- Milk Buttons is the new collaborative project between members of two of Brisbane's foremost proponents of forward-thinking indie-pop and rock, Big Dead's Cam Bower and Mosman Alder's Jackson Muir (now residing in Melbourne). Songs For My Butcher Bird is their debut release, the two singer-songwriters trading songs across an EP of five tracks of slightly psychedelic folk-pop. Performed and recorded by the duo with some help from a few musical friends, Butcher Bird recalls classic folk- and psych-pop of decades past while never really feeling retro or 'pastiche'. It shares musical DNA with acts like Wilco, Elliott Smith and the more pastoral, folky corners of the recent psych-pop revival. Single 'Flowers' shares a bit of Jeff Tweedy's recent glam-rock fascination, with its fuzzed out guitars and falsetto backings, while closer 'Flossy Moss' would have fit in perfectly on one of Smith's more ornate records, with its George Harrison-esque sensibility and taseful guitar licks.

Interestingly, the first three songs seem to see the two songwriters trading places: Bower's 'Flowers' could easily be a Mosman Alder song, while 'Another Night' and 'Most Of The Time' could quite easily fit in amongst the more downbeat Big Dead material. The final two songs combine the two contributors' main acts more seamlessly, although all five of the songs share a common core that glues them all together, regardless of which composer is taking the lead. Indeed, the entire record flows beautifully, not always an easy thing to achieve on a) an EP, b) a debut and c) a collaboration. Part of the credit for this must go towards the recording and Bower's immaculate production job – despite much of the music being relatively subdued and even sleepy, the music is given vitality through its technicolour presentation, with constantly changing instrumentation and textures, every spare sonic nook and cranny being filled without making the whole thing feel overstuffed.

It's something of a cliché to say about a debut, but I'm genuinely keen to hear where the duo take things from here, if they do in fact continue with the project. I'd love to hear them take the more experimental aspects even further over the course of a full length. For now, the twenty minutes contained on Songs For My Butcher Bird will have to do.

- Cameron Smith.