#minimum chips

[cherrychouchou]

[bandcampsnoop]

9/5/20.

Chapter Music, to me, is a fabled label.  It’s not quite on par with Flying Nun for me, but it’s close.  They’ve released such diverse and amazing sounds for close to 30 years.

Guy Blackman is the founder of Chapter Music and was a key cog in Minimum Chips.  Now he is releasing Thibault, the work of former bandmate Nicole Thibault.  

This is an amazing “comeback” (Nicole had taken time off to raise a family) album.  You can also buy this from Captured Tracks, but the price and shipping are definitely reasonable directly from Chapter Music. I’m going to let the Chapter Music write up tell you the rest:

“Thibault is like if two of my favourite bands, Stereolab and Electrelane, merged together and were made brand new by Nicole’s originality.” - Kathleen Hanna

“Hey turn that up. It’s really good!” - Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz

Nicole’s former band Minimum Chips were a cornerstone of Chapter Music’s fabled 90s roster. For a decade or so, Minimum Chips played Moog-driven motorik pop that made them support band of choice for touring artists like Stereolab, Pavement, Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. Nicole’s vocals, trombone, keyboards and songwriting helped grow a cult mystique around Min Chips that persists to this day.

...Or Not Thibault includes contributions from Zak Olsen (Orb, Traffik Island), Rebecca Liston (Parsnip), Lachlan Denton (The Ocean Party)...

[dougwallen]

Thibault review for The Weekend Australian

[bandcampsnoop]

10/2/17.

Chapter Music’s 20th Anniversary 2 LP set is back up (repressed?), and this gem from Minimum Chips, “Jolly Jumper” is the first I’d ever heard of this band.  Upon further snooping, I found this release on Bandcamp (from 2005, but if you check on Discogs you’ll find releases going all the way back to the mid-1990s).  I think Chapter Music describes the sound as lo-fi jazz pop.  I can’t say I hear lo-fi, but there is a loungy pop feel here.

It reminds me of the sound current bands like Totally Mild, Forever Pavot, and Julien Gasc (the last two are French bands).  The vocals and the music’s feel also remind me of some of the finer moments from Speed The Plough or The Trypes.

I think this CD was originally released on Trifekta Records, but you can now get it through the Chapter Music store.

[bruteforcebeerlove]

Beer:  Minimum Chips Lager by Matilda Bay

Draught/Bottle/Can:   Draught

Purchased From:  The St Kilda Branch

First Impression:  Not terrible.  Tasted a bit like the Stella Artois but nowhere near as revolting.  It actually tastes... pale is honestly the best word for it I have.  It’s quite light, and while it’s not particularly bitter, it’s also not particularly complex, so there’s not a lot to offset what bitterness it does have.

As It Goes:  Like all my beer experiences so far, it tasted worse as you drank it.  However Minimum Chips is notable for having a much steeper descent than my other experiences.   It starts out “yeah, not too terrible” but halfway down the glass I was wondering why god had abandoned me.

One interesting thing I noticed about Minimum Chips is that it goes down best slowly.  The longer I waited between mouthfuls, the better it tasted.  If I drank a lot of it in quick succession, the taste got worse.  So clearly it’s a sipping beer.

By The End:  My partner had gotten me a glass of coke zero to have after my beer, since we were eating dinner (eyyy $10 parma night!) and I was likely to want another drink and I tell you what, the last quarter of this beer was me just bribing myself with “if you finish the beer, then you can have coke and wash this horrible taste out of your mouth.”

Minimum Chips also had the worst aftertaste of my beer experiences so far.  It was like a mild case of morning breath.  So having it with food or with another drink afterwards is probably the best way to do it.

Overall:  Look, I’m not going to be rushing out to drink this one again, but if it was all that was on offer I could probably handle it.  As long as I drank it slowly.  Although then I suppose I’d run into the problem of it warming up and ugh.

[wpalms]

minimum chips - goodbye

go listen to this all the time

[vortura]

Here's one of my favourite songs from Melbourne band Minimum Chips. Many write them off as sounding too much like Stereolab, but if you dig in a little they are so much more than that. Great songwriting and guitar work, fits right alongside fellow Australian bands like Small World Experience and Sandpit. This track is from their 2004 compilation CD Portfolio.

[oxide-joyride]

Goodbye - Minimum Chips I just about died laughing when I heard the name of this Aussie band, right up there with Oroton Bags, and Johnnie and the Johnnie Johnnies