh cuts from each band. On September 22, a day ahead of the September 23 7” release, the two bands will co-headline The Nightcat in Naarm/Melbourne.

After touring together in 2019, the 7” is a collaboration a long time in the making from two of Australia’s post-punk heavyweights. Having spent most of the interim on hiatus, Bench Press’ emergence showcases a more layered approach to arrangement than previous offerings while maintaining moments of their typical use of wiry space. DSUP on the other hand have had a prolific 3 years (2 LP’s, a 7” and a Cassette release), establishing themselves as unsuspecting spokespeople for a politically engaged generation.

“One of the most important bands in Melbourne... Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice serves us legitimate questions about coping with living in a time when everything seems to be falling apart around us” - ROLLING STONE AUSTRALIA

Opener 'The Realest' is as topical as we’ve come to expect from DSUP as we reach the precipice of a national rental crisis - the Doc unloading on a ‘middle-man masquerading as a martyr' and likening a landlord to a leech. It’s a lyrical catharsis that most of us (renters) can latch onto, a generational millstone that’s carried into ‘The Great Pacific Garbage Island’. Rhythm section Miranda Holt and Jake Suriano are a rallying force, relentless and motorik, allowing fidgety guitar and synth lines to gradually unwind into controlled chaos.

‘More Than That’ finds Bench Press with a new level of dynamicism as additional guitars and even synths elbow their way into the spaces left by the band’s taut rhythm section which drives faster than ever with drummer Paulo Junior joining the band for this new chapter. Lyrically, vocalist Jack Stavrakis vents about disillusionment and hypocrisy - finding solace in food metaphors on ‘Curdled’ - expressing himself in idiomatic rant which paces the fine line between enraged sincerity and adorable absurdity.

“Bench Press project the wirey minimalism of early Talking Heads and Devo through a lens of heavier late-80s contemporary post-punk in a distinct shade of Melbourne garage.” - STRANGEWORLD RECORDS

'A Split 7" Between Friends' is a co-release between underground advocates Marthouse Records and the iconic Fellaheen Records, their first release since the late 90's. A suprise re-emergence of the label that was once home to Pavement, Beastie Boys, Magic Dirt and more. Preorders available now for a September 23 release.