The gleeful darkness, brick hard edges, raw eerie softness of "Uncl Grl" by Sydney- Australia's uncle / niece duo NEIS, and from their debut album Doghouse that dropped on July 24th (2026), wraps around you like a perplexing but magnetic A24 film trailer. The horror pop synths, the bottom percussive pounding like fists on a door, the manic guitar both distorted and muted, bell sounds like a child's toy instrument and Stella Red's evocative vocal countenance like a collision of post punk and twee with Jack Wotton's mirrored vocal as a counterpointed sort of spoken word anchor, tugs at you and seems to scream to me from the past, maybe like ghosts. AND while making a musical comparison is difficult this sound experience did make me feel like NEIS (at least from this bite) is adjacent to Siouxsie And The Banshees (Song From The Edge Of The World 1987) or Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart 1980 or Diamanda Galás ("Let's Not Chat About Despair" 1988) or Bauhaus (She's In Parties 1983) or Suburban Lawns (Gossip 1981) or 10,000 Maniacs (Hey Jack Kerouac 1987) or Mazzy Star (Halah 1990), or maybe more to the point and amalgam of all of them together as a spiritual or artistic attitudinal connection.
I don't know if what I just expressed makes any sense and I suppose that doesn't matter. What is definite is that NEIS whether a ghostly apparition feels different and crafts a sound that might well haunt you long after you experience it.
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):
[NEIS is a multi-generational collision between Sydney underground experimentalist Jack Wotton (Big White, Jacky & The Wunderz) and his luminescent niece, Stella Red. Written in domestic isolation in an Ashfield shoebox apartment—or in their words, the Doghouse—on a diet of vintage drum machines and over-collected hardware, their debut album is a masterclass in "cooked" Sydney electronics where the machinery is pushed until it starts to buckle.
Eschewing both the clinical polish of modern pop and the laid-back tropes of dub, Doghouse is defined by a relentless, nervous energy. Wotton builds a rhythmic architecture that is skeletal and driving, anchored by a motorik pulse that feels both ancient and futuristic. It’s a sound of heavy hiss, saturated synths, and wiry guitars that slice through the static. Stella Red provides the crystalline, detached counterweight, cutting through Wotton's dense textures with a clarity that recalls the best of 90s synth and modern experimental Lo-Fi. Together, they have crafted an album that feels like a late-night drive through a neon-lit and decaying Sydney—equal parts driving energy and atmospheric haze.
All music written and performed by Jacky Wotton and Stella Red except Clay Pidgeons written by Blaze Foley. Recorded, mixed by, mastered by Cody Munro Moore and Mikey Young.
Released on vinyl 2026. Pressed on black vinyl in an edition of 200.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5hmatNBXDUItnJJ4fBLCQD
https://unclegirl.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/getaneis
Born in the Doghouse true to the world
"A bit like how New Order might have sounded if they collaborated with The Jesus & Mary Chain and they did a bunch of drugs in a dark, dingy, underground nightclub, this is edgy, exciting stuff." — Start Track
"Ever wondered what Nick Cave jamming with Alice Glass in a Berlin dive bar at four in the morning would sound like? NEIS are all that and more." — AnalogueTrash
NEIS is a multi-generational collision between Sydney underground experimentalist Jack Wotton (Big White, Jacky & The Wunderz) and his luminescent niece, Stella Red. Written in domestic isolation in an Ashfield shoebox apartment—or in their words, the Doghouse—on a diet of vintage drum machines and over-collected hardware, their debut album is a masterclass in "cooked" Sydney electronics where the machinery is pushed until it starts to buckle.
Eschewing both the clinical polish of modern pop and the laid-back tropes of dub, Doghouse is defined by a relentless, nervous energy. Wotton builds a rhythmic architecture that is skeletal and driving, anchored by a motorik pulse that feels both ancient and futuristic. It’s a sound of heavy hiss, saturated synths, and wiry guitars that slice through the static. Stella Red provides the crystalline, detached counterweight, cutting through Wotton's dense textures with a clarity that recalls the best of 90s synth and modern experimental Lo-Fi. Together, they have crafted an album that feels like a late-night drive through a neon-lit and decaying Sydney—equal parts driving energy and atmospheric haze.
All music written and performed by Jacky Wotton and Stella Red except Clay Pidgeons written by Blaze Foley. Recorded, mixed by, mastered by Cody Munro Moore and Mikey Young.
Released on vinyl 2026. Pressed on black vinyl in an edition of 200.
NEIS, Sydney Australia, uncle / niece duo, experimental rock, post punk, freak folk, alt rock, abstract rock, raw, unfiltered, debut album "Doghouse", featured single "Uncl Grl, evocative vocal sound, machine beats,
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5hmatNBXDUItnJJ4fBLCQD
https://unclegirl.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/getaneis
Born in the Doghouse true to the world
"A bit like how New Order might have sounded if they collaborated with The Jesus & Mary Chain and they did a bunch of drugs in a dark, dingy, underground nightclub, this is edgy, exciting stuff." — Start Track
"Ever wondered what Nick Cave jamming with Alice Glass in a Berlin dive bar at four in the morning would sound like? NEIS are all that and more." — AnalogueTrash
NEIS is a multi-generational collision between Sydney underground experimentalist Jack Wotton (Big White, Jacky & The Wunderz) and his luminescent niece, Stella Red. Written in domestic isolation in an Ashfield shoebox apartment—or in their words, the Doghouse—on a diet of vintage drum machines and over-collected hardware, their debut album is a masterclass in "cooked" Sydney electronics where the machinery is pushed until it starts to buckle.
Eschewing both the clinical polish of modern pop and the laid-back tropes of dub, Doghouse is defined by a relentless, nervous energy. Wotton builds a rhythmic architecture that is skeletal and driving, anchored by a motorik pulse that feels both ancient and futuristic. It’s a sound of heavy hiss, saturated synths, and wiry guitars that slice through the static. Stella Red provides the crystalline, detached counterweight, cutting through Wotton's dense textures with a clarity that recalls the best of 90s synth and modern experimental Lo-Fi. Together, they have crafted an album that feels like a late-night drive through a neon-lit and decaying Sydney—equal parts driving energy and atmospheric haze.
All music written and performed by Jacky Wotton and Stella Red except Clay Pidgeons written by Blaze Foley. Recorded, mixed by, mastered by Cody Munro Moore and Mikey Young.
Released on vinyl 2026. Pressed on black vinyl in an edition of 200.
NEIS, Sydney Australia, uncle / niece duo, experimental rock, post punk, freak folk, alt rock, abstract rock, raw, unfiltered, debut album "Doghouse", featured single "Uncl Grl, evocative vocal sound, machine beats,
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