Hobart, Tasmania, 2007. True: Julian Teakle, guitarist, singer, library technician, man of note, once of the Frustrations, once of the Bad Luck Charms, has plans for a new band. This time, though, he'll put away the guitar, limit himself to playing some rib-shuddering bass, and leave the singing to Peter Escott, typist, one-time Bad Luck Charms collaborator, and self-described "Mayor Mike Haggar of piano music". Julian's already decided that they are to be named the Native Cats; Peter does not argue with this. The pair get straight to work, although very rarely together. When they do meet, they typically write and demo two or three new songs in the space of an hour. Why don't they meet more often, then? Well: why doesn't the bank just print more money?

They played their first show on Australia Day 2008, enabling them to strike down both colonial imperialism and the Triple J Hottest 100 results in one fell swoop. Their early shows were all played with backing tracks running on a Discman, but the bass vibrations kept making the CD skip. Nowadays they've got a real live drum machine and a Nintendo DS running a Korg emulator that makes everything sound like Contra. They've supported, among others, My Disco, Batrider, Baseball, Naked on the Vague, Clockcleaner, El Guincho, and an art exhibition that, as far as they could tell, consisted entirely of photographs of a television set displaying various different sets of breasts. The Native Cats are a deeply sexual band.

Their first album is called Always On. It runs ragged and rampant through the rapid-fire rave of Be Your Healer, the steel-toed tip-toe of 1000 A.D., the haunted, heavenly scrap-yard of Shovel on Shovel, and the sunny-day Outrun apocalypse drive of The Image of Annie & Ivan. There's a melodica, some piano strings being hit with coins, some Chinese worry balls, some gardening tools, but call it avant-garde and it'll either sulk or slit your throat; front and centre are Julian's primal bass chants and Peter's cornered, last-ditch croon, with a little help from an old Casiotone sped up and set to, let's say, "Bossanova".

Peter hasn't told Julian what any of his lyrics are about. Julian hasn't told Peter where he's copied the bass lines from. Who knows where this magnificent lack of communication could lead?