Interviews/Reviews

IN THE STILL OF THE HYPE: An interview withTrevor Powers aka Youth Lagoon

2012-02-08T21:42:00.000-08:00

YOUTH LAGOON aka Trevor Powers talks anxiety,adulation and the creation of a critically acclaimed, partially therapeutic albumrecorded in a garage. ANDY HAZEL leans in a little closer.

“I still find it strange answering questions aboutmy mind,” Trevor Powers says carefully. “But you do start to get used to itafter a while. It’s still strange to me mainly because I don’t know how toexplain things. I’ve never been good with words, I’m better at singing thantalking.” It’s worth pointing out that Powers is very good with lyrics, asemails from empathetic fans around the world attest. His gentle warmth andquiet enthusiasm throughout the interview seem slightly at odds with thefragile lost soul haunting the songs of his album The Year of Hibernation.

In the case of writing such personal music andseeking an audience for it, most performers have a line dividing what they feelcomfortable expressing and what is off limits. For Powers, a singer whoidentifies to an unusually strong degree with the acutely honest songwriting ofDaniel Johnston, deciding where to draw that line is tricky. “I don’t know if Ihave decided yet!” he says laughingloudly. “I write songs that I feel and ideas that I want to express, the waythat I’m interpreting things around me and life I guess, so as far as that goesI don’t really analyse what I can or cannot say or should and shouldn’t say.I’m just writing and I haven’t been analysing that much, not until someone asksme about it anyway,” he says lapsing into another easy laugh.

Since the release of The Year of Hibernation, Powers’ life has been taken over by hisrole as Youth Lagoon. Previously a student at Boise State University whorecorded and wrote music in his spare time, in 2010 Powers had to choose betweencontinuing to pay for counselling session that had been helping him to managehis chronic anxiety, or to record an album. So, it was that the album became avehicle to help him organise his thoughts.

“When I write, part of what is going on stems frompersonal experiences, but also from analysing what’s going on around me. I’dsay that process is partially therapeutic.” Though the album revels in intimatebeauty using a garage as a studio, small synths and old pianos, and boastspoetic snapshots of emotional times and places, Powers is still unsure whetherthe album was ‘successful’ in helping him deal with the issues that promptedits creation. “I think so, but I still have a weird mind,” he says with anotherlaugh. “It is always therapeutic dealing with things, growing and learning. Idon’t think you put something on paper and it’s dealt with just like that,you’re constantly learning and constantly growing and you just getting betteror wiser about managing. Being busy helps, it helps to keep my mind on otherthings, when you’re put in different circumstances, you have differentanxieties,” he laughs. “It’s always one of those things you’re dealing with,but a lot of people don’t talk about it so much, I actually think it’s reallycommon, but isn’t spoken about very often.”

To a certain extent, Powers has found that his musichas had similar beneficial effects on other people dealing with severe anxiety,though he’s hesitant to take on the role of a teacher or example of success.“People do write to me and say: ‘I’ve heard you write stuff about anxiety anddealing with your mind,’ but really everyone is so different and people’s mindsare structured so differently, it really comes down to that person figuring outtheir own way. I don’t know much help I can be to them directly, but I’m reallyglad that my music meant something to them.”

Playing his music in a live setting is somethingthat has only recently been considered by Powers. “For the most part I wentinto recording the album with the mindset of making exactly what I wanted it tobe, without thinking about how I’d play it live. Once it was done I was like‘now what? How do I make it happen?’” he pauses. “It was a big process forabout four months as far as getting everything together and figuring thingsout. Like how to use my beat machine and make all the beats happen away from meon stage. I have one person playing with me live, Logan [Hyde] who does theguitar, so with just two people on stage we have to figure out ways to dothings. I‘m happy with how it’s been interpreted live, how the songs areexpressed. It has a different feel than the album because that was made in sucha specific environment. The vocals were recorded dry, without any effects, thenplayed through these two monitors in my friend’s parents’ four-car garage andwe captured the natural reverb, then they were recorded in order to get thatfeeling. On stage, there are different things I’ve done with my voice as far aspedals and effects go.”

Fortunately, Powers finds that revisiting the songsso often doesn’t lessen their emotional impact, an impact that many livereviews find compelling. “That’s the only way I know how to play,” he says.“Music to me takes me back to certain places and events. As for when a showstarts, it’s almost impossible for me not to think about when it was writtenand what was going on, it’s just asemotional if not more so. Playing them over and over, reliving that over andover, I don’t mind that. I don’t know why,” he pauses, “maybe it’s just becauseI really enjoy it but then…man I don’t know if there is even an answer to thatquestion!” he laughs again.

Despite writing the album alone, and having spentvery little time by himself since the glowing reviews arrived and incessanttouring began, Powers has found inspiration to write a new batch of songs inhis constantly shifting environment, “I’m just always writing and working onideas. A lot of the time I’m interpreting things around me. I can’t say if it’smore personal than what I’ve done, but the songs definitely act as timecapsules. All my music is like that, especially now that I’m going on tour andworking on songs in hotel rooms, they come across in a totally different waythan if I’m writing at home, and these are times I want to remember.”

One environment that is a constant for him is hishometown of Boise, a place he mentions at every opportunity and the importanceof which is underlined by a tattoo of Idaho on his arm, next to the words ‘Bestill’. “I think Idaho is one of the most underrated places in the world,” hesays keenly. “The other night I went for a drive into the mountains and…they’realways amazing to me. I’ve always loved camping and exploring the state butrecently a friend and me have gotten more into hiking. Some of the Sawtooth Mountainsand parts of Idaho National Park are so beautiful. It’s very much a part of whoI am.” Here’s hoping he doesn’t lose this connection anytime soon.

ONLY HUMAN: An interview with Michael Rother

2012-02-05T15:57:00.001-08:00

With fond memories of his lasttrip to Australia, Michael Rother – once of Kraftwerk, and founder of themassively influential bands Neu!, Cluster and Harmonia – looks back on a lifeas a founding father of Krautrock.

It’sdifficult to understate the impact of musical developments in early to mid-1970sGermany. Tim Barr’s book From Dusseldorfto the Future (with Love) works on the premise that Kraftwerk’s impact onmodern music rivals that of the Beatles, and it a claim yet to be seriouslychallenged. Virtually all electronic music you hear as well as whateverconstitutes art-rock and math-rock these days, can be traced back to musiccreated by a small group of men intent on building their own German identityand a new culture.

Integralto this movement, yet more reclusive than the front-men of Kraftwerk, a band hebriefly played in, is Michael Rother a man returning to Australia to playhighlights from his long career. This time however, he has enlisted Dieter Moebius(of Harmonia and Cluster) and Hans Lampe through songs of Neu!, Harmonia andhis solo work.

“OhMt Buller!” he says brightly of Harmonia’s rapturously received set at 2009’sAll Tomorrow’s Parties festival. “We’ve never played anywhere like that beforeor since. It was incredible. I saw photos people took of us on stage; it waslike we were playing in the clouds! It was a glorious experience. That wasHarmonia, now it’s a different situation,” he says of his new eponymousproject. “It’s my selection of music as opposed to playing only songs by Harmonia.That concert was three years ago, shortly afterwards [Hans-Joachim] Roedelius decidedhe didn’t want to continue. I was surprised by that, so I began new collaborations,including this new one I’m bringing to Australia.”

Withtechnology playing such an important role in the development and progression ofelectronic music, its influence on Rother is surprisingly small. “Certain aspectsof technology change, but to be honest it’s about the same music. Hallogallo[the band Rother formed with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, Ben Curtis of Schoolof Seven Bells and Tall Firs’ Aaron Mullan] was also my project. It was formedto play my selection of Neu! and Harmonia songs, and some of my solo work. Eachtime there are other musicians involved, the angle changes and that’s really interestingto see,” he says with palpable excitement before continuing. “If you look at atrack like Hallogallo [a signaturetune of Neu!’s], that’s something near the centre of everything. I’ll explain;the idea of creating interesting improved sounds and prepared music together doesn’t often occur along with the ideaof the ‘fast forward movement’ of Hallogallo.It is so strange that Hallgallo in afew weeks is 40 years old,” he laughs. “Maybe I’m too lazy to move on, but thiskind of drone and repetition and freedom to fly like an arrow straight to thehorizon I feel in the music…that still fascinates me, that’s what I experiencewhen I play it and it makes it a lot of fun.”

Lookingback at the music Rother has to choose from when constructing a set, hisrecollections are tainted by the surprising rejection that Harmoniaexperienced, unusual for a band considered a Krautrock supergroup. “In the 1970smost people hated Harmonia,” he says slowly. “It was a complete commercialdisaster. I loved Harmonia as much as Neu! but the reaction was quitedifferent. It took our audience 25 years to catch up with that sound. My firstsolo album came out after the failure of Harmonia, and it sold 100 000 copies,and I thought, ‘why do they like me but not Harmonia?’ But, really, I am in aposition to create it, others are in a position to judge it. It does make mehappy that so long after there was anger and rejection for that music, peopleall around the world are enjoying it.”

Amongthose who found particular resonance with Rother’s various projects are some ofthe finest bands of the late 1980s and early 1990s. “It’s very hard now, toimagine that I had no clue what was happening to my music, but it’s true. Thatbands like Sonic Youth, The Fall and Stereolab and later on Radiohead werelistening to it, and another ten years before I found out. Of course, since theideas of our music are better known - I don’t think we can say we’ve become ahousehold name – but you have a lot of musicians doing strange electronicsounds nowadays, in a way twisting our sounds and ideas.” He pauses. “Myself,ever since I’ve started writing music I started not listening to othermusicians and focused on my own to create something as distant as possible fromother people’s ideas. Nowadays this can be Bach or abstract music or folkmusic, but I can’t listen to music all day long. I’m not like people like JohnFrusciante. It was awkward workingwith him because he’s an enthusiast - completely different to me - he listens tomusic all day long,” he says of his time working with the Red Hot ChilliPeppers’ guitarist.

Rothersays that inspiration comes from experience, not other creative works, inparticular, specific environments, something his music is renown for inspiringin other people. “I love in the countryside,” he intones. “That was whereHarmonia lived and worked in the 70s and I guess it has an effect on mythinking and feelings about life. It is inspiring in an abstract way, but nowI’m in Hamburg, in the city, the combination of both worlds is what I knowthese days. The vibration of the city and the quietness when you can hear birdsin the distance… it’s the depth of the ambience that fascinates me. It has aneffect on my soul, my feeling about life. There are filters before music comesout, of course these feelings run through many filters. I don’t even know thepath of inspiration and I don’t want to know what leads to which effect.” ThatRother can talk at length about inspiration and seems to barely touch on theactual music he makes is indicative of his method.

“Inthe 70s, when Neu tried to recreate the albums on stage, it was impossible. Peoplethought we had all this amazing gear - I only had a guitar, a fuzzbox, a delayand a wah-wah pedal! Everyone thought we were the new thing, and there was thisgreat technology behind it. People thought that if I played live to a backingtrack or pre-prepared music I’d written, then somehow I was lying. So theperception has really changed. I always said that it was about the human andhow they use the equipment, not what they use. Of course, I enjoy thepossibilities of sound creation and the machines that are available today andmake it possible to play live, but the human being is more in the centre of myfocus” And for that, we should be grateful.

Live Review: AUSTRA

2012-02-04T06:56:00.000-08:00

Northcote Social Club

Despite a plethora of excellent options elsewherein Melbourne tonight, the Social Club is packed to near capacity with aconvivial and attentive crowd for the Canadian electro pop sextet. The crowditself seems to consist almost entirely of couples, many of who are, as anearby punter notes, 'from the Isle of Lesbos'. Electro dub plays loudly overthe PA as the crowd chat, poke their phones, and drink. Soon enough, anandrogynous keyboardist, a drummer and a bassist march out and begin the moodyintroduction to The Choke, a highlight of their album Feel it Break. Soon after, the threesingers/dancers appear, each adorned with glittering gold necklaces and gauzyclothes that suit their flowing dance moves, which take a Bollywood/Dance ofthe Seven Veils influence and drive it into the ground throughout their shortset. Hilariously, and possibly intentionally, every band member looks like theywalked off a Frankie shoot except for bassist Dorian Wolf, sullen in jeans anda white t-shirt, like he wandered over from 303 to do the gig for a six-pack.

Second song HateCrime finds the audience more vocal and allows the three distinctive singersto really impress with their arrangements. LoseIt follows and begins to reveal a songwriting formula to which Austraadhere very closely; a heavy synth line accentuated by bass opens, drums enterfollowed by the stunning vocals of lead singer Katie Stelmanis. A chorus follows,and here are the harmonies from twin singers Sari and Romy Lightman who returnfor the later choruses and refrains. It’s a good formula and one that hasworked well for many bands before, but it also renders many of the songsindistinguishable and, besides, Ladytron did exactly the same thing, withdynamics, a sense of humour and original vintage synths 12 years ago. That’snot to say Austra aren’t engaging or don’t know how to make electronic pulsessexy and danceable. Songs like radio hit DarkenHer Horse, Beat and the Pulse and Spellworkare excellent electronic pop songs and the combined power of the three voicesand arpeggiated synth bass is undeniable, as is the quality of the live sound;a band has rarely sounded better here.

Though the between-song conversation is minimal,and there is little of the dancing that this music would justify in otherenvironments, the crowd is on side throughout. So it’s some surprise that afterjust 40 minutes, Stelmanis announces their last song. A brief two-song encorefollows, and they close with the wonderfulIdentity in what has to be one of the pithiest gigs of recent times.

Live Review: OFWGKTA

2012-02-01T18:36:00.000-08:00

The Hi-Fi Bar

The mood of the (heavily male and entirelyyoung) queue snaking down Swanston Street is 'stoked!' Few acts have been morehyped with less commercially available material as Odd Future Wolf Gang KillThem All. Already legendarily divisive, if head honcho Tyler, The Creator had adollar for every irate blog post, expletive laden defensive YouTube comment andcarefully considered opinion piece, he could buy Apple. But as tonight’s showproves, they're not the North Korea of bands they’re made out to be (attentionseeking outsiders who regularly hint at serious danger but rarely deliver). They’recrowd-hyping party guys who use every inch of the stage and know how to put ona show.

With no support act, pre-show entertainment comes inthe form of several hundred people occasionally cheering and squealing as oneof the OFWGKTA collective walk across the stage. Members wander through crowdand stand around, just chillin’ though looking as though they have somewhere tobe. As showtime approaches, cheers are replaced by chants of ‘WOLF. GANG. WOLF.GANG’ and fears of a small turnout (hinted at by the show’s move from thePalace and the $70 tickets) are dispelled by a sold out crowd who can’t wait tolose their shit.

The lights drop, and DJ/producer Syd tha Kid detonatesher metallic beats, as various members begin shouting from offstage; messingwith the rising tension. Suddenly Domo Genesis, Mike G and LeftBrain storm thestage with haka-style moves and blistering raps, barely discernable due to theforce of their speech. Soon chaos reigns as the whole crew arrives and beginsblasting their way through Transylvania,Forest Green and Tron Cat, each more manic than the last. “Melbourne, I fucked withFitzroy skate park today,” says Tyler. “I fucking love that place. Andmotherfucking Pancake Parlour”. “How many people here smoke weed?” asks LeftBrain.“Please, share with us if you have some,” Soon enough several members line theside of the edge of the stage smoking while others exhort us to 'do it like yrretarded!’ and refer to us (affectionately) as niggers, as the beats to French kicks in driving the crowd evencrazier than the next high points of the set, Tyler’s Orange Juice, and Mike G’s time to shine, King.

They grab their crotch, pop their eyes, throw water onus and treat the stage like a rumpus room. Their delivery is so physical thatsongs flirt with musical theatre. Unsurprisingly, Tyler can barely begin theirbest-known song Yonkers due to thevolume of the audience’s participation; even he seems surprised. Hodgy Beatstakes the lead on the mighty Sandwitches,before the inane Radical and itsscreamed outro: ‘kill people / burn shit/ fuck school’ that we holler back at ear bursting levels.

Yes there is ceaseless misogyny and glorification ofextreme sexualized violence every time OFWGKTA open their mouths, but when theenergy is this positive, the crowd this amped and the beast and songs thisclever…that’s entertainment. Whether you think it should be or not, you can bet OFWGKTA don’t give a fuck.

Live Review: SAM AMIDON, OTOUTO

2012-01-20T19:09:00.000-08:00

NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB

Outside, the daylight gradually fades as a warmevening moves in. Inside the venue a small crowd is scattered through the roomwhile onstage Otouto preciselydeploy their bright staccatos of baritone guitar, synth, vocalisations andpercussion into a remarkable whole. Songs feel empty and seem childlike intheir sounds and simplicity, but they're deceptively complex. The brevity ofthe sounds they generate and the languid curling vocal forays across them givea sense of momentum and movement that is hypnotic. The use of environmentalacoustics is expertly woven into the songs each a deft example of musicalarrangement in which sounds are given room to be fully heard. A brushed snare,electric piano, cymbal-covered drum, a plucked motif and bizarre vocal noises;few bands seem to think as a sonic whole like this. Final song Balloon showcases a sense of humour asdeveloped as their vocal harmonic skills.

By the time SamAmidon takes to the stage the room is still only half-full, yet asurprisingly vocal crowd welcome him anddrummer/keyboardist/bassist/sample-triggerer Chris Vatalaro. Opening with thetitle track of his most recent album ISee the Sign, Vatalaro’s sometimes subtle and occasionally explosive drummingshows just how far from the recorded versions Amidon is willing to take thesesongs. Open, loose jazz reinterpretations of his reinterpretations of theseancient folk songs makes it seem that the bugbear of ‘songs bearing littleresemblance to the recorded versions we all love’ might nuke any chance forconnection. Thankfully, the night’s arrangements hew closer to the versions weknow and love and freeform improvisation is that of a comedic not musicalnature.

Amidon first tells us the band’s name is nowJohn Cougar Melon Vacation and later illuminates us about a (fake) novel he’swriting about a guy called King Speachy and a secret songwriting society inrural Connecticut (‘the people who write allthe songs’) including Johnny Depp's long-forgotten hit album In the Depp End. All of which makes fora break from the stunning, hushing delicacy of sorrowful ballads like O Death, Rain and Snow, Wild BillJones and his breathtakingly delicate versions of Prodigal Son and Saro.The death count runs as high as a Nick Cave album, but the gift Amidon bringsis a solemn respect for the songs, reverence to their subjects and a playfulway with his interpretations, a way that makes room for exaggerated mid-song deathscenes and, weirdly and spontaneously, 30 push ups. So the appearance of Beth Orton firstly at thebar, then on the stage is another unexpected thrill as she lends her harmoniesto old nursery rhyme Joanna Row-di anda flooring take on Big Star’s Thirteen.While the audience provides spooky and beautiful vocals on Way Go Lily, hearing Orton’s pure tones in such a venue is a rareexperience.

Songs such as Wedding Dress, banjo-lead HowCome That Blood and You’d Better Mindstray into bluegrass territory, a place the audience follow as we rowdily,if messily, accentuate the rhythms. Highlight of the night however comes lateas the album-closing segue of ClimbingHigh Mountains and R. Kelly’s Relief helpspush this gig into one of the best in recent memory, audience sing-along andall.

SIGN LANGUAGE - An interview with Sam Amidon

2012-01-15T05:43:00.000-08:00

In the crazy, heady world of indie music, one man with acalm voice, a guitar, some talented friends and a wealth of ideas can tune up,tone down and stand out; just don’t call him a folk musician.

“Well,I just spent a week back with the family in Vermont,” sighs Sam Amidon down theline from a hotel in Los Angeles, in explanation of his recent activities.“Growing up there in Brattleboro played a big role in how things have comeabout for me. It’s full of wonderful folk musicians and artists and I was lucky togrow up around their songs. I really took it for granted in a way, it’ssuch a strange place,’ he continues contemplatively. “It got a hugeinflux of hippies and artists in the 1970s and they made friends with thefarmers in the area. So, now you have a lot of indie bands like Happy Birthday and Tune-Yards and a lot of folk musicians born in the 70s and80. It’s kind of amazing really, but growing up there I just cared that it hada CD store.’

Despitebeing born into a neo-hippie utopia where everyone sang and churned butterwhile dodging the draft and forming fair trade collectives years before it waship, Amidon decided that his burgeoning love of experimental music and freejazz necessitated a move to the big smoke. “I moved to New York to get awayfrom those songs and that environment, he says, "but after a while, that’s what Ifound liked singing; these old folk songs. I’ve always loved working withmusicians from different backgrounds and when I was living there I’d always move between groups ofmusicians and we’d work on each other's projects.”

This breadth ofcollaborative experience is particularly palpable on his most recent album I Saw the Sign, a collectionof haunting songs we can expect to be highlighted at Amidon’s shows. Much lovedcred-tastic arranger Nico Muhly, Melbourne’s own noise manipulator and BrianEno-associate Ben Frost, Björk’s (and now Feist’s) go-to producer ValgeirSigurðsson and Beth Orton, all make impressive and unusual contributions. In away I See the Sign, and his precedingalbum, the attention-grabbing All is Wellare demonstrations of how to integrate disparate talents into a powerful,uncluttered whole.

“Itended being an apocalyptic little batch of songs,” laughs Amidon. “Most songs came fromNew England, some from the Georgia Sea Islands; hymns, children’s songs, I findsongs from all over the place. Alan Lomax’s field recordings, singers that Ilove, folk music singers today, my parents or whoever, finding them is a random process.I’m not a scholar, I don’t have a huge archive, but a song I like has to be one that gets stuck in my head. Andit’s not like I live the songs,” he says laughing 'they're full of sorrow and killing. If my life expressed thepredicaments of my folk songs in a literal way I'd be a gangster rapper.”

“The truth is,' he states matter-of-factly, Idon’t play folk music. If I did I’d play thesongs as I learned them or first heard them, but I make these albums only whenI feel I’ve done something to them musically. I’m not against people singingthem straight, I’ll make one of those albums one day probably, but all of these songsI change around a lot.” It’s noticeable that his songs have oftenundergone decades of refashioning or disappearance only to emerge as new again,interpreted by Amidon and enhanced by his friends, which suggests a role of acultural preservation institute as much as a musician. “It’s true,” he says, the big step is reworkingthe songs. Often, I’ll find some lyrics to a folk song, which will fit to apiece of guitar that I’ve written - I never write the lyrics but the music I do- which changes the meaning of things. Then maybe I’ll change the harmoniesaround; that’s the step that happens before I take it to Nico or mycollaborators. Once I bring it to them, it’s almost like a series of exchanges;I never give them direction, and they’d probably ignore it if I did, they just take them away and work on it. I’vealways loved improvised music, if you sit down to play free jazz with someone and have no idea what they’re going to do you have a dialogue at that point. And that seems more interesting to me and better for the songs, than givingdirections. Making the album is almost like an improvisation process.”

Thisimprovisatory process is something we can expect to see at his forthcomingshows. “For a couple of gigs I’ll have some amazing multi instrumentalists andyou never know where Beth Orton will turn up,” he says with an audible grin.More than that, he won’t say. “I’m working on a new album at the momentbut…uhh…I can’t really talk about that either,” he laughs. “It's going to be a bit different from the last couple of albums...but of course in 2012 with demigods Roland Emmerich and Kirsten Dunst playing a strong but ambiguous role in our dates, the future is uncertain.”

Sincehe gained attention and plaudits for Allis Well Amidon has been straddling the folk and indie rock worlds in equalmeasure, despite thinking of himself as a ‘jazz nerd’. “I think the folk andindie worlds are very different communities, but I do see myself as fittinginto both. I maybe don’t fit into one of them alone, but that’s part of thewhole New York thing I mentioned earlier,” he says pausing. “In this day and age with the internet,scene or genre distinction is not so important. One night I’ll be with NicoMulhy in a classical music hall, next night I’m in an indie rock club, then I’mplaying Irish fiddle tunes in abar; three days in a row in totally differentenvironments! I love that.”

So,is this proclivity for interpreting old or unusual songs - I See the Sign does include a subtly stunning version of R. Kelly’sRelief - simply due to the fact that there are too many songs in theworld already? Amidon laughs. “As a listener I often feel that way, but as amusician, it’s less conceptual than that. These are songs I’ve found that Ilove singing, it’s not like a conceptual art project in that sense, at the sametime it’s a project that I’m surprised I’ve stuck with for as long as I have.Maybe I won’t do it forever, but at the moment these songs are much better thansongs I can write,” he says with another open laugh, "so I'm sticking with it".

2011 in Lists - The Year in the Rearview

2011-12-30T16:07:00.000-08:00

Attempting to construct some sort of 'round up' of a year is, by now, so cliched and so many options are available that to do it seems almost redundant. However, it is worth stating that there was an unusually broad range of excellent albums and songs and it is the discovery of this music that seems the greatest challenge. Though much of it comes from seeing local live shows, and a little from friends and various websites like last.fm, Pitchfork, Mess+Noise and , almost none of it comes from radio or any technology not popularised in the last 15 years. This increasing reliance on technology seems to accompany a push away from it, to a romanticised version of music before this time. Few of the albums populating Top 10 of 2011 lists take advantage of these technological developments and ignore them when it comes to the writing of music, which still seems best done by people over 30. When someone is imaginative and reconsiders the concept of an album and sees the whole process as a chance to reconnect with an increasingly distant and often distracted audience, as Bjork did with Biophilia the result is not wholly successful. Biophilia was so revolutionary that barely any consideration was given to the music (a charge some rashly made against Bjork herself).

All this shifting does beg the question how much more differently can we listen to music? It could hardly be more casual or integrated into our lives. The idea of incredibly convenient music which is about incredibly inconvenient experiences seems to dominate Top 10s; the war-laden stories of confrontation on PJ Harvey's Let England Shake, the traumatic and tragic personal history of Girls' singer and songwriter Christopher Owens and the futility of escape from suburban ennui that lies like a fog over the Twerps glorious eponymous debut. Now that digital downloads have finally passed physical sales (50.3% vs 49.7%) there's no reason to think it will stop anytime soon despite passionate listeners espousing vinyl over all else and a culture-lead concept of authenticity reigning supreme.

TOP TEN ALBUMS
1. Let England Shake PJ HARVEY

2. Father, Son, HolyGhost GIRLS

3. Hello Sadness LOSCAMPESINOS!

4. Go With River OWLS OF THE SWAMP

5. Twerps TWERPS
6. Biophilia BJÖRK

7. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming M83

8. New Brigade ICEAGE

9. Rolling Blackouts THE GO! TEAM
10.50 Words For Snow KATE BUSH

TOP TEN SONGS
1. Underneath TonightLOWTIDE

2. Heartlove ALPINE

3. Holly JAMES BLACKSHAW

4. Too Beautiful toWork THE LUYAS
5. Holiday in America BITCH PREFECT

6. Hey Cool Kid CLOUD NOTHINGS
7. Need You Now CUT COPY
8. Hard Times GILLIAN WELCH

9. Turn Me On THE GRATES
10. Crystalline BJÖRK

BEST NEW ARTISTS

1. Lowtide
2. Alpine
3. Tully on Tully

4. Collarbones
5. Bitch Prefect

TOP FIVE INTERNATIONAL ARTIST GIGS
1. Belle andSebastian GOLDEN PLAINS

2. Gang of Four CORNER HOTEL
3. Pulp FESTIVALHALL

4. The Antlers CORNER HOTEL
5. The Go! TeamCORNER HOTEL

TOP FIVE AUSTRALIAN ARTIST GIGS
1. Alpine CORNERHOTEL
2. D. RogersEDINBURGH CASTLE
3. Tully on Tully NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB
4. The GoodChina, The Bon Scotts THE GRACE DARLING
5. CollarbonesSUGAR MOUNTAIN

TOP FIVE RADIO SHOWS/PODCASTS
1. Mark Kermodeand Simon Mayo’s Film Reviews BBC RADIO FIVE LIVE
2. FilmspottingCHICAGO PUBLIC RADIO

3. Adam and Joe BBC 6 MUSIC

4. Wait, Wait Don’t Tell MeNPR
5. This AmericanLife NPR

TOP FIVE TV SHOWS
1. Mad Men AMC

2. Game ofThrones HBO

3. Lawrence Leung’sUnbelievable ABC

4. At The Movies ABC
5. Media WatchABC

TOP TEN MOVIES
1. True Grit

2. Le Quattro Volte

3. Tree of Life

4. We Need to Talk About Kevin

5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

6. Jess + Moss

7. Certified Copy

8. Melancholia

9. Tiny Furniture

10.The Guard

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES AWARD
Odd Future;horrific lyrics and rampant egos fuel songs with no structure, melody orpurpose beyond offense, though it’s just as easy to construct an argument fortheir being band of the year.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR

It’s Fri-ee-day Fri-ee-day / Gotta get down on Fri-ee-day – Rebecca Black, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and most ofthe developed world at some point.

PREDICTION FOR 2012
Obama to go, anarchy to reign, music to become increasinglycross-referential; first London Olympics to be a fiasco, world not to end, butvery interesting things to happen. It will be a glorious year to be alive.

Live Review: THE GOOD CHINA, THE BON SCOTTS, ANIMAUX

2011-12-12T14:06:00.001-08:00

The Grace Darling

Neither French noranimalistic, Animaux are one of themore competent bands to grace the small stage of the Grace Darling. The first of the evening’s three bands(none of which have fewer than seven members), Animaux specialise in the brandof polished soulful pop beloved by teenage musicians having fun with theirinstrumental proficiency, which means there are riffs copped from all over theplace everything is played and sung with technique to spare, and is totallybereft of actual pop or soul. Despite this, it’s hard to deny the fun being hadon and off the crowded stage. It’s also the first of three exemplary displaysof sound engineering by the mixer who does a brilliant job juggling instrument swapping,horn sections, copious percussion and multiple vocalists.

As audience numberspick up, The Bon Scotts give themsomething to get excited about. Featuring harp, baritone horn, accordion, celloand a rhythm section raised on The Waterboys and Beirut, songs like Let’s Do What the Catholics Do and Lovely Bones (‘this has nothing to dowith the book or film, that’s an unfortunate coincidence’) showcase singerRobert Zimmerman’s (yes, really) deft way with words and references. Sopassionately delivered is the music, its pace so frantic and acousticinstruments so prominent the songs sound politically driven, though the onlypolitics Zimmerman is interested in are personal. The band’s giftedarrangements and banter like ‘this song is about songs you love now that willeventually be used to sell you crap, like fridges’ betray an imagination atwork that will only get better with time.

By the time The Good China assemble themselvesamongst the plastic foliage and paper lanterns decorating the stage, the venueis packed. Within minutes of the first song kicking in, you’re forced to ask‘how can a band this good not be everywhere?’ While there are at least foursingers in the octet, each with a different style of song, the songwritingquality never drops and the variations on attention-wresting imaginative popmusic seem limitless. Singer James Grech favours clipped Phoenix-like funk,Nick McMillan an exciting Go Team!-style verbose intensity while backing vocalsof Mietta Sancolo and violin of Quyen Le are the most notable examples of themusical prowess needed to make songs seem this thrillingly simple. Tonight’sshow is to launch new single No MoreMaps, No More Roads one of several high points in a stellar set.

Live Review: HTRK, BEACHES, THE ORBWEAVERS, MONTERO, WINTERCOATS

2011-11-28T21:44:00.001-08:00

St Michael's Church

A queue snakes down the broad stairs and along CollinsStreet in the balmy heat. It’s not the usual mix of punters given the MelbourneMusic Week setting, but soon we’re all brought together in pews facing a broadpodium, littered with instruments, a lighting system desperately drawingattention to itself, fold-back wedges and religious paraphernalia that sitsbeneath a giant pipe organ and stained glass windows. It's a beautiful room, asold out gig, and a very appreciative crowd.

James Wallace aka Wintercoatsopens the evening’s proceedings, his blue-lit gaunt frame poised over a violin.Soon, layers of bowed notes build and percussive taps, flicks and jabs follow. Aswith most proponents of loop pedals, songs build gradually but unlike most, histechnical mastery and pedal manipulations don't detract from the richatmosphere. Wallace’s fantastically emotive voice is often subsumed beneath hisephemeral cascading violins, especially beautiful on the closing Working on a Dream; its unassuming majestyperfectly suited to the reverential surroundings.

Looking like kids still at school an hour after thelast bell (nerds in the library and bad boys in detention), Montero is one of the finest bands 2011has offered up. Though they hark back to whatever the least-referenced years ofthe 1970s and 80s are they don't recall any act or era specifically. Swung beats and aMoog will always attract the terms ‘psychedelia’ or ‘prog’, but Montero have notime for labels; the charisma of Ben Montero, drumming of Cameron Potts andtalent in their all-star lineup is too compelling. Songs like Clear Sailing and Rainman are highlights of a stellar show and hint at forthcoming releases that will attract praise more gushing than this.

The gentle malevolence that lingers through the surprisinglycelebratory songs of The Orbweaversis markedly offset by the sweet banter of birdlike singer Marita Dyson. Songsabout Merri Creek, the Melbourne sewerage system and flash flooding areinterspersed with illuminating factoids of local history, accidental insults directed at her pets and obsessivepunctuality. The deft guitar of Stuart Flanagan and trumpet of DanielAulsebrook lets their dark country balladry soar and linger and their in their succession of quiet achievements, tonight is another win.

Ambling from the nearby bar, the crowd gives a mixedresponse to the almighty riffage and power of Beaches as they ease into gear. With less vocals and more chug, theexcellence of the sound system and bright acoustics of the room mean songs that roared like jet engines have become sheets of fuzz with a buzzinglightness. Ebbs and surges are handled deftly and the occasional vocals fromsinger Ali McCann come as a respite from the blinding walls of white.

After a lengthy wait, the room darkens and theicebreaking sounds of HTRK detonate among us. Watching theduo is a difficult experience with bright pulsing lights trained on the crowdand the band bathed in dark blue. Listening is far easier, with their sounds sobrilliantly sculpted and powerful and the room so ideal that what those soundsdo is almost secondary. Almost. Unfortunately here lies the weakness of HTRK;songs seem exercises in shifting blocks of noise, each one sharing an asexualgrind and annoyingly vague and indistinct lyrics, the repetition of whichamplifies their annoying vagueness. This may, along with the alienating light show, be their intent, giventheir love of subversive music and cinema it’s possible. But, unlike theirtouchstones, there are no surprises or innovations here. Nigel Yang’s guitar isalmost as an aesthetic afterthought, so buried is it beneath the synths andicily cyclical beats and so processed is its sounds. There is masterfulness intheir execution but emptiness inside.

Live Review: THE FLAMING LIPS, POND

2011-11-26T01:04:00.001-08:00

The Palace Theatre

Looking, and sounding like five guys who met in theWolfmother audition queue (but actually being three quarters of Tame Impala), Pond seem at home spread across thelengthy Palace stage; no mean feat for a band used to playing Perth warehouseparties. In front of a wall of amps, their vintage guitars, crusading riffs,copious bouncing hair and indistinct impassioned wailing is, as with manyrecently celebrated Australian bands, totally derivative and incredibly wellexecuted. Playing like they're headlining, songs like You Broke My Cool allow singer Nick Allbrook to wander the stage,occasionally flinging his arms out as if to say 'this is it! How good‽' A versionof Tears of a Clown that's moreCaligula than Smoky Robinson allows for some deft twin guitar action, andthe audience (and The Flaming Lips)are suitably impressed.

Minutes later Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne crosses the stage to cheers as he helpsroadies and techs assemble equipment, all wrapped in white tape, heavilystickered and customized. Checking the instruments, inflatable space bubble,dry ice, massive screens and tiny video cameras and effects would, ordinarily,be akin to a magician giving away tricks, but the Lips' sleeve is full of somany more that it only adds to the excitement.

Coyne's pre-show disclaimer includes anapology for their short set at Harvest due to: ’festival timing and a dilemmawith trains and buses. Tonight, we have no limits, we will play longer andbetter and louder.’ True to form, the first five minutes include thebirth-through-psychedelic-supernova-vagina entrance, Coyne striding over thecrowd in his space bubble, massive balloons, exploding confetti cannons,swathes of jet-powered dry ice, two teams of leggy dancers, air raid megaphonesirens and the firing of numerous streamer launchers. All the distractions aredispatched with in an awe-inspiring burst of props and massive bass riffs,which begs the question ‘how are they going to top this?’ The answer; songs.Straight up we get She Don’t Use Jelly beforebeing exhorted, as we are between every song, to get noisy, and Coyne needs allthe help he can get, with his voice parched and frail from overuse, so weprovide an admirable choir for Jelly andthroughout the ensuing, brilliant TheYeah Yeah Yeah Song. Coyne's backless acoustic guitar exists just as muchto burst massive balloons of confetti as to make music. TV On the Radio standto the side of the audience with Pond with smiles as broad as ours as StephenDrozd plays the iPhone for Is David BowieDying, which sounds huge, before we’re lead through a long, drawn-outversion of Yoshimi, even morepoignant for being played among the burst balloons and scattered detritus ofhappier songs. See the Leaves seesCoyne don giant hands that shoot lasers at disco balls, which is a perfectintroduction to Drug Chart. We call The Lips back for a blindingencore of Race For the Prize and amagnificent hymnal Do You Realize, apair of modern classics that conclude one of the most remarkable gigs of theyear.

BROUS ALMIGHTY: An interview with SOPHIA BROUS

2011-11-11T05:30:00.001-08:00

On the eve of her first Australian tour and the launch ofher debut EP, ANDYHAZEL finds out about the long musical history and striking fresh soundsof multiple Age EG Music Award nomineeSOPHIA BROUS.

When a debut single is musically proficient, lyricallyunusual, artfully produced and stunningly delivered, it’s going to attractattention. Streamers, the lead singlefrom the eponymous debut EP from Melbourne band Brous has been thrust to highrotation on JJJ as well as garnering community radio play and an Age EG MusicAward nomination for Best Single. Despite a short musical career of surprisingtwists and turns, recent developments are something that vocalist, composer andchief architect Sophia Brous is still grappling with. “I’m really pleased!” shesays happily. “It’s funny, when you view other people you think things aregoing well and achievements like this are all there is to their life at themoment. It is fantastic, but it’s notlike the world has turned purple, life goes on.”

Life, for Brous, constitutes of a range of creativeprojects, which sees her week divided between writing music and playing gigs.It’s a work ethic befitting someone who can lay claim to an impressive array ofachievements, including debuting onstage with Gil Askey, becoming, at 22, theyoungest ever director of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival (a role sherecently stepped down from), and winning a scholarship to the New EnglandConservatory and Berklee College of Music. These experiences feed in to thetruly unusual and powerful sound that is being introduced to the world through Streamers. “When I went to the States,it was the first time in my formal music training that I had been introduced tomusic like exotica and tropicalia, and film noir soundtracks and was able tofocus on them in an concentrated manner,” she says emphatically, highlightinginfluences that permeate the EP. “Many people who’ve gone through that systemgo through a process of unlearning, and it was like that for me. As soon as Igot back, I went straight into jazz clubs and performing, but then there was aperiod of feeling like I wanted to explore other things, so I stepped back andstarted writing. It’s interesting,” she says, pausing, “as soon as I steppedaway from jazz, I got the festival job; I jumped into it and gave it my all andit was a great experience, but now that Brousis out there, it’s time to be focusing on that.”

Unsurprisingly, when Brous focuses on something,impressive results follow, and so it is with the EP. Amazingly enough, withBrous’s powerful voice and poetic turns of phrase, the band’s music arrestsalmost as much attention. “The band were long time friends of mine and people Iknew well before they joined,” she says keenly. “It began with James Rushford. Wehad an interest in pop melody, Europop, art music and avant garde and afterplaying with him I got further into melodies with a sense of darkness or depth.Shags [Chamberlain] was the last person to join the group, but he is a reallyimportant part of it,” she says with a rare pause for contemplation. “As opposeto having musical training, he has great taste in gear and an encyclopaedicknowledge of music and sounds which makes him great in the studio, this guy has10000 records in his bedroom, so how could he not? I had a clear idea of what Iwanted before I went in, but it’s difficult to communicate outside of music terms,and that was a great thing about having Shags there. I don’t have knowledge ofsynths, but when I write I have a very clear idea of the sounds I want, andsound is the core of my music – every song begins with the foundations ofmelody. To communicate the sound in my head means I’m singing stupid sounds topeople, or playing recordings to focus on the exact tone I want, and Shags reallygets that. Scott [Horscroft], Shags and me coproduced the whole thing. I bringthe chords to the band and ultimately it’s what you do next that is the mostinteresting thing. Everything has to come back to the fundamentals; that’s thewhole process on the writing - the melody, then lyrics. Then it’s a matter ofextrapolating out and building around it, like architecture.” Other bandmembers, or architects, include Alexander Garsden, Jeanette Little and JoeTalia, shining examples of the fertility of the Melbourne music community,which Brous seems intent on feeding back into.

“Initially we recorded nine tracks as a session - afew I wanted to hold for the album, some others as B sides - and thiscollection of songs felt cohesive. For the EP, it felt like this was enough ofa first statement to come out with. We’ve written a lot of music since then andI can’t wait to get to work on that, but with Brous, there is a certain timbre. It’s dramatic and epic in scope,but I’m interested to see how this can be done in sparser ways with fewerinstruments,” she says enthusiastically. “When we were recording and producingthe EP Streamers was such a big songto create,” she continues breathlessly. “It took the most work, it was drainingto record and it is a workout to perform; I call it my Jane Fonda song,” shelaughs. “We had a lot of gear in the studio to play with, and time to developcountermelodies and give the song a certain robustness. Recording it wassomething that happened over time and in stages - because of my job we couldonly work in bursts - so the song was constructed in stages, which is funnybecause you can hear the song develop like that when you listen to it,” shesays of its unusual structure. “I wanted a strange dislocation.”

Even with the quality and universally positivereviews, Streamers runs the danger ofovershadowing the quieter and less exuberant songs on the EP, but that’ssomething Brous can justify. “Because Streamerscame out first, and with the video getting lots of views online, people havehad time to sit with it. I think every song on the EP has that scope ofarrangement and heart and soul put into it; none of them are fading flowers,”she laughs. “A song like Little Ticketis a condensed version of the drama that people are talking about in Streamers. More is great, and givingsomething a sense of grandeur is great, but I don’t want to overwhelm thesong,” she says carefully. With the company she keeps, you can be sure that’sunlikely and any density the songs have will only reward deeper listening.

Live Review: THE POINTER SISTERS, LIAM BURROWS

2011-11-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

The Palais

When joining the throng in the foyer of the Palais, it’s fair to say fewof us are expecting to be regaled by a 5-foot version of Michael Buble uponentering the theatre. However, 17-year old Australia’s Got Talent finalist Liam Burrows (who one signed-photoclutching patron later assures me later is ‘going to be really famous one day!’)is a graduate of the Sinatra school of entertainment and offers good clean funversions of popular jazz standards. As much as the audience adores him, and asimpressive as his voice and charisma is, it’s his assurance that ‘the PointerSisters are up next’ that gets the biggest cheer.

While some of us are holding out for The Pointer Sisters’ PinballCount from Sesame Street, it seems that, on stage, five versions ofMarcellus Wallace are occupying the bandstand. Before we have a chance towonder how such well-built men and their muscley fingers are able to play theirinstruments so precisely, lights dim, applause breaks out and the voices of thePointer Sisters tell us sweetly, amidst tinkling chimes, that they ‘love the way you give your heart so freely’.And with Happiness, we’re treated tothe sight of Ruth, Issa and Sadako, three generations of Pointer. With the hemlines of their skin-tight black dresses ascending as their ages descend, thefamilial bond is evident long before Ruth explains that Issa is her daughter,and Sadako her granddaughter. The lack of Anita is soon forgotten as the powerof their voices bind and blistering version after blistering version of some ofthe greatest pop songs from the 1980s erupts. Automatic is the first to get some excited audience members up thefront and clapping, and it’s a safe bet that none of these people know of itsrecent popularity through Grand Theft Auto.

Ruth is the star of the show, clearly at ease on stage and with a voiceas strong as ever, though Issa’s take on He’sSo Shy makes it easy to forget she was only seven when the song wasreleased. Going back even further, the band’s (Grammy award-winning) countryand western roots come to the fore for their crowd-hushing takes on Slow Hand and Fire. While these songs didn’t have quite as much slap bass, uglycomputer-fed guitar solos or as many boisterously emphasised endings the firsttime round, focus rarely leaves the girls and their voices. Closing the firstset Dare Me, possibly the mostunderrated pop hit from that whole decade, sounds unbelievably fresh, keytarsolo and all. During the break the band introduce themselves with hilariouslyfunky instrumental solos, the sisters return in red, pink and orange dresses.Fashion was never their strong suit, but that they look a bit daft seemstotally right, and who cares what they wear when I’m So Excited goes into NeutronDance, and is followed by Jump?Even when Liam Burrows is brought back out to remind us that he’s short and 17and only knows one word from the song Jump,it seems that the Pointers can do no wrong. With the band giving us a few morefunk blasts, the ladies dancing in unison as they exit stage left, the show’sover and the merch desk gets very busy indeed. Here’s hoping they don’t leave a28-year gap next time.

Live Review: BATRIDER, NATIVE CATS

2011-10-04T17:52:00.001-07:00

TheTote

"Goodevening, we are the Native Cats andyou need us now more than ever," intones Peter Escott, vocalist and buttonpusher staring us down. The sonorous voice and compelling lyrics make NativeCats one of the more underappreciated bands going. Perhaps as they’re fromHobart and signed to a label based in Boston, Melbourne hasn’t caught on, butthere is an energy about this band few bands manage to match about their newalbum Process Praise, and itsrendering live.

Openingwith Hit and launching their secondalbum, as are the headliners, the audience, most of whom are holding pints,have a lot of hair and look a lot like Charlotte Gainsburg or a member of FleetFoxes, are wrapt. Julian Teakle's guttural bass and intimidating loomingpresence offset’s Escott’s intelligent fury and forces deep melodies whichEscott avoids (except when playing his melodica). Cat’s Paw highlights his us of the Nintendo DS and a drum machinerun through a Korg, which sounds like no other band in existence. Songs veerbetween sparse, sexual new wave pop with bitter lyrics about isolation andphysicality (Cavalier and closer Dani Dani) and a rich layered 80s pop (Elements of Style). That they choose tolive in the sparse end of the spectrum, sounding like a pissed off Young MarbleGiants, actually gives them a greater power; melodies sound lonely and lost andthe rhythm aggressive and taut.

Fewbands articulate and understand menace as well as Batrider. The Adelaide three-piece knows exactly how to balance theweight of each instrument and the resultant power is impossible to deny. Theirnew album Piles of Lies makes up mostof the set with Hold a Grudge, JustAnother Person and Hand Cream standingout, despite the dynamic shifts and raw, tearing vocals which sound as ifthey’re fighting against the plate reverb and a rhythm section that Alibini wouldpay to have his name attached to.

Thestench of Indonesian cigarettes drifting in from the mingling groups outsideaccentuates the stoner rock aspect of their music sweetly, and it’s the music thatarrests attention. Sarah Chadwick’s guitar is either a shivering afterthoughtor a million broken metallic frequencies ricocheting in an icy vacuum. SamFeatherstone’s bass is like a compressed 303 tone that moves like an endlesslyshifting cord and Stephanie Chase’s bright forceful drumming and copious reverbelevates what could be dirges to something altogether stronger. It’s a uniquesound and an incredible show.

BACK TO THE FUTURE: An interview with DEAN WAREHAM

2011-10-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

Catching up with DEANWAREHAM on theeve of his highly anticipated DeanWareham Plays the Songs of Galaxie 500 tour, ANDYHAZEL learns about 80s music, looking back and Leeds.

“Man this call quality isterrible,” says Wareham of the second time we’re connected for his interview.“The sound quality of music and phone calls is awful these days.” Having beenproducing music long enough to make a judgement like that, Wareham comes acrossmore like a man stating a fact than a grouchy elder statesman. Front-man forthe critically adored bands Galaxie 500 and Luna for the last years of 1980sand best part of the 1990s respectively, Wareham has spent most of the lastdecade working with his wife and former Luna bassist, Britta Phillips, underthe moniker Dean & Britta. This move saw him replace spacious washes ofguitar fuzz and minimalist articulations of malaise for a slower output of filmsoundtracks (The Squid and the Whale),occasional albums (L’Avventura, Back Numbers), and a live score for thefilm project The 13 Most Beautiful…SongsFor Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests. Given that there is no chance of a fullreunion, and the success of their ScreenTest shows is bringing them to new countries and the strange new taste ofcorporate gigs, it’s fair to wonder why this, and why now?

”Well,” he says with a sigh, “it’sexciting to play these songs, it really is, and with the release of thereissues it seemed the right time. We’ve been determined to get Australia nomatter what and that involves taking a risk. Often people want a big guaranteeon shows there, or they’ll have big label support, but I looked at it and itwas like ‘it’s going to do alright, let’s go’.”

Born in Wellington, New Zealandand having spent a large part of his childhood living in Sydney, there is anunderstandable importance to touring here. “I don’t get to New Zealand often,every five years or so. Everyone there thinks I’m American because I have oneof those confused accents from living in confused places, like Sydney, New Yorkand Boston,” he says with his accent beginning to audibly shift across oceans throughoutthe interview. “It seems the longer I’ve been away from Australia and NewZealand, the thicker and heavier my accent got. But then I think it’s agenerational thing. I look at my cousins and their accents are far thicker thanmy parents, and, no, I can’t do good impersonations,” he finishes, lying.

One of the most critically adored bands of the late 1980s,Galaxie 500’s triptych of albums Today,On Fire and This is Our Music werereleased 12 months apart from 1988-1990 and found small groups of obsessivefans wherever people in their teens and 20s congregated. “On this tour it’sbeen strange finding where we’re popular,” he says lightly. “You find peoplewho’ve been waiting 20 years to hear a song played live all over the world. Wewere always more popular in England so they responded especially well there, buta few months ago we played in Sao Paulo and had 1000 people singing along toevery Galaxie 500 song, which was unexpected. In Hong Kong and Taiwan we seemto get a lot of people to the shows and we never officially released a recordthere, so you never know until you get there,” he pauses. “I always think thatyou can feel when people are excited or if they want to feel something, yougive that energy back to them. Sometimes it’s the function of a Friday night ina good bar though, and not every show can be that way. Sometimes it’s a Sundaynight and you’re playing in…Leeds,” he says laughing.

Witnessing the affection in which his songs are still held,and deciding to evenly split the albums for the shows means mining his personalhistory and assuming the role of a time capsule guide. “I do find it strangethat I play this role evoking this era,” he says carefully. “It was not a greatperiod to be making music, before grunge hit. At least in the US the popularmusic in the charts was absolute crap; Bon Jovi, Huey Lewis…no indie bandsdreamed of cracking that or getting big or anything. Now you can have a bandlike Vampire Weekend or Arcade Fire in the chart, it was a very different time.The songs act as channels and as I sing these lyrics I wrote 21 years ago, ittakes me back to thinking about my life then, especially touring Galaxie 500songs. When you’re touring you think of the last time you were in a place. It’sstrange, because now most of the audiences weren’t born when those songs werewritten”.

A band long beloved by musicians and critics, it’s notsurprising that Wareham has a proliferation of ‘Best Of…’ chart rankings andhyperbole with which to promote his music. That he chooses to use none of itsays even more. It’s perhaps more telling that this tour coincides with somevery nice (and nicely reviewed) reissues of Galaxie 500’s three albums. “I readthe initial reviews in Pitchfork and Mojo and Q, but I don’t have a drive toread every review that comes out. Yeah they got great reviews, but I’ve seenboth sides of that. With Luna, there was a period in England where they built usup and destroyed us. I had that experience with Luna at first that was hostile,then the reviews eventually turned. There is a discussion on Pitchfork about usand somebody was incensed by what they’d written or where they’d ranked us orsomething. It’s funny; it’s such a subjective thing. Back then we didn’t thinkwe were the most important band or anything, but I look back at a list ofrecords that came out in 88 and 89 I think we are among the best that year.”

This music, which has always been divisive largely due toWareham’s falsetto (which he still has), has always been renown for itssimplicity, which was, as with a lot of great music, not by design. “I didn’tfeel like I was hoodwinking people,” muses Wareham. “But I thought it wasstrange when people would write that I was a great guitar player. I was like ‘…wha?’I like the way I play, but thousands of people can play circles around me.Ultimately you learn it’s not about how fast you can play or styles, that hasits place, but sometimes it is your very limitations as a musician that is avirtue. Practicing week after week, I feel like we stumbled onto the sound wehad, with the help of our producer Kramer.”

While celebrating the past gets old fans and readers ofmusic blogs into venues, Wareham is thinking more about the future as we catchthe tail end of this tour. “We’ve been touring so much, but I’ve not written asong in about a year which is strange for me. That Warhol Screen Test show took off in a way we didn’t expect, as did playingthese Galaxie 500 songs. I wouldn’t want to do this forever. I like it ofcourse, but this trip will be the end of it. I’d like to go back to the future.”

Live Review: TULLY ON TULLY, SLEEP DECADE

2011-09-26T19:14:00.001-07:00

THE TOFF IN TOWN

The near-empty room fills rapidly oncethe sounds of Sleep Decade begin tofill the room, emanating from the four members like billowing clouds. Looped guitar textures, simple bassmotifs and scattered drums drift out as songs form out of the air and at firstseem barely held together. Sleep Decade are one of the most perfectly namedbands going, once their ephemeral rock kicks into gear, you’re already seducedby its dazed beauty and the attention to detail of guitarist Casey Hartnett.Songs like First Leaves and People are OK finds a multitude of waysto make expansive, languid sounds fascinating, particularly the Pygmalion–evoking relentless guitarloops of the latter. News that the recording of the debut album was completedtwo days ago is heralded by a performance of the song Bicycle which has a sparse momentum that screams single. It’s anothersong that should surely appeal to other people raised on the sounds of Kid A.

Recently shifting their name from Tullyand the Thief to Tully on Tully, curtainspart to reveal a nervous-looking Tully (aka Natalie Foster) dressed in a baggysmock-like dress and with a wraparound braid already dancing on the spotawaiting the onset of opening song Blinded.There is no need for nervousness though; the crowd is onside from the firstnote and every song more warmly received than the last. Foster’s somnambulisticmovements and wholly physical devotion to each word make her seem as if she’s givingmore than any other performer, so convincing is her delivery. Words are broken,lingered on and resurrected; lyrics are cast like spells and the band act as awonderfully intuitive whole. It’s riveting stuff, and utterly unlike anyoneelse. The musicianship of the four-piece band is more than proficient, PeteCorrigan’s deft keyboard work and the pealing chords from Gretsch-wieldingguitarist Greg Rietwyk are especially impressive, and their meshing is wellarranged with little doubling of chords and a refreshing lack of overplaying.

Songs swell and break with Foster ridingthe changes as if barely resisting some internal force. Close to Over is brilliant in its manic tumbling and tight brevity,and there’s no reason why with the right promotion the smart pop Organ Song shouldn’t top charts. Foster’stheatrical edge belies a knowing confidence, and it’s hard not to think thatwere a copy of their forthcoming album stuck to the cover of each Frankie magazine they’d never go hungryagain. Is This Love? showcasesFoster’s warmly expressive voice, aninstrument that never needs to get sweet to win favour. The stunning single Hard to Breathe, whose launch tonight’sgig is in aid of, allows for more vocal twists and turns than usual whichmatches the subject perfectly. Lyrics sometimes lose their impact throughrepetition but that’s a minor gripe with the sheer charisma on stage, and thepowerful rhythm section backing everything. Closing song No Problems There, finishes the set with a flourish and seals thedeal that this is one band whose debut album is something to anticipate.

Live Review: RICHARD IN YOUR MIND, THE LAURELS, FISHING

2011-09-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

GAOB RAB BUFFALO CLUB

A Richard in Your Mind gig is always achance to sample some of Sydney’s more interesting bands in addition to a showby one of the country’s most underrated groups. It’s also many people’s firstexperience of this curiously named new venue, part private club part anonymous alleyway dive,whatever it is it’s old, strange and blessed with a great PA.

Drifting onstage and soon issuing forthwarm tones and twisted beats, the duo of Fishingare a strange prospect. While making music driving down rainy motorways to,with mid-paced big beats and warm reverb-heavy chords and choral voices. Motifslinger and leave to be replaced by swells of reverb and what sounds like echoesof an old Kompakt compilation. It’s oddly emotive in parts, and ruthlesslyin-your-face in others, at times the duo seem to surprise each other with theirmoves and closing with a mashup of TLC's Waterfalls/NoScrubs is a deft twist.

It’s safe to say that without the 1988-1991output of My Bloody Valentine TheLaurels wouldn’t exist, or would be a more interesting prospect if theydid. As it is, a dearth of ideas is substituted for with copious effects andeven more volume. Indiscernible lyrics and a seamless jagged wall of barelycontrolled noise can be beautiful; here it is tedious, swampy shoegaze. Ifthere were something beautiful or profound in these songs, it would get lost,as much of the crowd did during their set.

With their current tour featuring the welcome additionof Alyx from Kyü on vocals and keyboard, Richard welcomes us with a “Hey man,thanks for coming out…even though we're inside,” before blowing our minds withtheir take on whatever passes for psychedelic pop these days. Richard in Your Mind explodepreconceptions as easily as bassist Brent explodes a bottle of champagne duringone of the albums finer moments MaybeWhen the Sun Goes Down. This is a concert of rare ambition and warmth. Take the Sun Away is folk-fuelled bliss,Birds recreates the journey to aHawaiian beach as a three-minute pop song, while the mourning harmonica of Tear Filled Ocean is our return. Closingwith blistering versions of their glorious IWill and a wholly worthy cover of PleasePlease Me, it feels the show can’t be bettered, but, just to prove me wrongCandelabra from 2010’s fantastic My Volcano leaves no need for an encore.

Live Review: SEBADOH, ADAM HARDING & FRIENDS

2011-09-23T03:03:00.000-07:00

The Corner Hotel

Any gig that begins with the supportband’s drummer escaping Houdini-style from a straightjacket suspended above thestage and doesn’t steal thunder from the headliners is going to be a) differentand b) good. Dane Certificate, drummer and escapologist moves from thestraightjacket to the drums and the unholy noise of Adam Harding & Friends erupts gloriously. Thrashing the hellout of his kit as Harding and Steve Patrick send slices of distortion throughthe air like a chainsaw through ice, Harding’s baritone guitar takes a beatingas he recreates the sound of a Tumbleweed EP being played very loudly on adying cassette player. Lou Barlow joins for last song Redrum and concludes a perfectly chose support set.

“A show of hands…how many were here lastnight?” asks Barlow keenly surveying us. “Not many of you…damn, I was hoping toslack off,” he grins. Slack is a perfect word to describe tonight’s set, beset withlost capos and plectrums, a busted snare drum and copious rambling banter tocover for it. It’s perfect. Sebadoh shouldn’t be tight and unfussy, and weget a set that contrasts gloriously with the previous night’s bracing rush through the past. Bursting alivewith Too Pure, Barlow’s voice evokeslike a welcome phone call from a long lost friend. On Fire follows and highlights his piercing guitar tones; as if heborrowed it from Neil Young and couldn’t change the settings. Ocean and Skull become instant highlights and gradually the nearly sold-outvenue unfolds their arms and moves from calmly appreciative to quite excitedand not afraid to heckle. On the Reboundand Magnet Coil immolate brightly assongs follow in short bursts of fury as Barlow and bassist Jason Loewenstein(who still looks 25) swap instruments and Loewenstein’s fiercer fodder anddirtier guitar gets drummer Bob D’Amico even more unhinged.

'Lets get this Monday night momentumgoing' he drawls ironically before launching like Evil Knievel into S. Soup, with its ‘crazy people are right on’ hook, causing D’Amico to break his snare.The ensuing 10-minute gap allows Barlow to wax lyrical about his love for EddyCurrent ("it's Brendan's birthday today y'know"), Klimt ('"you should definitely go see the Vienna exhibition, it's great") and his hatred of Americana ("fucking middle class white guys plucking on banjos, is there even such a thing as Australiana?"). Part way through Not Too Amused D’Amico returns and theset reawakens. Careful, Sister, Dreams anda bitter Drama Mine punctuate a setfull of highlights before Willing to Waitand a story of its near inclusion in Friendscloses what must rate as one of the gigs of the year; all 32 songs of it.

Live Review: ALEX AND THE RAMPS, WITCH HATS, PASCAL BARBARE & TEETH

2011-09-18T18:54:00.000-07:00

PHOENIX PUBLIC HOUSE

As important as the onset of an Alex and the Ramps residency is, it’sfair to say that the venue is as much on show as the band tonight. This is thefirst gig to be held here since the pub/restaurant/venue opened quietly in lateAugust, and given the layout, quality of the PA and people behind it, it’s safeto say there’ll be plenty more.

First up though, is the showcasing of the newest addition to theheadline act, drummer Pascal Barbare. Recent replacement of longtime Ramp JonThjia, he pedals his own brand of indie rock weirdness with his band Pascal Barbare & Teeth. Which isironic, as teeth is what this music could use. Loose harmonies coast onswelling and lulling anthemic indie rock, laden with ‘la la la’s and noodlingGretsches. It’s innocuous enough, but with the talent present, and several moments where the careful use of dynamics and control of textures cometogether, it seems better will come. Judging by the quality of Barbare’ssolo work, the potential is definitely there.

Witch Hats too, play a relatively subdued set,possibly due to their recent single launch, described as ‘loud as fuck’ by theband. Playing most of new album PleasureSyndrome, the songs are oddly mid-tempo and lyrics almost discernible. Nowinto their sixth year, a cynical intelligence seems to have subsumed the bitinghumour and bludgeoning danger that came with a Witch Hats show; it's as ifthey've thought before acting for the first time. Musically tighter than everbefore, the band are still able to shift the tone of a song in a moment, thatthey choose not to is slightly frustrating and probably makes more sense onrecord. Ash Buscombe’s bass sound has an intensity that even Albini would leavealone, and it punches fiercely against the dour garage rock. The lack ofstinging malevolence, once bottled, set alight and flung into the face of aPony 2AM crowd, is a difficult thing to replace. Songs like Sessa still channel it, but it seemssomething else is on their minds now. Perhaps the venue is too shiny and amessy warehouse party would bring it back.

For anyone who hasn’t seen Aleksand the Ramps for more than a few months, matching expectations with theirnew lineup is initially disorienting. With 2/5ths of the band replaced sincetheir phenomenal Midnight Believer album,and the role of each member so vital to the output, it’s a tough move they’vehad to make. Fortunately, the quality of songwriting is maintaining its upwardtrajectory and it is this, as well as Aleks' and Extreme Wheeze’s guitartheatrics, Flying Diamonds’ banter, new member Whistling Nancy’s randomanecdotes and the sheer talent present that wins over the sizeable andcuriously heavily-bearded crowd.

“So, what do you think of the Phoenix?” asks Aleks, three songs in. “It'sa pretty nice place, I got some yummy food, it's got a good vibe,” he says tomurmurs of concurrence. Their set is loaded with new material and songs In the Snow for the Time Being, Pray Tell and Crocodile all manage the astonishing job of not being flattened bythe brilliance of earlier singles AntiqueLimb and Bummer (‘a song aboutdoing a brief stint in jail for ordering a Taser online and not realizing youcouldn’t bring them into the country’). The audience, a mixture of the curious,the local and friends, respond warmly and react with glee to the dualguitar-behind-the-head solos and the band’s propensity for ending a songsuddenly. It’s rare to see a band manage such a shift in members and still deliversuch a cohesive and exciting set. Tonight’s show, along with the forthcomingalbum provides another reason to get happy about the forthcoming summer.

Live Review: ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI, CUT OFF YOUR HANDS, GEOFF O’CONNOR

2011-09-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

THE FORUM

The night begins with a bewitching performance fromperfectly chosen support Geoff O’Connor.Another artist in the process of losing the lazy labels that beset hisbrilliant earlier work, O’Connor seems more at ease than ever, inhabiting astrange world of sensuality, electronica and lightly breathed but deeplyresonant paeans to the power of allusion. It’s heady stuff, and his subtlety isunfortunately swallowed up in the rapidly filling room.

If O’Connor encourages us to lean in a littlecloser, then Cut Off Your Hands blastus to the back of the venue with their ambition, copious guitar pedals andimpassioned vocals. Sounding like a cross between BRMC and JAMC, COYH aremassively successful at what they do, and its unfortunate the chatting couplesand steadily drinking friends don’t notice the slicing riffs of guitaristJonathan Lee and McCullough-esque pleas of singer Nick Johnston. Highlightingtheir recent release Hollow, songslike You Should Do Better, All it Takes and Hollowed Out are rallying cries that the combination of reverb andcavernous venue render indecipherable, though intentions are loud and clear.

Bathed in blue fluorescent tubes, dry ice and infront of a massive reproduction of their album cover’s exploding droplet, thequiet, amiable people of Architecture inHelsinki, metaphorically march on stage and scream ‘LET’S GO BACK TO 1984FUCKERS!’ We gladly follow.

Using warm and intimate sounds as they’ve alwaysdone, the icy control and volume with which they deploy them is their greatestasset. The weightless pop of Moment Bendsharks back to cultural references the crowd are largely (and in some casesthankfully) oblivious to. This means edgier singles like Hold Music, Escapee and ThatBeep render the crowd as noisily engaged as one of the nearby footy games,even album tracks like Everything’s Blue andI Know Deep Down getmobiles-in-the-air and dudes-on-shoulders responses.

Occasional synchronised dance moves, clumsy RAWK!!guitar solos and introductions like ‘this song is about living here in a kindof random way…maybe you can pick up on the vibe,’ show that their sense ofhumour is more pronounced than ever. Twice mentioning how humbling it is to beplaying The Forum, AiH never have to try to win us over. Closing with Heart it Races, Do the Whirlwind anunrecognised It’5 and blistering Contact High, the show is a testament tohow, over a period of 10 years, you can shift not only your sound but also yourfanbase whilst remaining totally true to your ethos; from inner Melbourneconcerns and crowds, to outer if you like.

Live Review: LOVE CONNECTION, MILK TEDDY, THE HARPOONS, FULL UGLY

2011-08-23T04:14:00.000-07:00

THE TOTE

With stiff competition elsewhere in town, it’s a respectable crowd that gather to the warmth of the sounds of Full Ugly as they plough through another impressive and shambolic set. Hardly a band whose name is dropped frequently, there is a slow-expanding fondness through their frequent support slots, and it’s a safe bet that the album for sale ‘(‘let me know if you want one’ says their Myspace) will sell out eventually, that is if their members other bands (who include most of tonight’s bill) don’t sap their energies.

The Harpoons seemed to sneak onto the scene in 2009, vanish for a year then burst back a few months ago to ever increasing hyperbole. Few bands can be in possession of such a talent as singer Bec Rigby, who sings like a somnambulist possessed by Fontella Bass, nor songs as proficient and simple as theirs. Though beginning nervously, their 50s chop, casually deployed 3-part harmonies and instruments surely twice as old as the members seem to embolden the band as they progress, and the increasing volume of punters and noise increases with each song. Songs like I Want You Around, All of My Days and Be My Lover betray their surf-rock/French pop base and at the same time leave enough space for Rigby’s voice to soar. This space in the songs belies their true gift, that of restraint, and a million bands trying to be the next DapTones could watch and learn, and then have their minds blown by Faith, the show-stopping, set-closer. It’s almost inconceivable that these songs aren’t covers.

After that slate-cleaning pop tightness, it’s nice to have Milk Teddy get everything messy and spread reverb and delay all over their chugging rock tunes. Fronted by Tom Mendelovits (who is filling in on bass for Love Connection’s forthcoming US tour and could seemingly start a career in stand-up comedy should he want to), the band is excitement in a can. It’s hard to predict which turns songs will take, and not be caught up in the fact that the band seem to see the gig as hilarious fun. Mendelovits has a rare talent for missing notes yet providing exactly the atmosphere-capping ululations needed to give the songs greater connection, as well as dropping comments like ‘structurally, that last song was alright, post-structurally however…’. The nimble bass of Rachel Stanyon and guitar of Bronny Potts drives them to places you most definitely want to go. Final song Dreambone is a highlight, as is Mendelovits’s introduction: ‘this next song is going to be released on a forthcoming split seven-inch with The Ancients,’ he announces to the visible and audible shock of the rest of the band, ‘nah, see that was a joke.’

Love Connection have undergone a reinvention since last year’s adulated and thrilling debut album. Despite this love and their imminent tour of the US, the band have written and nearly completed their new album most of which gets an airing tonight. Gone is the superfluous floor tom, the keyboard chords and guitar slashing have beginnings and ends and though the overwhelming feeling of songs as sonic explorations is still there, hand-drawn maps have been replaced by GPS. Songs like You Don’t Need Muscles to Get Love (signed off with a ‘take that Meredith!’ from singer Michael Caterer), The Sun is in Saturn and the dance-inducing Lost City of Gold are thrilling in their force and textures, getting the audience clearly on side from the outset. However, it’s the closing duo of Omni and Sex in the Cinema that blast away fears of difficulty following up that debut album and plant this band firmly in the small pool of ‘justifiably hyped’ among Australian bands.

Live Review: LIAM FINN, TEETH & TONGUE, MULHOLLAND

2011-08-23T04:08:00.000-07:00

THE WORKERS CLUB

With the Kiwi contingent high, there was little question tonight’s show was going to be a big one. Quite how big, was something of a surprise.

Opening act Mulholland, is a Kiwi with a Lennon-esque bite to his voice. As at ease singing as chatting, comments like 'I'm serious when I say you guys are awesome,” to cheers and claps, before deadpanning 'but we're better' make him instantly likeable. It’s a conclusion you could draw from hearing his songs. Existence is Futile is a heartfelt ballad about resurrecting Elvis to celebrate the opening of a sandwich ("There are days you look up to see / A talking vagina with a 50 foot wingspan"), and Let’s Go Fishing a blinding power-pop salvo featuring Elroy Finn on bass. Bizarre humour is a welcome change from the typically deathly serious troubadour, even if songs like the staggeringly beautiful Meet Me In The Hallway are anything but funny.

As soon as Teeth & Tongue take to the stage, the three very stylish Melbournians making some very stylish music are at risk of seeming pretentious; no easy-going Kiwi-accented banter here. But their vocal-heavy, keyboard-driven urbane swagger disarms the room of Liam Finn fans with an unexpected charm. Singer Jess Cornelius seems born to perform and the band generates an interesting take on atmospheric pop. At times T&T linger on Kate Bush-via-Fitzroy quirkiness but as the set builds and the room reaches capacity, it’s safe to say many new fans are won.

With no aplomb and loud cheers Liam Finn and Eliza-Jane Barnes amble on stage and launch into a set which lives up to Finn’s opening pledge: “We will play songs we find fun, we hope you do too. In fact we fucking promise you!” Tonight, there is a prominent use of electronics. Songs are reborn through a Line 6 delay pedal, allowing Finn to smash a drum kit while niftily triggering loops with his left foot. It’s not until mid-set and Fire In Your Belly that a folkie side emerges. To The Chapel follows and things get decidedly mellow for a few minutes before Finn is back looping heavy fuzz-saturated riffs and beating the kit.

Mulholland and Elroy then join for a mesmerising and blistering take on Cold Feet and we’re given the caveat: “We’re doing things differently tonight. We’re playing tomorrow and don’t want to double up.” More than a reinterpretation of songs, tonight is an example of loudly and lovingly articulated charisma, and it’s very hard not to be caught up.

Live Review: DJ SHADOW

2011-08-01T16:27:00.000-07:00

PALACE THEATRE

With talk leading up to this gig focusing exclusively about the visual aspect of the show, there was little sense of impact when walking into the Palace and seeing a massive white orb on the stage. This is the Shadowsphere? Regardless of this, as soon as it stops being a weird Dr Who prop and begins functioning as a spherical screen, minds are blown. The crowd, mostly comprised of a lot of guys with short hair who don't look like they get out much, lose their minds when Shadow walks out. Dressed in baggy jeans and an orange t-shirt he waves, then ambles into the orb-capsule as seismic rumbles fill the venue and the opening beats of This Time (I’m Gonna Dub It My Way) ring out.

Within a few minutes the crowd explodes all over again with the instantly identifiable introduction to Endtroducing whose songs are pillaged for samples before being deftly dropped then burying amidst a blur of hard beats and fading cheers of recognition.

As great as the music is, and as many songs as the man can taunt us with, it’s the spectacle of the show that impresses, and that stays with you after the show.

Clearly Shadow has raised the bar for DJs and any musician who doesn’t act in a visually interesting way, and, just as unusual are the moments he steps out of the capsule to talk directly to us, thanking us for spending money on his art and for loving music. It’s all pretty unusual for a man rarely photographed not loitering behind towers of vinyl and a cap yanked over his face, and seems particularly powerful given the sonic overload of his show.

There’s no hiding or turning up and pressing play going on here, it’s as much a gig as whatever was happening at the Tote tonight.

The visuals do not always follow the music, often venturing into kaleidoscopic flights with the capsule becoming a multi-purpose sphere against the back-screen. The orb becomes a bowling ball making a strike, the Death Star, it flies down a microscope, through flash-lit forests, drifting over anonymous suburbia, through encyclopedias, by animated statues and courses its way through city streets filled with zombie-faced pedestrians, while Shadow within plays fast and loose with his back catalogue. Most commonly, though, we’re fittingly treated to cut-up shots of equipment, computer chips and geometric patterns, matching the sounds impeccably, every shot and edit in synch with the theme and every-shifting beats.

Shadow’s new take on Six Days, What Does Your Soul Look Like?, Stem, The Number Song, in fact, most tracks get very electro, almost into drill and bass at times with hip-hop samples sliding in and out and live electronic drumming keeping things fresh though still sounding incredibly 90s.

Midway through the show, the capsule spins around to allow Shadow to be seen and banter with us. We learn that he’s been coming to Melbourne for the last 16 years and that it’s 'definitely my favourite city to play’; which, of course, we love. He suggests we pay respect to Mike Durrie, and for those unfamiliar with his music (?) he reminds us that he’s ‘not the sort of DJ who plays weddings’ before dropping his new track, the bangin’ I Gotta Rokk. However, it’s his brief messing with Organ Donor that sends us truly mental.

After some more heartfelt thanks we’re treated to an encore of Blood on the Motorway, You Can Never Go Home Again (in which the orb becomes a snow globe rolling through what seems like Citizen Kane’s Xanadu), and the ever-glorious High Noon in which we’re sent reeling back through galaxies and left to ponder the universe. More than you could ask for from a gig really.

Live Review: TESSA AND THE TYPECAST

2011-07-08T00:08:00.000-07:00

THE TOFF IN TOWN

Within seconds of the red curtain parting the band everyone is here to see boldly kick off their set with previous single and Triple J fave Painter. Tessa and the Typecast (TTT, an acronym that is wholly theirs since Tic Toc Tokyo split) hammer out their jazz-infused indie pop with an authority rare for a band still in its infancy.

Having recently lost cellist and vocalist Natalie Foster to the equally worthy Tully and the Thief, and replaced her with new cellist Lauren Meath, TTT are on better form than ever. Tessa (Pavilach) leads the band through writhing set that finds time to highlight the talent of each member without straying from the song. Dressed in a turquoise skirt with a crimson top and matching flower on her head, Pavilach’s bold fashion choices are mirrored in the front rows: dancing girls in long dresses, pashing couples and fixated beverage-clasping fans.

The venue is packed, testimony to the gigging schedule the band have put themselves through over the last 18 months, beating a path from their native Ballarat through most small and medium sized venues in Melbourne to tonight’s emphatic single launch. B-side From Here follows and sets the warmly expressive tone for many of their subsequent songs. Pavilach’s rich, rasping voice, dextrous yet minimal lead from guitarist Pat Morgan and entwining cello and bass parts fill the songs beautifully, driving them in unexpected directions before returning to deceptively simple hooks. Sections swell, dynamics change quickly and the playing is as tight as their 40-minute set. New songs Machines and the epic Shipwreck show that they’re taking the songwriting risks they need to. Capable of shutting the audience up with a drop in volume and causing raucous singalongs with the older tracks, this is a young band already in control.

Closing with the song they’re here to launch, the stunning Straight on ‘til Morning, TTT blaze through it with precision, passion, a killer chorus and a bubble cannon before inviting us back to their house for the after-party. It’s a hard set to fault. As with the career trajectory of most quirky singers in Australia, Pavilach is likely to turn a small but ardent following into an obsessive fanbase within an album or two. If this show is anything to go by she may not be able to offer that after-party invite for much longer.

Live Review: BOY & BEAR, JINJA SAFARI, EMMA LOUISE

2011-06-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

THE CORNER HOTEL

The temptation to greet the sight of a quirkily dressed girl strumming a Maton and shyly introducing a song with her head cocked to one side with a loud sigh of exasperation isn’t strong, it’s almost overwhelming. But then comes the music, and the voice, and the harmonies and the tight and humble rhythm section and the infallible sincerity, and easy catagorisation evaporates. Emma Louise can arrange and deliver a song with the authority of a veteran despite still being in her teens. The melding of her and keyboardist Hannah’s vocals are room-silencing, which is quite an achievement for a sold-out Corner who are all there to see someone else. Greatness awaits.

Silencing rooms is not on the agenda for Jinja Safari, whose floor-tom-heavy faux tropicalia is utterly devoid of meaning or substance yet will undoubtedly be scaling the heights of the Triple J playlist charts over the next few months. With cloying personalities, and (drummer aside) limited musical ability, Jinja Safari are all about the good vibes, which is fine. It just takes more than nicking some ideas from Vampire Weekend and Animal Collective and dressing them in a gormless smile to create something of consequence. And quite how triggering the sound of an electronic shaker while jumping around with an inaudible shaker improves a song is beyond me.

‘They came out of the sunshine, flowers nestled in their hair' croons singer Dave Hosking in a crystalline voice as he leads Boy & Bear through the opening Mexican Mavis to a rapt Corner. 'We've got a heap of new stuff tonight, I hope that’s OK with you' he says bashfully, and it seems we are. New songs Milk and Sticks and Part Time Believer show the band moving away from the comparisons they’ve been afforded in the past and, if their recent few weeks recording in Nashville are anything to go by, getting more AOR which, when you can write a song this well, is no bad thing. So, it’s somewhat a shame that the introduction ‘this song isn't ours,’ gets the biggest cheer of the night. Like everything else the band touch, their cover of Fall at your Feet is perfectly judged and very tasteful. Closing with the delicate and languid Beach and new single the arresting Feeding Line the lack of encore and ego is welcome in a band who are only playing the first of three sold out shows at The Corner.

Live Review: THE GO! TEAM, NORTHEAST PARTY HOUSE

2011-05-19T17:57:00.000-07:00

THE CORNER HOTEL

The cold night doesn’t stop the fans from crowding into a sweaty Corner Hotel tonight to witness The Go! Team tear through a show unlikely to be rivalled by any other in recent memory for sheer enthusiasm and blinding positivity. Though their legacy as low-fi party band supreme precedes them, it also sets the bar damn high. This reputation works in their favour as the audience, already warmed by a set from Northeast Party House, a band you’re likely to hear a lot more about before the year’s end, rejoice the moment they set foot on stage.

Before this though, NEPH play to a small, sparse audience who grow both in number and enthusiasm throughout the set. Though sounding like a mid-paced Bloc Party or shy Maximo Park, they can map out a song with class; dynamics and instrumentation is spot on. Despite a relatively weak vocalist (who nevertheless dons a Jigglypuff Pokemon head as a jumper for much of the set), they turn out to be an inspired choice of support.

Hitting like a veritable T.O.R.N.A.D.O when they arrive, The Go! Team battle sound problems and a stage that seems slightly smaller than what they’re used to, which, when combined with such unified energy, only makes the show more of a ball of condensed energy.

When they pull out a typewriter for Secretary Song, a steel drum for Back Like 8 Track and an elaborate melodica for Ready to Go Steady you realise that this is the first of their gigs in Melbourne in which any of those instruments could actually be heard over guitars' raucous thrill. As with Rolling Blackouts, there is no drop in energy but more drops in volume and less reliance on backing tracks, as those modern classics from Thunder, Lightning, Strike!.

Without the aerobics workout that singer Ninja incorporates into most songs, this would be merely an interesting and fun live band, but it is her limitless energy that transform Go! Team into one of the best live bands in the world. It’s hard to think of anyone half as good when they’re mid-The Power is On or pulling out the banjo licks and driving Yosemite Theme to higher and higher planes of ecstatic glee.

That this is likely their last Australian tour adds poignancy to the closing Keys to the City and Apollo Throwdown. Whatever form the members’ future efforts take they’d be hard-pressed to be this brilliantly ramshackle.

Live Review: SUGAR MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL

2011-05-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

Over 11 hours, three artspaces and two stages, the inaugural Sugar Mountain Festival saw multimedia get equal billing with some fresh international acts and local bands on a stage they’d rarely get the chance to play.

With a relatively short time between announcement and event, a lineup and publicity which expounds ideas over big names and pulling power, the unusual characteristics of Sugar Mountain only begin there. Installations, galleries, rampant cross-pollination of media, copious and literally awesome projections, floating bubbles, hissing dry ice and a stunning locale, it initially runs like a well-funded Steiner school concert only with more floor toms. A LOT more.

Kicking off, fitting openers Oscar + Martin seem a little at sea on the massive stage in the sparsely populated room but this doesn't stop them getting a red hot reception from the mingling early-comers. Lazy floor tom breakdowns, the meek boyish yelping and favoring texture over structure seems not to matter as O+M move from cheesy white boy rapping to James Blake gentleness and a glitchy breakdown within a song. With all the embellishments mentioned above debuting for their set, they seem like distracting overkill for a band whose core still seems to be forming despite having seemingly mastered the studio on their debut LP.

With the crowd now numbering several hundred, Otouto take the school concert vibe up another level with carefully constructed show featuring the frankly bizarre No Lights No Lycra, precision percussion and pitch-perfect harmonies. Playing most of their album Pip, Otouto ‘s music is so fragile and detailed that it seems one missed beat or stray harmony could derail an entire song, so it’s a testament to their talents that even in the cavernous Forum their spell still works. A little dissonance in their new songs gives some extra depth to their almost impossibly clean signature sound, which goes down a treat with the crowd who seem to be already converts.

Upstairs, No Zu make every band who settle for a floor tom as rhythm enhancement seem like lightweights with their funky timbales and dynamite post punk party intensity. The venue’s seats don't stop punters dancing and the demonically pitch-shifted vocals keep everything rough and unpredictable. Clearly a lot of people are impressed with No Zu, who themselves mention that they’re far more used to house parties than on a stage in front of five meter high projections. Despite their consistent manic exuberance, most of the audience disappear for Collarbones mid-set which dampens their spirit not one iota.

With more hyperbolic blog posts gushing about their mp3s than gigs, Collarbones are, fortunately, a revelation live. Despite having the combined age of a typical M+N reader, they’re comfortable on stage and exude a cockiness that quickly becomes essential part of their show. Instead of taking the obvious tropes of hip-hop, they take the confidence and throw it over some glitchy beats. They’re easy and woozy with the BPM and imaginative with their sounds. A song introduced as ‘a hate anthem for microphone stands’ brings some welcome unpredictability and edge to the main room as well as eliciting some stellar dance moves both from the duo and the crowd, but then outdo themselves with a 90s hip-hop cover, or as one punter puts it ‘motherfuckers dropped some J-Lo!’ To close they press play on ‘some 90s dance shit’ before leaving their gear to dance and strike poses which the typically solemn security guards have to crack up at. Cult fandom or massive success awaits.

Back upstairs, the film program kicks in with The Creative Lives, a documentary in which American artists talk about the creative process, only the sound is off and Talking Heads 77 is playing. Everyone is happy to chill and chat, as they do around the art exhibition happening outside the upstairs bar and around the live painting from Thomas Campbell and by the front doors where people scull their cider before stepping outside.

On the main stage, Texans YellowFever’s technical problems delay the start of their show but can't stop a successful conversion of curious onlookers. Their ragged and spellbinding set of sparse, wiry songs is a welcome burst of unprocessed, unfiltered rawness and communicates more directly as a result. New songs Bermuda Triangle and Horse promise much beyond their EP-compiling sole album and Jennifer Moore’s voice is a remarkably effective tool.

Red curtains part, a lone figure strides out, and soon there is only one thing we’re conscious of. Static. Static on the screen, static in the air, static in our heads, Qua on the stage. Soon, seismic pulses of bass radiate and beats appear, so clipped they almost become tones as he builds his set toward the guest appearances The Ritmo Giallo Ensemble, featuring Gray Taylor (Flying Scribble) on a sparkling Lapsang Souchong and Mat Watson (Magic Silver White) for the surprise appearance of his My Disco remix, Young. A stellar set that no doubt wins him new fans.

Meanwhile, Kiwis Coolies are burning up the rulebook by which others are playing with a lack of musicianship that can only be described as spectacular for a band who began in the mid-90s (recently recruited drummer Stefan notwithstanding). Coolies near disregard for ‘songs’ and music as entertainment are compelling. Mumbled verses disappear under one-handed guitar thrashing, songs are seemingly composed on the fly, the apathy so authentic it becomes hilarious, but then a sneered catchphrase will burst forth and everything comes together in a blinding flash of punk brilliance. ‘I’m bored with this song,’ says singer Tina to bassist Sjolin, slouched against the back of the stage, before the song, possibly called Work in Progress, peters out.

Though Virgo Four, the American electro-house duo who have been around now since 1989, may be unknown to most of those in the room, the hallmarks of the Chicago house movement in which they were born are disarmingly familiar. 303 bass sounds, a breakdown from industrial, repetitive drum machine to clean piano chops and sparse vocals the elements are there, the creation something totally fresh. The songs segue smoothly, most of them featuring some fluid guitar from Merwyn Sandars, and their ‘classics’ In a Vision and Ride fill the room with clusters of dancers getting their hands in the air, making Oscar + Martin’s set seem like another gig altogether.

Back from their SXSW showcase and American tour and closing the upstairs room are Twerps. Bringing new songs and sound more coalesced and honed than ever, yet in a way that doesn’t detract from the shambling brilliance of their earlier work, the band put on a rousing show. It’s odd, hearing confidence sneak in to some of the new songs, but it’s not unwelcome, perhaps some of America rubbed off on them? Despite unusually annoying visuals (showing the ‘crazy dance scene’ from Beetlejuice on a loop in 4-screen is only ever going to detract from songs like You Give Me The Chills) the new songs are brilliant and the album can’t come soon enough.

Back downstairs and now half an hour after their scheduled time, Aa explode onstage with a set that would keep Battles and RATM fans happy and bring memories back for anyone who caught the Boredoms last year (in fact, Aa were part of Boadrum 77). Loud as all hell and with the effect of being repeatedly punched in the ear by an orc, Aa are clearly very into hitting drums hard and do it in a way that gets all of your attention. Once they’ve got it though, there is no real trajectory or purpose revealed, unlike Crass, the band they took their name from. On record there are shifts and subtleties, but they’re subsumed tonight. Bells and cymbals are used to give some dynamic depth and when the synth lines break through it’s a welcome reprieve.

Overall the mix of art and music makes for a unique festival, one that could only happen here and now. Punters seem upbeat, fashion contributes as much as the installations to the festival-as-art and the turnout leaves the Forum busy without being packed solid. With any luck more festivals that rely on ideas over big names will take note.

SOMEONE LIKE HER: An interview with ADELE

2011-04-15T19:03:00.000-07:00

Experiencing the type of fame that comes only a few times a generation, Adele is a genuine, multi-million-selling diva in her native UK who has set several new chart records in recent weeks. Why it is has been the topic of some discussion, ANDY HAZEL looks for clues in a 2009 interview he did with her for Frankie Magazine.

It was meant to be a normal interview, but Adele is a hard one to track down. Three cancellations, a postponement and several phone cards later, her warm and broad South London accent crackles from her mobile as she relaxes between shows on her tour bus.

Still reveling in the first flush of fame, Chasing Pavements has recently hit it's 100 millionth YouTube view, her album 19 has just cracked the Top 10 and Adele is finding herself thrust from an anonymous yet promising Brit school graduate living with her mum to internationally famous, tabloid-analysed, award winning Brit school graduate living with her mum.

"I moved out for a bit," she says warmly, "but I moved back in 'cause I missed her," she laughs. "She comes to a lot of the gigs and the TV shows - but not the early morning ones. She doesn't travel with me anymore, she just checks up on me. She can tell if something isn't right or if I'm upset. I call and text her everyday if I don't see her." Adele agrees that this might be why she's handling the pressures and strains of life so well. "To be honest I'm quite oblivious to it, I know things have changed a lot and that it's all happened so fast," she pauses for thought. "But I like it better this way; not thinking about it." Surely that must be pretty challenging, ignoring fame while all around you life changed. "Well," she thinks carefully. "I never wanted to be famous. I only decided I that I wanted to do this when I was offered the record deal over lunch. I was there with my manager and my mum, we got taken out to lunch by this guy from XL and he just kind of popped the question. We looked at each other and I said, 'yeah, OK then'. It was really that simple."

This kind of poise and relaxation is hard to come by, and indicative of the way that Adele has courted fame, without any scandals, celebrity boyfriends or anything to distract from the music at all (despite some tabloid obsession with her physique). At the core of all of this attention and fame though, is her voice. "I always loved to sing," she says happily. "I have done since I knew you could make noise. With the kind of artists I grew up listening to it was never about having a talent, it was about looking pretty and having a gimmick; that's all they knew 'cause that was all I saw on TV y'know. So, it seemed impossible for me to consider it as something I could do for a living, it wasn't something I ever even thought about growing up."

One area of Adele's rise to prominence is her graduating of the famous BRIT School of Performing Arts and Technologies, a school dedicated to training adolescents who want to make a career in the performing arts. Through focusing on dance, musical theatre, drama and technical theatre, graduates have collectively amassed dozens of awards and tens of millions of album sales which isn't bad for a school with less than 900 students that only began in 1991.

"I didn't know about The BRIT School before I went there," she says keenly. "I was just really bored at my secondary school. The BRIT School was free, it wasn't full of kids pushed by their parents like I thought it might be, there were kids who were there on a Saturday morning working because they loved it. I would literally jump out of bed in the morning knowing I was going there; I'd never felt like that before. I think it was well overdue when a lot of us [seven] all got big about the same time. There was me The Feeling, The Kooks, Leona Lewis, Katie Nash, Katie Melua and Amy Winehouse - all of us Brit School graduates, all of us debut albums at number 1."

NINJA TUNES: An interview with NINJA of THE GO! TEAM

2011-04-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

Ninja, singer with The Go! Team opens up about ‘destroying bands who sell millions of records’, the making of Rolling Blackouts and the possible split of the band later this year.

It’s rare for a band to be so tightly wound to the picture painted by their name, but then The Go! Team were never going to do things by halves with a name like that. Rolling Blackouts, their current album and one likely to be featured prominently in their upcoming gigs, is a melange of the riotous hip-hop beats, cheerleader chants, slashing guitars and horn blasts with which they made their name, but also finds time to chill out a little, something lead singer Ninja has little time for. “Once I start I can’t really stop,” she says of her famously exuberant stage presence. “If you’re running the 100m you can’t slow down and say ‘whew I started way too fast, gotta take a break now’ you start off at one level and you can’t fall beneath that level, and that’s it really. I don’t plan to be 110% constantly, it’s just what I would do at home even if no one was there with me.” At the suggestion that there is a difference between the performer Ninja and the woman behind her, Ninja gets even more vocal. “I am Ninja! There is only Ninja, there used to be someone else but Ninja killed her. I’m not like Beyonce; she thinks she has her performer side and her shy lady side, that’s not me. There is just Ninja.”

With gigs renown for tight, thrilling reinterpretations of their sprawling recordings, Ninja is the prime force and pinnacle of the Go! Team as a live unit. However, when it comes to making the music, there are two versions of the band. “Yeah, and it’s always been like that,” she says changing pace. “Ian [Parton, songwriter and guitarist] locks himself away for a while, a few months maybe, with some sandwiches and bottles of water. He has to create the album on those scraps of food and people come over and put down bits and pieces; bass guitars, guitars…you never know what’s going to happen. He’ll get guests in to sing on parts, then he shakes a wand and the album is finished. We’re happy being involved in the live version, that’s the fun part where we get to mix it up and get involved. The album is made up of Ian’s influences and that’s his baby.”

The creation of Rolling Blackouts, saw Parton became even more hermetic than before and its creation is something Ninja describes as ‘shrouded in mystery. “I had emails and calls like ‘can you come down to the studio for this…’ or I’ll write raps or harmonies. We’re always recording stuff and not knowing what it’s going to sound like. I’ll record things and wouldn’t know what was going to happen with the song. The first time I heard the album was when the journalists heard it. But when we’re performing these songs on stage we’re singing and rapping a lot more.”

While fans are used to the low-fi rush of a Go! Team song, there has been more than one review which mentions the loss of Ninja’s lyrics to the horn blasts, booming drums and blasting guitars, likely due in part to Parton’s insistence on mastering to a C-60 cassette. “Ian puts it together and it’s a really clear vision he has; he would have liked to make it even more low-fi if he could. If I’m rapping something I want people to hear and understand the lyrics I write because you know, I spend a lot of time writing them, so I’d like it less low-fi but then he’d want it more low-fi. I think you need to see us live on stage as well as on record, because live I strive for clarity which I think is what the audience want as well as all the crazy stuff we do.”

This optimism and blithe sunshiny attitude is core to The Go! Team’s sound and energy and Ninja’s selection as the band’s focal point was a stroke of brilliance on the part of Parton when he was assembling the band. Last here in January 2009, their forthcoming tour sees them play smaller venues, which comes as a strange move given the massive airplay recent single Buy Nothing Day has received. “When we play a place that’s more intimate, that’s a challenge to us because we only have a tiny little area to jump around in and we love that, though it does usually result in injuries. We’re also doing festivals to thousands of people who may never have heard of us,” Ninja quantifies clearly relishing the opportunity. “Festivals are a challenge. We’re battling against weather and the lure of other bands so we have to get an audience and keep them there throughout the set - even if they don’t know who we are!” She says excitedly. “We’ve got nothing to lose - people don’t know us so they don’t expect much and we destroy it! We destroy those other bands who have sold millions of records and have a big following, you see they have a lot to live up to, whereas we get to surprise people.”

Something that came as a surprise to a lot of people was the offhand comment made by Parton during an interview with a small Irish newspaper in February “This may be our last year as a live band.” He also confirmed that the band “might split up” after this tour. Ninja is similarly uncertain, though doubtful. “I don’t know. I have loads of stuff I want to do, I’m working on a solo project with interesting producers, one of the producers is Starslinger another one is a guy called Rural. There’s a lot of stuff I want to do, who knows what’s going to happen really. I just don’t know, but I’ll put it on my blog when I do.”

Best catch them while they can still be caught.

Live Review: SANTANA

2011-04-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

ROD LAVER ARENA

Seeing a legend like this is a strange experience, one almost crushed under safe expectations, stifling any chance to feel the transcendence the band built their legacy on. However, one glance around the arena says it's unlikely the crowd is looking for anything like that. With Carlos Santana you know exactly what you're going to get; a dude in a hat playing a lot of guitar, a large backing band of similarly proficient musicians, and a piñata full of Latino goodtimes.

With well over 100 previous members, the current 11-piece lineup fills the stage with 30-odd drums and copious percussion, none of which is wasted. Riding rugged over the top off the heavily swung rhythms, pulsing bass and stinging Hammond oozes Carlos's guitar tone, dripping with sustain and busy as a Spanish flea pulling one song into the next. "I'm very grateful, very blessed at this time, on this planet," says Carlos after shaking the place to the ground for the umpteenth time. "It's important for us to stay lightheaded and to live in wonderment, healing and love." The audience cheers. "I happen to know a lot about love right now," he smiles. "You see, I got married in December to this lady..." and in walks Cindy Blackman (you know, Lenny Kravitz's drummer from Are You Gonna Go My Way). Cue a stonkering five-minute drum solo, a sloppy kiss and a blistering intro to Jingo, which has the audience cheering louder than ever.

From the crowd, many of who would have helped Abraxas to number one in 1971, there is a palpable excitement and a lot of arrhythmic arm waving when Santana pulls out Oyo Come Va and Evil Ways before segueing into A Love Supreme (there is a lot of segueing tonight). All inspiration for another soliloquy, this time we're told about 'SOCC' aka 'the Sound of Collective Consciousness' a concept with enough references to 'a younger time' and 'bringing the love from Woodstock' to make Anthony Carew apoplectic with rage. "If you remember one thing from tonight, make it this...you are light and love," he solemnly intones before we all, gender by gender, chant it back arms aloft: "I am light and love!" So, it’s a relief for some when the band launch into Sunshine of Your Love and several of his recent Smooth(er) efforts, taking us back to the safety of the idea of Carlos, leaving us free to comfortably nestle in his warm spirit and copious baggage.

WITTERTAINMENT: an interview with THE BEDROOM PHILOSOPHER

2011-03-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

At the outset of the Melbourne Comedy Festival, The Bedroom Philosopher proclaims there is nothing more boring that hipsters and moves on from Northcote with a new comedy show ‘Wit Bix’, which is all about wanting to kick start some conversations.

“I like a pun,” muses the Bedroom Philosopher aka Justin Heazlewood, a revelation which will surprise no one familiar with his work. “I think the name Wit Bix sums up the show because it’s a segmented show, a series of short witty bits. I’ve been self obsessed for 30 straight years so I know myself pretty well and I can say that I am witty.”

With several Triple J hits under his belt, an ARIA nomination and a plethora of TV appearances earned during his years of slogging it out as Australia’s sole representative of indie folk comedy, Heazlewood is more optimistic than ever, a state reflected in Wit Bix, though a proclivity for self-depreciation hasn’t entirely lost him.

“I’ve been the king of whimsy in the past, and there are expectations that I’ll do this awkward, indie shambolic style of comedy,” he says of the assumptions that he brings with him now. “Wit Bix has a lot of wordplay, but it’s more angry and political than I’ve been before. There’s a song about Australia and how much I hate it being conservative, xenophobic and dumb written as a jaunty John Williamson bush ballad. Good comedy has to be original and surprising, because essential comedy is a surprise and laughter is a tiny scream. You’re being attacked by a concept you didn’t see coming, and as times goes on it’s harder to be shocking and original. My usual criticism of things I don’t like is that the writing isn’t intelligent enough, I adore wordplays and juxtapositions.”

With a sideline in writing for Frankie, J-Mag and The Big Issue as well as several websites, Heazlewood gets a lot of room to experiment with language and wordplay which any subject he touches is rife with. However, 2011 sees him moving further into the realm of television with recent appearances on In Gordon Street Tonight and a forthcoming, if overdue, appearance on Spicks and Specks. “TV makes you relevant in Australian comedy and this is my TV year. I’m also doing the Channel 10 Comedy Gala, which I guess is a sign of some success,” he states with a blithe defiance before sighing despondently. “It’s such a confusing dynamic for someone as self-deprecating as me, so I’m handling it by being really cynical. I’m a musician and a comedian simultaneously, but music is more fashionable than comedy so I’m actually trying to turn into a massive rock star. Everyone in Aussie comedy is so polite and supportive of each other, I want to be like Liam Gallagher was in interviews because if I have to read one more interview with a polite indie band not really answering the questions they’re asked and dropping the right words I’m going to shoot myself.”

As a writer, musician, comedian and cultural commentator, multitasking is something Heazlewood clearly excels at. “I’m Gen Y so I’m naturally born with the ability to do four things at once,” he says breezily. “I play music and write so therefore I’m like every second person in Melbourne, plus, I’m a Gemini so I’m already split down the middle. I was born in a bogan town to down to earth country folk, so I’ve got this no bullshit perspective, but after 10 years in the big smoke wearing vintage clothes, I’d like to think I have the ability to be insider and outsider at the same time.”

With more multiple dualities than an episode of Twin Peaks, Heazlewood finds these roles an eternal font of frustration and inspiration, or, as he puts it: “with music, people only want to hear your old stuff and in comedy you have to have new material, so in musical comedy they cancel each other out.” The Bedroom Philosopher, occupying a niche no one else in Australia has attempted and predating the Flight of the Conchords by several years, depicts this state as “the clown and the balladeer punching the shit out of each other. I’m a frustrated musician turning tricks because audiences like it,” he confesses, “and because it really annoys the indie community. I’d argue the music scene has never taken itself so seriously and that my sort of music has its place in that. It’s just awesome how angry people get when they can’t put you in a box,” continues Heazlewood with glee. “I’m the King of Hipsters, I’m the biggest one there is. Northcote is the most hipster thing a hipster could ever do, it’s basically the last word in hipsterness. I’m also the first to admit that it’s old now, and you’d be struggling to find a more tedious conversation at a party than trying to define a hipster. You’d bore everyone stupid, get awkward silences and the only thing left to do would be to call a taxi.”

After the success of last year’s album Songs from the 86 Tram, its accompanying tour and ARIA nomination, Heazlewood was glad to return to subjects that used his improvisational skills and spontaneous wordplay.

“86 Tram was a writing exercise to make myself disappear,” he says keenly. ”Before then I’d been banging on about my own neuroses and issues for about 10 years but for that, I didn’t even want to be in it. Wit Bix is back to me again only now I’m more confident. I hit 30 and got angry which was a great source of jokes. The show is me making fun of men, I talk about how much I hate going to stand up comedy nights, not being happy with Australia, and about how awkward we are about Aboriginal issues and how no Gen Y person will go there to the point of racism itself. This makes it one of the freshest sources for comedy, I acknowledge that too. I like to think there are jokes to be found in any topic and I think I’ve found quite a few as well as making valid statements about how we’re stuck in an awkward silence. All art is a conversation of some kind and I just want to kick start some new conversations.”

Live Review: OMAR SOULEYMAN

2011-03-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB

There has rarely been a more diverse and uniformly excited crowd than that squeezed into a very sold-out Northcote Social Club tonight. Anticipation is expressed through spontaneous cheering, near-constant clapping and the occasional honk of a Mega Blast (a vuvuzela-like hand horn), and it’s all very warrented. From the moment the red curtains part and the initial disappointment that we will not be treated to a band, but rather a dexterous synthesizer player/electronic percussionist Rizan Sa’id, subsides, it is a night like nothing else.

Dressed in his red and white checkered keffiyeh, dark circular glasses and light green, smartly trimmed thobe, Omar Souleyman looks as relaxed as a man with a 500 album back catalog would be, as he paces back and forth across the stage. With a long history as a wedding entertainer in his native Syria, Souleyman is clearly no longer adored only in the Middle East as his performance here elicits adoration most acts would happily retire on. Known by most for his three albums on the Sublime Frequencies label, it’s clear Souleyman hasn’t changed his shtick one iota. He tucks his mic in his armpit, claps and motions for the already excited crowd to get up and get involved, which he never needs to do because we already are. Still, when a man with his sense of authority gestures minimally, the effect is huge and appreciation is expressed even more ardently.

Simply hearing musicians use scales that don’t follow standard intervals is a welcome change. The combination of ceaselessly spiraling, slightly nasal-sounding Arabic scales, brittle steel-drum percussion and a rapid, pounding 4/4 bass drum interspersed with Souleyman’s echo-laden voice is a powerful one. ‘Eeeer-yah!’ he chants again and again in various songs after brief synth flourishes and pitch-bend heavy instrumental break from the po-faced Sa’id. We cheer back with cries of ‘Omar!’ and ‘Habibi!’, raised wrists twisting, feet stamping and copious blasts from plastic horns all of which melds into the song perfectly. The fluidity of the rhythms, the quavering of the notes and the space Souleyman’s voice generates is intoxicating. Over the course of the gig Souleyman smiles more and more, as stage invaders wielding filming iPhones circle dance, stuff money in his pocket and occasionally kiss his hand. This is not your standard show and it’s a glorious example of the power of charisma and the variety of ways in which positivity can be made and music can feel totally fresh again.

CD Review: UNIDENTIFIED FLYING COLLECTION OF SONGS – MY OWN PET RADIO

2011-03-26T18:24:00.000-07:00

(INDEPENDENT)

Who exactly My Own Pet Radio is (Sam Cromack) and what he’s about should become apparent to anyone paying attention to the Australian independent music scene over the next 12 months. Singer and songwriter with current Triple J hypees Ball Park Music, Cromack is a prolific individual, with this first full-length release following on from his band’s two EPs and four singles, all released in 2010. With a proliferation of deftly played acoustic and electronic instruments, and responsible for all singing and production duties, the album, like its artwork, shows Cromack is fascinated by structure and assembly.

At times, Unidentified Flying Collection of Songs sounds like a learning process, though an eminently listenable one. When Cromack occasionally risks losing songs to production experiments it’s never in an egotistic way, and nothing here, no catchy hook or spiralling effect, outstays its welcome. Listening to the album puts you in the unusual situation of not knowing what the next song will do once one, usually abruptly, ends. Album highlight and closing track How Strange You Are evokes melancholy Kiwi pop, All Colours disappears into a gorgeously unhinged vocal arrangements, while The Banana Situation offers wry and catchy self-analysis.

Cromack’s inspired mix of low-fi production works in favour of the music. Opening track I Am Having Such a Good Time Here is a hilarious mix of acoustic guitar and harpsichord-driven verses, which explodes to a vocal-drenched hook of a chorus. Like other parts of the album, it’s reminiscent of Beck, when he was still driven by a sense of adventure.

Though it’s unlikely many other musicians could assemble an album with this sense of inventiveness and playful intelligence, the most notable achievement here is that Cromack drives the whole album with a quality that is sadly bereft from most new Australian music, personality.

Live Review: GOLDEN PLAINS

2011-03-16T18:07:00.000-07:00

MEREDITH SUPERNATURAL AMPHITHEATRE

When there is such a high level of expectation around a band and a festival there is a lot of room to fall, but The Hold Steady entertain no such notions. Blasting a gapless, breathless rush of smart and verbose punk rock, the band pack so much energy into the music that frontman Craig Finn comes across like Woody Allen if Allen had dabbled in brilliant punk rock instead of respected jazz clarinet. Though most of the incredibly dense lyrics are lost, the sheer thrill of songs like Hot Soft Light, Sequestered in Memphis and the twin guitar attack of Rock n Roll Problems seal the deal that this will be one of the shows of the festival.

If watching Airbourne is like watching Jersey Shore (as one punter accurately notes), then watching Wavves is akin to watching a reality TV show. Will he lose it this week? Will he argue with the crowd, his band or both? As it turns out the recipients of Nathan Williams bitter ennui are an overly aggressive security guard, the sound guy and ‘fucking grasshoppers’. Opening with So Bored and King of the Beach before continuing to get mopey about California and being young, the brilliant low-fi haze of his recordings is lost live, and the songs become more mechanisms for eliciting a steady stream of bodies across the crowd barrier. Job done.

Possibly the band most people are most excited for Belle and Sebastian prove that plane fares for a twelve-strong band plus crew is not wasted with a complete blinder of a set. Though meek in voice, Stuart Murdoch is anything but on stage, careering along the front row, crowd-surfing, high-fiving and kinetically expressing his joy at playing. With a set that’s heavy on If You’re Feeling Sinister and The Life Pursuit plus a version of Kinks’ Victoria that gets everyone on side, they are a perfect match of venue, songs and audience, even if certain tough-looking musicians occasionally yelp and flinch at an unexpected insect landing on them.

Landing a pressure-heavy 9PM slot on the last day is Architecture in Helsinki who choose to return from a yearlong absence with a new look and new songs. Unsurprisingly, it all goes brilliantly and the new look; white suits and tails with blue sparkly bow ties matches their mid-80s lightweight electro-pop perfectly. Mixing in crowd-amping new versions of old favourites, it’s the new songs that really impress. Deep Down will be all over the radio and in charts before the year’s out, while the titles Escapee and Desert Island won’t mean much now but are songs that are sure signs the band are stronger than ever and their forthcoming album is something to hanker for.

While Hawkwind were fascinating from a ‘how will they do it?’ angle (the answer is they don't, with robotic dancing girls on stilts and overlooking your classic single), World’s End Press take that awkward 2AM-after-the-headliner-slot and run it into the ground. Earning deafening vocal love and several hundred elevated shoes partway through their blinding single Faithful, W.E.P are a bizarre beast. One misstep and their blend of 80s beats, flailing dance moves, sparkling lamé and rubbery basslines would come crashing down, but their sheer energy, sincerity and undeniable conviction means they become an unlikely high point of a festival whose success is largely based on familiar acts playing familiar songs in a familiar setting.

While that’s essential to a certain degree, this year’s Golden Plains was one full of surprises, the most welcome of which was the programming; eclectic, complimentary and almost impossibly, without a dud. From Graveyard Train’s piercing cry of ‘Wake the fuck up Golden Plains!’ as they redefine the role of opening Day Two, to the micro-second thought process written on hundreds of faces as ‘who’s Imelda May?’ turns to ‘holy shit this is awesome!’ the only sensible reaction is; ‘Golden Plains, you clearly know what you’re doing, please carry on.’

CD Review: GIMME SOME – PETER, BJORN AND JOHN

2011-03-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

(Cooking Vinyl)

Regardless that this is the band’s sixth album, most people will arrive at a PB&J album with expectations of stylish, featherweight pop. When Young Folks hit it felt like such effortless sliver of genius that you’d expect its composers and producers to be able to turn out a dozen more like it, which made its accompanying album Writer’s Block such a relative disappointment. With Gimme Some there’s no Young Folks but further, no attempts to write anything light and catchy or even produce the album themselves, which is remarkable given the experience they’ve had behind the desk. This move is perfectly exemplified by Breaker, Breaker, which takes a blistering 99 seconds of supercharged guitar-driven pop with a suitably thrilling filmclip and leaves no prisoners.

The band doesn’t seem in a particularly good mood throughout Gimme Some. There’s no joy in their delivery, from the opening repeated lines of ‘I don’t think you are sorry for what you did / I know you need it and you just don’t know how to quit’ through to the closing ‘I know you don’t love me and I know the reason why.’ While heartbreak has been the impetus for some of the greatest indie pop songs of all time (say, The Field Mice’s If You Need Someone or The Concretes’ New Friend), here the writers seem too scared to fully explore them, content with initial feelings of bitterness and anger, keeping the songs short for fear of giving too much away.

Peter Morén’s Lennonesque piercing vocal and slap-back echo haunts the album, an evocation that does the band no favours. Instead, when they stretch out and show a hint of vulnerability as on the closing IKYDLM, they get interesting and the production of Per Sunding (of Swedish indie pop gods Eggstone) gets something to explore. Worth a listen, but probably not many.

CD Review: BLUE SONGS – HERCULES AND THE LOVE AFFAIR

2011-03-16T17:55:00.000-07:00

(Shock/Moshi Moshi)

Nostalgic house music can be incredibly powerful when done right, when songs are assembled with personality, intent and deft production. The odd thing about Hercules and the Love Affair (HLA) is that there is no real identity associated with the band and so it is that Blue Songs seems to float around a musical concept of Chicago house-influenced pop with no real heart. While this might be fine if you want to switch off and relax with the last warm breeze of summer and some good conversation, there is little offered in the way of dynamics or arresting beats as their debut boasted.

Most associated with the earlier incarnation of HLA not with ringleader Andy Butler, but guest Antony Hegarty for their most notable track, Blind. Here, the most notable guest is Kele Okereke who turns in a limp-wristed effort on the insipid Step Up. More impressive is the gliding, pulsing bassline, heavily compressed brass and four-to-the-floor beats of Falling (almost worth price of admission alone) and the late-80s encapsulation of My House, which oozes late-80s nostalgia in an infectious way, the only songs which really build on their beginnings.

Nostalgia seems to be Butler's main motivation on assembling Blue Songs. While it can be glorious to be reminded of an era when someone resurrects their hybridised version of it, it’s less exciting when their version is so faceless and any chance to connect with the music is challenged by shifting vocalists, none of whom leave a strong enough impression.

HLA leave their boldest move for last, with a bizarre, beatless, breathy cover of Sterling Void’s seminal It’s Alright, which only reminds you how great the Pet Shop Boys cover was, a band whose Behaviour album Blue Songs would dearly love to be.

Live Review: ALPINE

2011-03-08T02:00:00.000-08:00

CORNER HOTEL

Despite the murmuring of dissent in the weeks leading up to this gig, it turns out a local band with minimum airplay and only a handful of gigs under their belts CAN release a debut EP and nearly sell out The Corner on a Friday. Alpine, whose hype has been moving from a low buzz to a steady roar since their signing to Ivy League last August, prove beyond a doubt that 2011 is going to be their year. Kicking off with a brief instrumental Lovers, they leap into Too Safe from their EP Zurich and it’s safe to say the young, stylish hand very vocal audience are very familiar with the singles and grow more enthusiastic with every song.

Before the third song is over, the band’s songwriting format begins to show; bold guitar chops, icy vocal harmonies, 303-style pulses from the bass guitar, clipped minimal drums and dense washes of synth. It’s a stellar combination and one the six-piece toy with joyfully. Comprising of four guys and two artfully made up and attired harmonising girls Phoebe Baker and Louisa James, Alpine have struck a winning combination. Christian O’Brien’s slashing dry guitar work sounds simplistic but is delicate and precise, holding this unusually tight band sound together and ensuring that the only way the songs stray from their recorded version is by an elevation in intensity.

The stunning mid-set highlights Hands and Tough Skin see the constantly writhing and dancing Baker’s makeup run, as does the sweat down the backs of the tightly dancing audience. New songs Seeing Red, North South East West and Vigour, promisingly, get the audience responding louder than ever. As cupfuls of glitter are hurled toward the ceiling, the projections of the cosmos that have been illuminating the band reach a flickering peak and Baker’s microphone is flung to the floor as the single Heartlove kicks in it’s impossible not to be caught up in the thrill of the moment. Encore Icypoles (recently remixed by impossibly hip British producer Star Slinger) ratchets the joyful intensity up another notch, and the coda to Icypoles ends a set that could be turned into one of the best albums of 2011. Alpine are onto a winner and delivered one of the best gigs of recent memory to prove it.

FRIENDS IN DEED: An interview with NARDI SIMPSON from STIFF GINS

2011-03-08T01:55:00.000-08:00

NARDI SIMPSON fills ANDY HAZEL in on life as half of acoustic duo STIFF GINS and how stripping away your identity can sometimes be a good thing.

With the release of their third album Wind and Water, acoustic duo Stiff Gins seem at the peak of their creative powers and damn happy about it. “We’re totally excited about the album, it’s been a long time coming,” says Nardi Simpson. “The songs have been around for about four years, when we started to demo those songs. We waited a couple of years to get the album together, then we got funding to finish it, spent the last two years recording and finally…it’s here.”

Though four years may seem a long time between albums, Simpson and band-mate Kaleena Briggs are good at squeezing life experience into their time together since their formation in 1997. Playing in Kuwait to Australian army troops, extensively touring Africa and Europe and 2011 is the first year they’ve assembled a backing band for live performances. “It’s always just been the two of us,” Simpson says. “We’re usually loners, we’re a bit shy. We’re a little bit intimidated by musos because we think that we’re two friends, and we don’t feel like we’re ‘on the scene’ or ‘in the business’”.

Raised from Redfern but now living in Marrickville, Stiff Gins are most commonly identified as being an indigenous group, a label that initially obscured the music more than they would have liked. “We freaked out at the beginning because it has such strong associations,” she intones carefully. “When we went over to Edinburgh people thought that they were coming to see traditional Aboriginal music, so…words can overtake what we do. As we’ve become more comfortable with who we are it matters less,” Simpson continues. “We know we’re able to do justice to that term and represent that as well as representing a lot of different things. We’re blackfellas and we’re proud of that and we’re songwriters and we’re proud of that, we can deliver on both of those in 45 minutes.”

While Australians may just be catching on to the dazzling harmonies and sweet blend of folk-pop that the band birth, people in unlikely corners of the Earth who might be ahead of us. “Things that are huge for us; our heritage and who we are just disappears over there. When we went over to Africa we were driving around with this guy who asked us where we were from and we told him we were indigenous Australians, and he said ‘we’re all indigenous’. He said ‘oh no, you’re not black,’ and I got angry. Then I realised that the politics of colour of skin is totally different there; you’re black or your not, and we weren’t. What’s at the core of who you are might not have any relevance anywhere else.”

Identity and nature seem to be big inspirations for both Briggs and Simpson as songwriters, but overriding even these sources is their friendship, which has lasted even longer than the band. “It was hard for me to come to terms with being daggy relatively young,” laughs Simpson about the suggestion that their music will age well. “I was all about getting on stage at Homebake and the Big Day Out, winning an ARIA, all that stuff. I thought that being in a band would make me even a little bit cool, but because we had such different upbringings and we let the music unfold, your experience as you get older changes and your stories become more interesting and you get better at delivering them in a different way. Because we’ve been doing it for ages, I can’t envisage a time when we‘re not playing. A while back, I felt like we were losing a bit of what it is that enables us to have the friendship, but now -because we’ve got a publisher and record label and an agent, it’s cleared some space for us to do what we do best. It’s all about the friendship again.”

WRITTEN ABOUT LOVE: An interview with RICHARD COLBURN of BELLE AND SEBASTIAN

2011-03-01T15:17:00.000-08:00

Not minding being woken up at 8AM in the midst of a Glasgow winter, Belle and Sebastian’s drummer RICHARD COLBURN is happy to talk about band dynamics, his love of touring and Australian beer, as ANDY HAZEL excitedly discovers.

“I’m in Glasgow, in mah bed...I just woke up man,” says Colburn sighing tiredly, his Scottish burr seeming extra-thick. About to embark on an extensive global tour to promote the band’s 2010 album Write About Love, Colburn fills time between working with the group by also playing with Snow Patrol and occasionally with their singer Gary Lightbody, REM's Peter Buck and Zooey Deschanel in Tired Pony. “One album and three gigs!” He says qualifying the latter “not sure that counts as a band.”

A little more animated, Colburn brings us up to date. “I’m in the studio just now with a Spanish band; me and [Belle and Sebastian bassist] Bob [Kildea], we’re the backing band of the studio. I love working with other bands and different things with them, I’ve done it so long now I’m not qualified to do anything else besides music,” he says with a laugh. “I was over in the States for a month before I got married,” he continues casually. “We didn’t get a honeymoon in, but we’ve both just been so busy. I’ve got a baby coming at the end of July too, which complicates things. I think we’re back by then, we might stop for a little while.”

This blithe referral to life-changing events is a perfect example of the earthy realism that underpins Belle and Sebastian. Call them twee and fey but the members are from working class Glasgow and singer Stuart Murdoch, a boxer and Colburn, a champion snooker player, are as unaffected as they come, still living in the suburbs in which they were raised. Colburn still admits to being thrilled that he can travel and play music the way he does. “I am a fan of touring I love it, I really love it, I don’t think I could be happier doing anything else actually. We’ve not toured for so long which means there’ll be lots of old songs in the set by the time we get to Melbourne. We often tend to reintroduce old songs into the set after we’ve had a break. Someone will want to hear something old, You’re Just A Baby or String Bean Jean, that sort of thing.”

Excitement contained, it seems Colburn is just as enthusiastic about the time between gigs as playing them. “Well last time I was in Australia I was in Perth and we hired bikes and drove up to Bon Scott’s grave, which was cool. Me and Bob are less proactive in the ‘lets go out and find stuff to buy’ department when we tour, we’re more about going out after the gig, I’m more an advocate of that. It depends if it’s a gig day or if you have a day off, sometimes someone will go off on their own, Stuart might go and check out public transport or something. There are times like that, after 15 years it’s inevitable you get into habits.”

Besides the habit of consistently putting out acclaimed albums, Colburn is surprisingly forthcoming about the inter-band dynamics, those same ones that come to play when touring, something that will inevitably be a part of a seven-strong band with an entourage. “We always try to be as democratic as possible, but you always need one person to be decisive otherwise nothing gets done. The dynamics have shifted over the years,” he continues. “The first two records were pretty much all Stuart and quite rightly so, they were all his songs. We were almost like a backing band in the beginning, but around the time of [The Boy With The] Arab Strap, other members started having an input; Stevie or Isobel mainly, and latterly Sarah as well. At first, it was all Stuart but soon he decided he didn’t want all that pressure and we all concentrated on working together and it opened up a lot more.”

Songwriting in the band has obviously undergone a major shift since the release of debut album Tigermilk in 1996, though the band still sounds unmistakably like itself, which, it seems, is in part due to the weight given to each member's opinions. “Occasionally people will suggest things for each other, it depends who writes the songs,” he explains. “It’s got to be OK by Stuart and they have to have a really firm idea of what they want. It could be me or Bob or Beans [keyboardist Chris Geddes], sometimes songs are only half written so we just experiment together as a band. I do all my own parts but sometimes it’s the songwriter who makes suggestions, especially if it’s not quite working for some reason, we’ll change parts around and think about adding other instruments, like horns maybe.”

The opening track from Write About Love, I Didn’t See It Coming, sees Colburn kicking off the album with an atypical funk beat, introducing one of the favourite subgenres of Belle and Sebastian songs; the dance number. “On that particular song we recorded it a different way,” explains Colburn keenly. “I think there is some electronic percussion in the backing track, but even without that, it’s such a different song from anything else we recorded for that album. I’d love to go further down that route, explore more of the electronic and dance stuff,” he says before laughing. “A few years back we were going to make an entirely electronic album where we all played keyboards, like Depeche Mode. Perhaps we’ll get back to that at some point, I know Beans was keen.”

When it comes to songwriting, much has been made of the role of spirituality in some of Murdoch’s later lyrics, an aspect Colburn is happy to discuss though unable to contribute much to. “Christianity is big for Stuart yeah, and in the songs he writes there’s definitely the content inspired by Christianity. He’s always been an avid churchgoer, but as for the rest of us not so much no, that’s more of his scene and we’re happy to go along with it.”

Something he’s far happier to go along with is a chance to be introduced to is the work of some Australian microbreweries. “I enjoy Australian beer and always like the selection of alcohol we’re given in our rider when we play Australian shows, and I’d love the opportunity to try some other. Usually on a rider they just give us VB or Carlton or whatever, which is fine, but we’d love to get our hands on some microbrewed beer, we’re always up for that.” Well, you know what he’s drinking Melbourne, get your round in.

CD Review: NATURAL DISASTERS – D. ROGERS

2011-02-22T14:31:00.000-08:00

(Popboomerang)

Often in the heady world of popular music, someone who isn’t an attention seeking charisma machine can find their songs lost in the ever-faster-flowing release of new albums, singles and scenes. Replacing fireworks and neon signs with brains, a dulcet voice and acerbic lyrics is D. Rogers, who, on his fourth album, has decided to bring in fewer accompanists on what is a surprisingly eclectic album.

Don’t be fooled by the image of a myopic singer-songwriter from Northcote, Rogers is a writer who is comfortably in command of an arsenal of sounds without ever playing to a cliché or straying from a delicate, oddly hi-fi, production. A string section on Pay to Pay is gorgeously arranged, lending the track a wintry ominous quality, reinforced by reversed drums, while Emma Heeney’s beautiful vocal harmony brings a warm complimentary glow wherever she lends it. Possibly the most beautifully realised song here is Hanabi, a two minute burst of fuzzpop that brings Rogers back to Japan, the country where his first two albums were born, to celebrate space, land and tradition; a long way from the domestic concerns that give the album its title.

With less of a country edge than his earlier work, Rogers isn’t all about ‘casting a spell’ with his voice and guitar, which the opening track Not Correct and the acquiescing lament I’d Cave prove he can do with ease. A cranking ‘band’ (himself and drummer Dave Kleynjans), bursts through on the power pop crackle of Your Heart’s An Only Child, lead off single Westgarth Talking and spellbinding closer Food & Electricity. With no songs straying over four minutes, Rogers is still revelling in the pop song framework, but it’s rarely been used with such a manifold talent or acuity as it is on Natural Disasters.

CD Review: THE GO! TEAM – ROLLING BLACKOUTS

2011-02-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

(Memphis Industries / Shock)

Go! Team mastermind Ian Parton recently described Rolling Blackouts as ‘all over the shop’, which is quite something from a guy who seems to have a very fixed idea of atmosphere and almost no rules for how to create it. Though known for their cheerleader chants, squalling guitars and ruthlessly low-fi approach to sample-based good times, The Go! Team here bring in a whole new element; harmony. Though not a huge deviation from the unhinged raucousness of the still-brilliant début Thunder, Lightning Strike there are moments when things become unexpectedly sublime. The glistening 80s keyboard swoops on Apollo Throwdown, sweetly naive melodies on Ready to Go Steady, Deerhoof’s Satomi Matsuzaki’s vocal on Secretary Song and Best Coast’s Bethany Consentino’s contributions to the Triple J-hyped Buy Nothing Day all hint at this being their most song-oriented album yet. Introducing an African choir on the brilliant The Running Range that exemplifies the freedom Parton operates under, given that there are essentially two versions of the band; Parton in his room bringing in guests and band members as he chooses to make an album, and an exuberant sextet who sell it.

Apparently mastered via a C90 cassette the album doesn’t sound low-fi to its detriment though vocal clarity is sacrificed for that glorious nostalgic scuzz which seems to suggest happiness in a sunny pre-internet age. With rumours that the band may be splitting after their tour this year, the instrumentals Super Triangle, Yosemite Theme and Lazy Poltergeist hint at a possible future for Parton’s music; heavy on Boards of Canada-style Moog lead lines and acoustic guitar, by no means a bad thing. Hopefully this focus on melody and harmony won’t mean their live show is any less thrilling when they bring it in May.

Live Review: M WARD

2011-02-22T14:24:00.000-08:00

PALAIS THEATRE

Tonight’s tickets state in black block writing ‘M Ward, sponsored by Frankie Magazine’, and boy does it look like it. So many nice frocks, tight jeans, softly pointed boots and perfectly tousled hairdos are squeezed into the Palais this evening that it’s remarkable 1000 Pound Bend bothered staying open. With all the unfussiness befitting his plain-speaking songwriting style, Ward walks out, waves, straps on his Gibson Hummingbird and launches into a dynamic bluesy instrumental. With the crowd already attentive to every plucked string and pealing harmonic when he introduces his gruff tenor with Paul’s Song, we’re transfixed. Which is a hard thing to be by one man and a guitar, no bells or whistles, just minimal use of harmonica, a little delay pedal and some simple piano. There is no overwhelming talent or blazing charisma with Ward, and it would be distracting if there were. His voice is expressive, his songs decent and his guitar playing excellent; a collection of talents that could be found in a dozen musicians in any given city, yet somehow, with Ward, one and one and one is four.

A wave of applause rolls around the theatre with the opening notes of Chinese Translation, a hush descends for the Dylan-meets-Khalil Gibran poetic solemnity of Requiem and cheering breaks out for a neat expropriation of Don Gibson’s Oh Lonesome Me.

Just before entering into a gorgeously caustic version of Hold Time, Ward ruefully mentions that he’s promoting an album he released two years ago, ‘late, I know, but I love coming here.’ Whether he likes being on stage is another issue. He rarely smiles and dispatches songs almost begrudgingly, echoing a recent interview in which he mentioned his disdain for performing. The songs however, don’t suffer at all. Ward’s piano-led take on Daniel Johnston’s The Story of An Artist is perfectly pitched, equally funny and tragic without the solemn reverence it would be so easy to give it. A brief dip into the Monsters of Folk’s Slow Down Jo and The Sandman, The Brakeman and Me are warmly received and Sad Sad Song leaves the crowd cheering louder than ever, despite few audience members seeming to own it. His closing Undertaker dies with a distorting, shorting battery in a guitar pedal, which he weathers to great effect. Plucking Alex, a pianist, from the audience for the encore Rollercoaster proves a smart move as he provides the perfect accompanist, putting Ward in the straight-man position he seems clearly more comfortable in.

Live Review: ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI, PIKELET, LOST ANIMAL

2011-02-10T23:11:00.000-08:00

HI-FI BAR

Mistletone again prove they're the promoters to beat as every band brings their own twisted logic to the theatre of electro-pop and emerging victorious on a night that ranks as a highlight in a brightly studded summer of gigs.

Kicking things off are the duo of Lost Animal, featuring a welcomely ubiquitous Shags Chamberlain who helps out on bass. A man who plays in both of the support bands and is an ex-member of the headline band, Chamberlain gets deserved props later in the night from Mr Pink, but here he plays backup to the gritty, misanthropic electro dub dirges of Jarrod Quarrell. It's great to see a wry intelligence and dark sense of humour having its way with these evocative and underused sounds.

One of the city’s most musically talented groups, Pikelet deliver a sterling set of new songs and highlights from the recently AMP-nominated Stem. Always interested in pushing the boundaries of melody and structure, their new songs continue an exploration with new wave disco, polyrhythms and layered sounds. The opening Smithereens, new song The Year Is… are highlights, as are Locust and Weakest Link. 'Shags and I were lucky enough to play in his band last time Ariel Pink was here which makes us the biggest fans in the world' says singer Evelyn Morris in what is news to most of the audience. Their last two songs inspire dancing amongst those closest to her, and it’s a glowing set from one of our city’s greatest musical assets. If new ideas run the risk of being buried under the weight of the previous ones still repeating, then this only means you have to listen closer.

A by now packed Hi Fi Bar are nearing ecstasy as Ariel Pink and his cohorts, who have been mingling with the audience all night, finally assemble themselves amidst their instruments and begin their set. Miming to a TV ad for the compilation CD '60s Gold', Pink, the only member not dressed in a sparkly or riotously colourful outfit, leads the band into a blistering take on Artifact then Bright Lit Blue Skies which ring with a punch their CD versions only hint at. As with few other gigs I’ve ever witnessed, the ringleader has the power to effect good luck; the uncorking of a champagne bottle perfectly introduces L’estat, Pink calls us a ‘bunch of bogans’ before staring down a screaming girl in the front row with ‘I appreciate it, but you are politely declined’ as Flying Circles bursts forth in perfect syncopation. It seems impossible this wasn’t planned in advance but it adds to the uniquely thrilling whole that the very tightly rehearsed band create.

Though the first half of the 90 minute set is gold, the density of sound, clashing vocals styles, frequent bursts of feedback and need to have everything drenched in reverb wears. Round and Round (introduced with ‘let’s get this over with’), Fright Night and Beverly Kills all work because of their cleaner sound, which also allows Pink’s uncanny pop nous to shine brighter. Don’t Think Twice (Love) is another highlight and the closing blast of Jules Lost His Jewels brings things back up to a height few other bands can manage. Though he paces the stage, swigging champagne or aimlessly wandering as if looking for something, suggests he’s uneasy, he seems born to do what he’s doing. Bands this blindingly charismatic and obviously smart don’t come along every day, or put on gigs this gloriously messy.

Live Review: JOE COCKER, GEORGE THOROUGHGOOD AND THE DESTROYERS

2011-02-09T21:52:00.000-08:00

PALAIS THEATRE

With your humble reporter the youngest in the room by a considerable amount, a rapt and enthusiastic audience greeted the return of the English gravelly-voiced blues/soul singer. Though some are applauding the show, others the legend, Cocker’s backing group are worthy of all the adulation they receive. Featuring Hendrix alumnus Mike Finnigan on Hammond, the phenomenal Oneiedo-James Rebeccu on bass and Nichelle Tillman on backing vocals and stealer of Up Where We Belong, they are the perfect mix of sexy 30-something and venerable near-legends.

Dwarfed by this show is the opening slot of George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers who are heavy on theatrics and light on memorable hooks. Madison Blues and Tail Driver allow a copiously sweating Thoroughgood to get fiendish on the guitar, only it seems to be one style he can manage; an open-tuned slide guitar. This doesn’t stop him throwing up his hands mid-solos if amazed by his skills however, and it is, in the end, an entertaining set.

For a man who has spent his near 50-year career sounding like an possessed alcoholic, Joe Cocker looks, unsurprisingly, worse for wear. Never having been the most handsome of crooners, his distinctive singing style is rendered all the more arresting by his huge barrel chest, flailing limbs and squalls of saliva which accompany his outbursts. With a distant, almost blank-eyed gaze, he lurches towards the microphone again and again, contorting his shoulders and squeezing out impassioned grunt after whispered syllable in a near-imperceptible way. Four songs into his set he’s shed his blue paisley suit jacket, said a few words of thanks and his vocal style becomes legible, though his bizarre air-soloing whenever he’s not singing remains. After a blistering run-through of his first US hit The Letter, things get very AM radio with the power ballad to end all power ballads Up Where We Belong and You…Are So….Beautiful….To Me which allows Cocker to scrunch his face up even more and the crowd to get louder in appreciation. Slipping in the title track from his new album Hard Knocks, Cocker then revels in Hitchcock Railway, which gets him back to his bluesiest roots, before searing versions of the songs people paid for; our hearts are unchained, we’re getting by with some help from our friends, but our hats are off. As is Cocker, for a few minutes, before returning to encore with a barely recognisable Cry Me A River and a heartfelt (as if he can do any other way) take on Thankful, satisfying us all.

Live Review: THE ANTLERS, BEAR IN HEAVEN

2011-02-09T20:04:00.000-08:00

THE CORNER HOTEL

One scan of the audience and you can tell that there will be a lot of taxis heading north after this show. Quite how so many kids have heard these bands given the scant radio play they’ve received is testament to the power of Pitchfork. Those here tonight have passion to burn, even if the red curtain has been drawn, halving the venue’s capacity, due no doubt to the number of other Laneway sideshows elsewhere.

Switching playing order from gig to gig, tonight sees Bear in Heaven in the earlier slot and clearly not the band most people are here to see. Whether it’s a sound issue or the nature of their songs, there is a BiH ‘sound’ from which there is little deviation, and it rarely sees its elements evolve from a saturating density; little dynamics, heavy basslines, huge synth pads, constant busy drumming and simpering vocals that grow stronger as the gig goes on. It’s a sound that works on record, but as with tonight’s headliners, translating suffusing atmospherics into a compelling gig is a difficult task. Ultimate Satisfaction sees singer Jon Philpot struggling for high notes in a way that seems weak at first, but soon becomes an asset as his voice gamely rides the churning mass of music and whole thing comes together beautifully. Elements fall into place on the simpler Lovesick Teenagers too and also soars as a result.

'You guys are like the Brooklyn of Australia right?’ says Philpot partway through the set, during one of his ‘whisky breaks’. ‘That's cool. Brooklyn’s cool,' his baritone voice cracks, in counterpoint to his quavering tenor when singing. 'This next song goes out to Triple R...and Triple J' he says, launching into the closing Beast in Peace.

The front few rows of the crowd are full of iPhone-wielding 20-somethings clearly a little nervous. Can The Antlers pull of the translation of their delicate and harrowing album Hospice in a live setting? Is it even possible?

Thankfully the anticipation is diffused by the band entering to the bursting strains of Huey Lewis and The News’s The Power of Love and we realize that this band do fun. ‘This is our first night in front of fans, says singer Peter Silberman, ‘we mean wind fans, not you, we thought we might look stupid, but…it’s OK,’ he says drily before the sounds of Kettering overtake the audience’s laughter. With both Silberman and keyboardist Darby Cicci hemmed in by layers of pedals, they slash at the instruments giving the songs their all, using their pedals as much as conventional instruments. Arrangements for songs are thrown out the window as they push dynamic shifts and only Siliberman’s crystalline searing voice roots the songs in the realms we know. Sylvia is hammered home, fans scream the lyrics back at the band, Bear becomes a near-Christmas carol until its all-subsuming chorus hits. Two is taken from a steady brittle guitar chug into an epic tempestuous harmony-laden swathe of atmospherics that serve the piercing ache of the song beautifully. One of the most therapeutic albums of recent years is treated with the respect it’s deserved and few concessions are made to allow it to be just as compelling live.

When Silberman forgets the words, twice, during Wake it’s a testament to the love the audience have for him that a chilling narrative isn’t broken, rather everyone cracks up and starts trying to help him out. Drummer Michael Lerner asks if anyone is up for an apartment swap from Brooklyn to Melbourne, which several people take him up on straight away. The band leave, the crowd bay for more, they return and play a staggeringly beautiful version of Epilogue and sell a LOT of merch. Tonight was a sweet taste of Brooklyn.

THE YOUNG ONES: An interview with BRIDGET TURNER of SIMONE AND GIRLFUNKLE

2011-02-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

BRIDGET TURNER of Perth-based folk-pop outfit Simone and Girlfunkle talks about songwriting in parks, getting props from the ambassador to Syria and chasing Cliff Richard with a fork.

“It is strange being in a folk-pop band here,” laughs Bridget Turner for the first of many times during our interview. “There are lots of vaguely inappropriate places to play in Perth if you play our kind of music,” she says of the rock-heavy sounds the city has become known for over the last decade. “Still, there are great scenes here.”

Neither a Simon and Garfunkle tribute band nor any longer a female duo, Simone and Girlfunkle began life as a project between Nelson and lifelong best friend Gabrielle Lammers. Though playing for several years, the band only released their first EP in late 2010, building up enough of a fanbase to ensure the launch was a sell-out and interesting offers of gigs ensued.

“We recently played The Ethnic Business Awards,” she says with a laugh, “it was televised on SBS and Aurora and it’s this big sit-down dinner affair with the Premier and all these politicians. After we played our folk songs, we had just got offstage and were still trembling when the Syrian Ambassador wanted to talk to us. He talked about his wife - which was good - and was full of praise; ‘that was great, you girls keep going’, it was one of the strangest things.”

Now with four other members, Nelson doesn’t find it weird that Simone and Girlfunkle now refers to a partly male collective, “I‘ve never asked the guys if they mind being in a band with this name,” she says wistfully. “I guess not, they do it with a smile, and they show up. We write more collaboratively now too. Gabby and I sit in Hyde Park and write with the birds around us, in nice areas of shade so our guitar doesn’t buckle. When we started singing together we wanted to have a band but didn’t really know it, we glided into it. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, it’s what I want to do with my life, but if you put the focus in the wrong places, it won’t get you what you want. I have no illusions, and it’s working out all right so far.”

With the growth of the band seeming to be almost accidentally happening around the songwriting core, Nelson professes to be set on music as a life-long career, even if the releases aren’t coming thick and fast.

“The EP took a long time, a few years in fact, but when you get paid $50 a gig it takes a while to save up to make a record. Gabby and I messed around and didn’t focus on it much; we were more interested in writing and playing. We recorded an EP of our acoustic stuff, tested out the band with it, and had a launch that was a great success and everyone liked it,” she says happily. “We don’t have the cashola for an LP; we want to record an EP of songs with the band, more pop flavoured than the EP, more…Cliff Richard.”

With a biography containing multiple references to the clean-cut 50s popstar, this obsession clearly requires some explanation. “I really like old music and Cliff Richard especially, and I figure if I keep name-dropping him, a [Google] search for Cliff Richard will bring us up and eventually we get to meet him,” she says giggling at the logic. “I almost got to meet him last year,” says Turner excitedly interrupting herself. “My brother is in the Army and I was at the airport seeing him off, and at another gate, far away, I saw Cliff Richard with all of his people. So, I was running towards him but there was a security gate between him and me and I had to get scanned. Security were like ‘you have a weapon’ and they found a fork in my bag. By the time I was through, he was gone. It was tragic.”

TALL COPY SYNDROME: An interview with DAN WHITFORD and TIM HOEY from CUT COPY

2011-02-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

DAN WHITFORD and TIM HOEY from CUT COPY explain how they invented the title for their new album Zonoscope, don't care about chart positions and have been known to dance to their own songs.

When you listen back to Zonoscope, does it sound like the album you set out to make?

Dan: Yeah, we’re stoked with it! It’s a weird time because we’ve been finished with it for a while and, finally, it’s going to be everywhere tomorrow [February 4], which is exciting.

Tim: It was the same with In Ghost Colours, they had to line up territories and it sat around for ages, which was frustrating at the time. Thankfully, this one’s been more seamless and it’s coming out around the world almost simultaneously.

Since In Ghost Colours did so well, do you feel any need to address the expectations people have about a Cut Copy album?

D: I think you’ve just got to focus on your bit of it. I guess that’s the good thing about having a team around us like our label, management, and people that do all the engine room work of getting a record out to people; we just focus on being creative and making something that it hopefully new and exciting for us and other people. We really try not to think at all about commercial concerns or other people’s expectations, that’s for them to worry about, the whole ‘is it going to work on the radio or whatever’. I guess they might tell us if they think nothing is going to get played, but we’re not really aware of these other concerns that more commercially-minded people might be.

So, you won’t be checking the Australian or Billboard chart entry position then?

D: No, not at all. It’s almost the last thing on our minds really. I guess we didn’t know what a chart was when our last record came out [laughs], and we were lucky enough to have a number one in this country - that was a total surprise. We thought that was the realm of people other than us, [gestures to the massive posters adorning the walls of the Universal Music board room] Bieber and Gaga. It’s not something we think about ever.

What prompted the short video you released in October of you guys in the studio partway through making the album? It sounded like you were revisiting some early Sonic Youth in an abandoned warehouse.

T: Yeah, it sounded like we were making the sequel to Metal Machine Music [laughs]. Our idea was to get people wondering what the hell we were doing in this warehouse space. Making that documentary was a look at behind the scenes of how we were making a record. As artists we’re always fascinated by behind the scenes process and we’re constantly hunting down the series of Making Of... DVDs or books about making albums and I think it gives a really accurate portrait of who we are as well as the process of making that record.

The opening track Need You Now has been getting a fair bit of buzz. Were you expecting that track to be singled out?

D: No, not really, I’m thrilled it has been though. I remember when you [gestures to Tim] first listened to it. I’d been tinkering with it at home one morning we were meeting up to go and talk about some band-related issue, and it was something I’d been tinkering with the night before. In the morning, Tim and Ben turned up and I was like ‘check this out’. It was only a sketch of what that track was but immediately everyone had the same feeling about it, that it was this quite unusual but at the same time classic-sounding track. I think the way we recorded it has done justice to that original idea, creating this sprawling, building thing. It almost moves like Bowie’s Heroes, which was a reference point we were using while we made the album. It has this slow-burning dynamic, starts small, is long, and gets huge by the end.

Did you use the gated microphone trick he does on that track, since you had a warehouse to record in?

D: Not on that track no, but it was something we talked about ‘Hey, we’ve got this huge space - we can do that Bowie thing!’ But that song was partly a process of figuring out how to belt out the vocals more than I ever had before on Cut Copy tunes. It’s one of the vocal performances on this new record that I’m really happy with. It’s awesome that people are having the same feeling we had about it, that there’s something special about it, something that’s unusual enough to stand out but it could still be a single - it is now I guess. It’s nice that that’s translated.

Did you intentionally try to use different vocal range on these new songs?

D: Yeah, a lot of the songs are more percussion-driven, with some of the tracks singing differently felt right rather than doing the vocals I’d done on In Ghost Colours, which had a gentler, almost polite sound. This felt like it needed a punchier, almost stern, chanted vocal sound to it, quite primitive - like you would sing as if you just had drums and vocals. With all of the records we’ve worked up to getting more diverse skills, whether it’s Tim’s guitar sound and finding ways to use the weird noises he can conjure up, or Mitchell’s drumming which has gone from…uh…questionable in the beginning [laughter] to being pretty awesome these days. I think everyone’s gone on a journey since the beginning. Vocally, this has felt like a big development from the last record.

Do you ever dance to your own songs?

T: [slightly embarrassed and carefully] When we’ve been out in clubs and they’ve come on, we’ve…kept…dancing…

D: Yeah, don’t fight it.

T: [laughs] That’s right. I think it’s important for the music to be able to exist in a lot of different contexts. A lot of it is based around house music and references that, but we like the idea of it being able to exist in the club but also at home on the stereo or walking around the city, that’s very important and that’s where a lot of the pop music elements come into it. Maybe we’ll bring in some of the harder house sounds or shoegaze guitar stuff to try and keep it accessible in every kind of environment.

Is a Zonoscope the name of the artwork you used on the cover?

T: [pauses] No, the idea came from us. The cover is actually this bird’s eye view of this world we created for this record and we decided a Zonoscope would be the lens used to view it. We wanted to come up with our own word for it so for the rest of time when anyone mentioned Zonoscope it would only be associated with this album.

Or Googled it even?

T: Yeah, exactly [laughs]. We really liked the idea of this record standing on it’s own and creating a new world which the image on the album cover represents for us. Hopefully it will be in the urban dictionary in years to come [laughs]

D: Yeah, with our faces on it [more laughter].

How did you come by the cover art?

T: We just stumbled across it then tracked down the artist who created it and actually found it in a collection of photomontage artworks that I found in the RMIT art library with a lot of the pages torn out, thankfully this picture was the cover. I thought this guy was incredible and this image seemed like an idea that encapsulated this other place that the record existed in. A big place, quite grand, modern but prehistoric, this combination of here and a far away exotic place as well. We sourced the image from the publisher of that book in Japan. The artist passed away in the 90s but we got permission from his wife who found the image at their house, buried under a whole bunch of other prints. We were lucky to get it in the end; it all seemed to come together. She was really cool about it once she found out we weren’t wanting to put it on a t-shirt and make a million bucks off this image her husband had created.

You’ve worked with other Japanese artists in the past like Nagi Noda, were you surprised to find out that this artist was Japanese?

D: I wasn’t surprised at all. To me Japanese people seem to have a real aesthetic and visual sense whether it’s with pop culture, absorbing Mickey Mouse and Western culture or with their own. There’s some amazing graphic design and designers from Japan, and since I’m a graphic designer, I’m aware of art and graphic art from that era, there are some amazing illustrators too. Technically, one of the things about this image that I really like - and you can see form our previous record covers - is that I’m slightly obsessed with photorealistic, almost airbrushed, art. With [first album] Bright Like Neon Love, that was me recreating that style. Making these hyper-realistic images, it’s almost like a lost art form. [Looks at CD cover] To me it just reminds me of covers that I love, from Krautrock albums or covers that only exist because there’s a super-talented artist who made it, not because you’ve got the latest version of Photoshop [laughs]. And it just looks different; you could try to recreate this in Photoshop, in fact I did my own not-so-good version of this [more laughter] using Photoshop. Soon I was like ‘ah, let’s try and find the actual guy that did this’. There is a magic to the way it comes together. It looks modern and futuristic, but…there’s something about it that is…

T: Timeless

D: Yeah, it almost doesn’t come from now as well. It’s a weird combination that just works.

Part of the power of a lot of the songs on Zonoscope seems to come from the evocation of Australian electro-pop bands from the mid-80s and sounds that listeners might not have heard since then. I’m thinking of bands that only had a few songs like Koo de Tah, I’m Talking or The Machinations, their songs don’t get compiled or played the way that punk or new wave bands do. Is this era a direct inspiration?

D: Well, yeah. One of these tracks is called Strange Nostalgia for the Future, which is based on a Brian Eno quote from when he was talking about Kraftwerk. He said it their music was futuristic but at the same time, it’s nostalgia for 1920s dancehall music; the most modern thing you can imagine but still quite old fashioned in a weird way. We try to listen to new music as much as old, and within the music we love, I can see an evolution over time. I think we reference that pathway and hopefully push it into somewhere new and different as well.

T: I think with synthesizer music it has that connotation of 80s pop scene, and it’s constantly tied to that. We try and re-imagine that with modern production techniques, where we try to find sounds that are more unusual. We use the Fairlight on Zonoscope, which is quite an archaic-sounding synthesizer-sampler, the first one of which was invented in Australia. It’s not in a cool vintage way like a CS80, it’s more clunky and very mechanical sounding, so we thought it would be great to treat that with a more modern production technique.

Synthesizers will always have that connotation regardless of what you do with them, I think it covers every decade from then till now.

Was making Zonoscope a totally different process to making Bright Like Neon Love? Has the process changed?

T: It’s totally changed. Now, there’s an initial period where we just listen to stuff and we kind of compile references we’ve come across since the last record. Every time we go on tour we come back from overseas there’s an extra suitcase of records and after this period of absorbing stuff there’s another period where I’ll tinker at home, get ideas and get some basic song structures down. Then I get the other guys in to say ‘what do you think?’ We’ll work on them bit by bit and finally we have a more extended session where we go to town on each of the tracks in the warehouse and transform them into the songs they are on the record.

D: For Bright Like Neon Love I just worked on everything at home and gave a cassette to Tim who layered guitar over it. We tracked everything in an afternoon at a studio in Northcote and mixed the thing in Paris.

T: Yeah, I didn’t even realise I was in a band until afterwards [laughs].

When you go overseas, do you feel any more Australian than you do day-to-day?

D: Yeah, we ARE Australian [laughs] so definitely. I think there is an Australian-ness about us, I think we’re pretty down-to-earth and we like good food and good coffee - the same can’t be said for a lot of places we tour [more laughter]. There is an Australian-ness about us we’re quite proud of, but at the same time, from the very beginning we weren’t championed in Australia, we didn’t have a scene or anything. We just did our own thing and eventually things started to develop around us like The Presets or Midnight Juggernauts and like-minded people finding a connection. Now it’s almost that Australia is known for electronic music. When we started you could barely name an electronic act from Australia that had done anything overseas. It was quite a different scenario.

It’s interesting, I feel like we’re an international band these days, we spend as much time here as we do anywhere else in the world and our fans are pretty evenly distributed which is nice for us we because we get to travel a lot and get in front of all of these people. 90% of the next nine months will be spent away. So yeah, we definitely still consider ourselves Australian.

Do you think many of your fans know you’re Australian?

D: Oh definitely.

T: I don’t think we have a distinctly Australian sound, but then I don’t know what one is, I guess it would be rock music, the foundations of AC/DC, stuff like that. Actually, it’s funny, everybody thinks we’re from England when we go overseas it’s often: ‘British three-piece Cut Copy’ even when we talk they never think we’re Australian [laughs].

Will you mainly be touring for the rest of 2011?

T: The majority of the year will be focused on touring, but we’ve also realised that we have a lot of music left over from the sessions at the warehouse and we’d love to get to a point where we’re releasing music on a regular basis. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the next Cut Copy album you need to promote and do a big thing about; we love the idea of putting out a 12-inches of straight-up house tracks. There’s all these little half-ideas and sketches of songs, and it would be great to put out an EP of those, the way bands used to; Guided By Voices or the Suitcase Series. We have all these little ideas that may not fit as part of the next Cut Copy record. It would be great to find an outlet for this and release a lot of music. We love that old model of a band releasing an album a year or even more recently like Deerhunter, Bradford Cox, constantly releasing music – amazing music. It would be great to get to that point, hopefully we can find some time to release that stuff one way or another.

LIKE…WHAT???: An interview with TIM AYERS of TIM & JEAN

2011-02-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

TIM AYERS of up-and-comers Tim & Jean talks about dealing with being the youngest guys at the festival and proving to their mates that electro-pop can be cool.

Mandurah, Western Australia isn’t known for its musical output. Despite a photograph of the town being used as the cover shot for The Triffids' Born Sandy Devotional album, it’s safe to say that a teenage electronic pop duo is a brightly-coloured aberration in the city’s DNA. Yet Tim & Jean, already riding high on prolific airplay, are now on the verge of getting nationally recognised for forthcoming album Like What and as surprised as the rest of us.

“It’s surreal man,” says singer and guitarist Tim Ayers. “I guess a lot of people would say that if they went through the transition from staying at home and chilling to going out and doing things they’ve dreamed about, it’s definitely not normal yet. I get excited when [manager] Pete [Carroll] rings me up and says we’re going to do this and that, going to New York or talking about the album being released in the UK. I don’t show it but inside I feel it and it’s crazy – I think that’s the best way to handle it. Jean, he’s pretty comfortable with it all. He doesn’t show it on his face but I’d say he’s just like me, buzzing about it but wanting to focus on the job to get it over the line,” says Ayers of his band-mate Jean-Christoph Capotorto (that’s a French Jean, as in Jean Claude Van Damme, not a trouser). “When he started he was 15 which is really young to be touring, but his parents are really cool with it. At the start they were kind of ‘…uhhh’ ‘cause it’s natural for a parent to be concerned about things like their kid taking a year off school, because they could think anything could be going on; he could be wagging. Now they’re all for it, they always come to shows, they’re like my parents who are the most supportive people you could possibly want.”

On the back of their meteoric rise from jamming on an acoustic guitar in Jean’s bedroom in 2009 to being the subject of a multinational major label record bidding war, the first fruits of which will drop April 1 with the duo’s debut album Like What, it’s been a mad 18 months. As with many bands the helping hand has come in the form of love from Triple J, something Ayers is quick to acknowledge. “I never thought that Triple J would take to us like that. From what I’ve done in the past with other bands, I know it’s difficult. When Jean posted our song [Come Around] on Unearthed and we got that drum sign to say that we’d been played once it was amazing, because that had never happened before,” he says as if it happened five minutes ago. “That was in late 2009, and then they went with it we got played more and a bit more and in 2010 they flogged it, and they played Veronica and then we released the new song I Can Show You a few days ago it’s been getting played too.”

Tim & Jean are most commonly likened to ‘an Aussie Passion Pit or MGMT’ says a politely frustrated Ayers, but, he’s keen to point out, most people are basing this on one song, Come Around. “That track does have a Passion Pit vibe on it, because I sing in a falsetto for a part of it - but I wouldn’t go to an opera and say that sounded like Passion Pit cause some guy is singing high,” he says with a laugh. “The rest of the tracks on the album are more natural sounding, there are acoustic sounds on there. I don’t think of it too much,” he says sighing. “We do get that everyone wants to reference us to something and they have to get one from somewhere. I’m looking forward to the time where people say we sound like us.”

Though their age has been a good thing for raising eyebrows and getting some attention, Ayers says it has also made getting taken seriously and recognised as a musicians more difficult. “It’s always been a thing, our age,” he mutters distractedly. “It’s true people don’t take us seriously, even if people like the songs they might not like us because of our age. We do attract a younger crowd and because of the music, we play mainly people our own age that contact us online. Seeing us live is really different,” he says keenly. “From starting our first show to playing Falls Festival, there’s such a big difference into terms of the crowd we play to. It’s not just young girls but…you know…big men too,” he says laughing. “People can get into it more live and see we can pull it off and that we’re actually musicians.” He doesn’t need to prove it, but there are several YouTube clips of crowds getting excited supporting this.

Acoustic guitarists to begin with, Tim & Jean have a history that few other electronic artists can boast. “When we met I was playing jazz and blues guitar in bands and Jean playing guitar in a shoegaze and indie rock band. He was getting into ProTools and stuff, and just recording little things. I heard a couple of things online and thought they were cool. When we met we were just jamming stuff, in fact the first thing we did was a Dave Matthews song,” he says with a laugh. Before this revelation results in Tim & Jean’s cred taking a beating among some readers, remember they were 18 and 15 at the time. “I was really into him and that vibe, I’ve always been more into the blues thing. We were mucking around trying to get a vibe, making tracks and acoustic jamming and just chucked the electronic thing on it.”

It should be pointed out that ‘chucked the electronic thing on it’ is Ayers’ severely downplaying their production achievements. The first thing that jumps out at you when listening to Like What is the remarkable mix of bedroom production intimacy, arena-shaking bass, and his voice. Ayers’ voice, as featured on a variety of YouTube covers he and Capotorto have posted (Fleetwood Mac, Dave Matthews and Tom Petty), is a thing of Idol-slaying wonder and richness, a quality that is even stronger live.

“We produced it in Jean’s bedroom. It was recorded over scattered times here and there and then once we had the tracks we had enough we could pick out what we wanted to put on and what we wanted to do for mixing. We talked about it and decided we wanted to get someone overseas and to go over there and do it, so Pete was like ‘I want to organise someone in New York or LA’ and John O’Mahoney got back to us and we did it. It was so last minute and he was a good choice, he’s a really good dude to work with.” Unfazed by O’Mahoney’s credits (Guns n Roses, Coldplay and…uh, ‘N Sync), the duo stayed focused on the sounds they wanted to get.

“It’s kind of weird,” says Ayers slowly. “Jean is into bands like College and M83, and I was wanting to make it more in your face so you can hear lyrics and melodies; we’ve just taken similar sounds and made them poppier. We were really interested in that kind of music,” he says quickly. “We wanted to make more airy and light sounds - that’s what we were into at the time,” he says of the sounds that anyone over the age of 25 would call ‘kind of eighties’. Ayers laughs at the idea of these sounds being nostalgic for him, but, as a child of the nineties whose parents played pop music, it’s understandable. “Growing up, my parents were always listening to Prince and Michael Jackson because their era was the 80s you know and they were smashing it at the discos. I think we add a different touch to it - a ‘today’ vibe. Jean was really into building up references from different bands, he’s got about two months of music on his computer, he was just constantly listening to stuff and remember things he likes, and it did pay off. We’d never done electronic things before, it was crazy to begin with, especially when we’d play it to our friends,” he says with a laugh.

“It was pretty hard at first, showing my friends who are musicians and coming from a different style of music,” he says with a wry smile audible down the phone. “Obviously I want to impress my friends, and they’ll be honest with you and they’ll tell you if it sucks, and it was hard. My mates didn’t like it at first, but they liked Come Around and then we re-did the first song (Like What), which was the one he didn’t like. Now they’re into it,” he says with a laugh. Don’t think they’ll be the last converts.

Live Review: HELLO SATELLITES, AINSLIE WILLS, PARKING LOT EXPERIMENTS

2011-01-28T07:50:00.000-08:00

NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB

Though at first they seem an unusual choice to open for a couple of female-fronted-folk ensembles, Parking Lot Experiments soon prove that they can take any situation and make it their own. With a manic buzzing energy the four-piece come across as Ween dressed like the cast of Freaks and Geeks reprogramming a Commodore 64. Seemingly incapable of playing a false note or contriving anything at all, PLE kindly suggest that any reviewers tonight use the phrase ‘PLAYFUL amateurishness’ though I’d also add ‘infectiously gleeful’ and ‘eminently danceable’, with their song Superchug providing the best evidence for all of the above comments.

Bringing the mood straight to one of introversion is Ainslie Wills, with her stark Liquid Paper, one of the most arresting opening songs in eons. Soon bringing on the band and taking that attention we’ve given her to strange and beautiful places, Wills shows that for a singer-songwriter, she uses music in the most imaginative ways. Swathes of cymbals, Rhodes piano, cooing harmonies and delayed guitar spread wide, contrasting powerfully with her arresting and remarkable voice. Satellite shines and Half Present glows gloriously as the band pull out their best Grizzly Bear style chops (hacked jazz chords with heavy reverb, stuttering bass and choppy loose drums) to great effect.

Hello Satellites arrive as the audience numbers peak, nearly filling the venue. It’s their last show of a national tour and despite this, singer Eva Popov seems to take until the third last song to relax. Illuminated by projections of out of focus constellations and material textures, her songs are fleshed out by the prodigiously talented band of bass, accordion, violin and two drummers, one who was used for the east coast leg of the tour and one for the west.

Popov’s delivery often seems perfunctory and slightly cold at times, as if she’s disconnected from the scenes she so smartly depicts. Guests move on and off, in the form of mesmerising vocal trio Aluka, and a horn section. At one point Popov uses her custom instrument the thong-o-phone (lengths of plastic pipe beaten with thongs), further illustrating her and her band’s (and album producer Nick Huggins’) gift for imaginative arrangements. These skills that reach a peak on the sterling tracks Pelican, Out There and the closing Heartbeat Fast As A Rabbit, where the rhythms rise in volume and complexity, matching the soaring vocal work of Popov and Aluka.

Three very different acts, three stars in the making.

KEEPING IT FRESH - An interview with Phoebe Baker of ALPINE

2011-01-27T18:24:00.000-08:00

Signing to the coveted Ivy League label, getting props from Pitchfork and the pressure of being a Band to Watch isn't fazing ALPINE as singer Phoebe Baker explains.

Getting signed to a label like Ivy League within months of getting your first Triple J airplay, which happens hours after your songs are uploaded to their Unearthed website is a dream most Australian bands would be thrilled to have realised. Phoebe Baker from Melbourne band Alpine is one of them. “It’s been a very fast year in terms of momentum,” she says laughing. “Lou[isa James, other vocalist] and the other guys joined the bands only last year since first gig, then got signed to Ivy League and since then there have been so many gigs…it’s been intense.”

With a sound that prompts some to liken their music to Phoenix or Electrelane, what creatively sets Alpine apart is an obsession with time and place, as seen in a band like Je Suis Animal. The sound, the songs and the overarching aesthetic of the band shares very little in common with other similarly lauded bands. Once called Swiss and with a debut EP Zurich, there is clearly something of a Central Europe fixation going on here. “I suppose there is,” says Baker as if it had just occurred to her. “When I think of Alpine I think of this kind of fresh clean beauty which kind of reminds me of…not fresh like zesty…more like how you feel as if you have just had a nice swim.”

It really doesn’t sound like a band that would arrest the attention of the Triple J management within minutes. “It wouldn’t have happened so fast without them,” continues Baker. “Ivy League heard us from that and it’s so flattering, so surreal when it happens so fast like that. The label is lovely, and they seem to be looking after us really well. It’s such a new thing, it’s just been really good to have a really approachable label, they can identify all sorts of issues, and as a band we’ve been learning about the music industry world too.”

With all this rush of hyperbole and attention, any creative individual thrust into the spotlight could expect to shrink a little, but not Baker. “No, I don’t feel pressured,” she says matter-of-factly. “I think it’s important not to take any notice of that, proceed as normal as a group of friends making music and releasing an EP and performing. We’re trying to just take it in our stride, each day feels like another day of fun.”

These changes have meant a sharp upswing in the speed of songwriting for the band. “When we stated writing songs it was just me and Christian [O'Brien, guitarist],” she continues keenly, “but now we work in a different dynamic, because we’re in the band and performing the writing process is faster and more varied as well. We have six opinions, and six musical minds put to work so it’s different and faster because of that.” For a band with such a simple and distinctive sound – dry chugging guitars, reverb-laden vocal harmonies, crunchy basslines, washes of synths and compressed beats – it’s surprising that everyone has a roughly equal input in both writing and production. “It’s sort of changed over the last year, Christian usually starts a song with a basic guitar riff and we’ll all come up with ideas and pick and choose. We know what sound we want and if you hear something good, your ears perk up; it’s kind of improvisation really.”

Due to this sonic specificity, playing live has presented sound issues in some places for Alpine, but overcoming this is a more enthusiastic live performance which saw them amass more fans with each show. “We do get overexcited,” she says with another laugh. “It changes everywhere you play because of the mix, but for the launch everything will be in order! We have lots of surprises in store for the CD launch but…mum’s the word!” Some crafty cajoling (aka asking politely) elicits further laughter and, intriguingly, a mention of the TV show Father Ted, anymore than that your intrepid Inpress reporter could not discern.

Live Review: QUEENSLAND FLOOD RELIEF BENEFIT

2011-01-20T16:29:00.000-08:00

CORNER HOTEL

Any lineup that has Claire Bowditch, turning in a typically confidence-filled, laugh-laden and stellar show, as an opening act, has got quite a bill. The story of the show is recounted several times: organiser Bertie Blackman texted friend Megan Washington and, as Blackman herself says ‘It was the shortest pregnancy ever, 14 hours from conception to birth. It’s the smallest baby…with the largest heart…shit that’s good - I just made that up.’

MCed in typically quick-witted and self-depreciatory style is the expertly chosen Julia Zamiro who does an excellent job of taming a very chatty room. As with Bowditch’s sweet turn, Tim Rogers has a lot of Washington fans talking though his rough and wonderful five-song set. Rogers peels through The Luxury of Hysteria, Heavy Heart and Berlin Chair with his coruscating voice emphasising his incapacity to not give something everything he has, a sentiment echoed by the crowd (if not the air conditioning) this evening, who dig deep.

Auctions include a punked-up Australian ‘God Save the Queensland’ Flag, designed by Blackman that sells for $1300, and a guitar signed by all the artists, which goes for $2000 contributing to the very handsome figure of $30000 which is made before the night ends.

Bertie Blackman, selling the show as an acoustic gig, confounds expectations by killing the lights, donning a black cape and delivering an incredible acapella Valentine before belting out a set of songs that have more in common with the electro-stomp of La Roux than anyone seems to expect. Against monochrome projections, Blackman delivers a killer version of Heart concluding a set that could have gone on far longer.

When Zamiro introduces Washington, it becomes clear how this show sold out with no publicity. Breezing onto the stage, and also heavy on the eyeliner like Blackman, she whisks us through a captivating set of highlights from I Believe You Liar, peaking with the closing, rumour-fuelling duet with Tim Rogers That Thing You Do; one very classy girl.

With an injured finger forcing him from guitar to piano, Dan Sultan is clearly a man good with his hands and seems to ooze charisma. His clear ringing voice silences the room, especially during Old Fitzroy and School Day is Over, while his swarthy sensuality prompts some to shout for the removal of his shirt. If only someone had thought to ask him to auction it.

Accurately describing the venue as a ‘sweatbox’, Missy Higgins is happier, and more charming than we’ve ever seen her. Versions of Secret and Peachy suggest she’s spent the last few years in Nashville and a rowdy, unrehearsed all-star version of Carole King’s You’ve Got A Friend brings a close to a very special night of music and fundraising.

FIVE STARS: An interview with Lou Rhodes from LAMB

2011-01-17T02:16:00.000-08:00

From disbanding in 2004 to releasing their fifth album, 5, on the fifth of May 2011, Lamb is a band with a plan, and a long gap to account for. Singer, lyricist and all-round atmospherist LOU RHODES elaborates.

“Well it was more than a gap,” she says with a gentle keenness in her voice. “When we split in 2004 it was a proper split and we went separate ways. For me I was yearning to go off and make acoustic music and I’ve been really enjoying doing that over the last few years. [Bandmate] Andy [Barlow], for his part, has been producing other people and has been working on Lowb [released in March], which is his solo record. He was joking yesterday that it’s taken five months to write the new Lamb record and five years to do his solo album,” she says with a laugh.

No stranger to solo albums herself, Rhodes released her third, entitled One Good Thing, late last year. Clearly, there are some different paces at work here. “We push each other I think,” she says thinking carefully. “I think there was something that had got to a point…” she pauses, choosing her words carefully. “When Lamb split, making music and everything had become quite challenging and there was conflict between us, and the directions we wanted to go in. The initial direction of Lamb was very much about Andy and his technology and me and my lyrics. Then it got diluted over the years with a live band and pressures of a major label and them wanting us to write hits and all that. It was just definitely time to move away and it was very clear for me that that’s what I wanted to do.”

"We did some live shows out of the blue in 2009 when we were asked to play at The Big Chill festival. We’d been considering playing live shows after that, and I’d said I’ll do six shows and that’s it, and it turned into a 24-date world tour that ended tour in Australia. The rollercoaster ride was great fun.”

Long held in the hearts of many Australian festival-goers, Lamb have been renown for their live show, one that is far more interesting and nuanced than that of many predominantly electronic bands. The Australian shows, she hastens to add, are not album launches, rather sneak peaks. “We’re not actually officially launching the album until May fifth. We’re still finishing the album right now; in fact, I was doing a vocal for the last song for the album right before I picked up the phone for this interview. There wasn’t a plan to come to Australia; we just didn’t want to turn down the opportunity when we were asked. It was like ‘what the hell, let’s do it’, so now it’s all a bit of a panic. We will be playing some of the new songs, and it will be a chance to let Australians get an exclusive listen to the new album.”

This new album follows on from 2003's Between Darkness and Light, 2001's What Sound and, possibly their most famous album, 1999’s Fear of Fours in which Lamb studiously avoided using the 4/4 time signature and track four was rendered a two-second segue between tracks three and five.

“We’re getting a bit obsessed with numbers now,” says Lou laughing in a way that seems to play down their true significance. “Basically it’s our fifth record and five is Andy’s lucky number. He was thrilled to bits when he realised it was the fifth album, I kind of tried to put up resistance to this number thing of his, but it was futile,” she says with a laugh.

Though Lamb are most known for their 1997 single Gorecki, which has turned up everywhere from the soundtracks of Moulin Rouge!, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and Tomb Raider, to several hundred weddings, there was never the sense the band rested on their laurels or sought to recreate whatever magic occurred when this song was written. With its accompanying self-titled album entering charts around the world and ensuing albums doing the same, 2011 finds Lamb very much deciding their own pace and not at all beholden to audience or label expectations. Indeed this reunion only occurred because, as Rhodes says, “Lamb would only come back if there was something fresh to say, and it seems that time is definitely here.” She also adds that 5 is very much a follow on from that successful debut album. Though much has changed, the songwriting dynamic of the two has remained remarkably consistent, but as Rhodes is the first to point out, it’s very different from the largely acoustic solo work she’s done during intervening years.

“The songwriting has been undergoing quite a change, for me coming back to writing in the context of Lamb, it’s very different to writing for a solo album. With Lamb, because we live at opposite sides of the country and we spend short blocks of time together, obviously we’ve had a very focused way of writing the album. Each has it’s own pressures so it’s very different. With Andy, it’s more like we both turn up and ask the other ‘so what’ve you got?’ And the album comes from there.”

Other changes since their split have been more of an industrial way. Shifts in the music industry have left some artists poorer and more empowered than ever, changes that have influenced Lamb but have not dictated the terms of their reunion.

“I don’t think our reunion has come about because of that, but the way the industry is it’s difficult because people don’t buy records the way they used to, so it’s some ways, it’s more difficult to make a living out of music. With this new album, we could fund making the record out of pre-orders. We were a little worried that there wouldn’t be many but, thankfully, that’s not been an issue. In some ways it was a leap of faith, but in other ways it’s the cheapest record we’ve ever made,” she says with a laugh before justifying herself. “I mean cheapest in the monetary sense, because with the earlier albums we spent a lot of record label money making records. Technically we owed it to them at the end of our contract, but it’s very easy to throw money around and for 5 we’ve been recording everything in Andy’s studio and house, so costs are a lot lower.” The location of this studio, on a sheep farm in the English countryside, covered in snow and ice (slipping on which recently resulted in Rhodes’ fracturing her ankle), has provided a cocoon for the two to incubate ideas at their own pace. “It’s so much more of an honest relationship in a way; to not have a record company worried about shifting records. It’s so rare to find someone in a record company these days who actually cares about music before profit. We’ve been lucky in the past, but now I feel we’re kind of masters of our own destiny in a way.”

Australian Tour Dates:

Thursday 17th February – Prince of Wales, Melbourne, VIC

Tickets available through www.princebandroom.com.au

Friday 18th February – Hi Fi, Brisbane, QLD

Tickets available through www.thehifi.com.au

Sunday 20th February - Playground Weekender Festival, Wisemans Ferry, NSW

Tickets available through www.playgroundweekender.com.au

Live Review: JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION

2011-01-15T07:49:00.000-08:00

THE HI FI BAR

“Ladies and gentlemen right now I’ve got to tell you about. The fabulous, most groovy…” and we’re in; Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s 1994 album Orange riff-by-riff. The Hi Fi Bar is sold out, and each of us know exactly what we’re getting and we LOVE it. It’s dirty, it’s blues, it’s rock, it never stays in one place for more than 10 seconds, there’s a deep low-down sexy voice like Elvis’s that you can hardly make out because the guitars are loud and no one ever gets off the blues scale, there’s only one cymbal and three drums and that’s all we need. The rockabilly girls love it. The indie boys love it. The thirtysomethings punch the air, the teenagers sweat in the mosh and JSBX move like a lion picking off gazelles; Bellbottoms, Ditch, Dang, Sweat. “Play the blues, punk,” all played tighter than Spencer’s shiny black jeans, and they’re DAMN tight. No pause for applause, the next song kicks in and within seconds Spencer’s dangling his guitar against the floor while blasting another chunky riff that could power several White Stripes albums (in fact it probably did). You dig it? You do, but he’s already left it behind to remind you who you’re listening to, again: “The Blues Explosion, ya’ god-DAMN”. He doesn’t have to ask us twice to holler back to him; “My father was Sister Ray”, he knows we know.

The band burn through Orange and into the red - into the white-hot speed-driven rock, a full 90 minutes of sure-shot raw powered amps-to-11-sleaze. They leave, we scream, they come back. Now we get Mo’ Width, then some Extra Width before the band proceed to Fuck Shit Up: more exploding blues delivered faithfully to the faithful. Guitar tones and songs bleed together like they’ve got to get out by midnight, but time is doing weird things tonight. The stage is barely lit; we could easily have slipped through a channel in time to 1995 and the bizarre but killer choice of cover (Black Flag’s My War) adds to that feeling. Spencer might not be literally tearing a venue apart as he did an ABC TV studio in 1997, but there is just as much ferocity and intensity in the music and delivery. This gig acts as a rough case for this bizarre beast of an album to be considered not just a classic of the 90s, but also all time. Ladies and gentlemen I give you JSBX at the Hi-Fi Bar. Exhibit Fucking A.

ANIMAL MAGIC: An interview with Peter Silberman from THE ANTLERS, and Adam Wills from BEAR IN HEAVEN

2011-01-11T23:29:00.000-08:00

On the eve of their joint Australian tour, a chat with PETER SILBERMAN from THE ANTLERS and ADAM WILLS from BEAR IN HEAVEN reveals more than a fondness for fauna links these bands.

“Finding a common theme between the bands seems to have come from the label more than the bands,” says Bear in Heaven guitarist Adam Wills breezily about his band’s upcoming tour with fellow Americans The Antlers. ‘We’ve never played a show together before but we’re really excited about this tour; we wouldn’t have said yes if we didn’t like The Antlers. I think there is quite a bit in common between us, I think we’re both quite dramatic, sonically, dynamically interesting bands, for sure,” he says before pausing for thought. “Bear in Heaven are very particular about who we play shows with because a good show is all about bands complementing each other and it’s always good finding a band who really suits your show. Though it can be fun playing with mixed bands, for me it’s always nice to play with bands that play off each other really well. I’ve seen the Antlers a couple of times,’

‘I’ve seen Bear in Heaven once’ pipes up Antlers frontman Peter Silberman in a way that becomes emblematic of the respective band member’s dynamic, Silberman quiet and thoughtful, Wills eager and chatty. Seeming to be the eternal opening band for a more renowned headliner, Silberman counters the suggestion that he undervalues the band. “With bands like Editors and The National they’re far beyond us in terms of sales and the size of gig we could play. We were invited on those shows to open for them, and that happened because I guess those bands liked us. We chose to do those shows instead of our own because people can get to a record any number of ways and playing with those ands seemed like a good way of doing that. Like our bands do when we’re touring, we try to find a band to work well with you, in our case a band that works with Hospice.”

Both bands are known chiefly for one release, both releases were heralded across the blogosphere as being sterling examples of new music in 2009 and the limelight pushed both into a succession of North American tours which lead to similar trials and triumphs. The interview, being one of the first they’ve done together, sees them agreeing with each other on a lot of points which highlights the treadmill many acclaimed bands find themselves on. A treadmill that runs something like this: years of hard work till an album finally breaks through, acclaim, touring, constant interviews, late night TV slots, more touring, festival circuit, European tour, downtime spent recording, and a visit to Australia as an off-season holiday with gigs.

For The Antlers, the process of taking what was an intensely personal album from a bedroom, to a band, to a stage and now to Australia has been a long, challenging and immensely rewarding process, much like listening to their album Hospice. ‘It happened naturally I guess’ explains Silberman gently. ‘It took a while to get to the point it needed to be when we were making the record. The record started as a recording project, not as a live thing at all. We were a band at that stage, but I’d done most of the record myself and I wasn’t thinking of instrumentation. When we began touring we moved our rehearsal space into [keyboardist] Darby [Cicci]’s apartment which gave us time to flesh things out which was different from renting rehearsal space, and we realised that the thing we needed most was time to figure things out. That’s working now, that mentality from the beginning turned out to be what we needed.’

Wills concurs. “For us, it was hard at first because there’s a million ways we could have gone about it. We found there was a big learning curve especially since we recorded the album [Beast Rest Forth Mouth] as a four piece so when we thought about how we were going to play it live, we knew our strengths lied with texture. We didn’t want to strip things back too much so there was a lot of scrambling especially on the part of [keyboardist] John [Philpot] because he’s the most technically proficient in the band. We replaced our keyboard and bassist so our band now is kind of like a computer camp now’ he says laughing. ‘Everyone is connected via MIDI, I’m playing keys with my feet, and John is playing bass with two samplers. It was a month of pure hell trying to work out how to do this’.

Given the proclivity for touring shared by both bands, its surprising perhaps that both groups have done so much recording recently, with follow-up albums due in the next six months, something Silberman is particularly keen to expand on. “We’re just about done with our record. We’ve been working on it since September and should be done in a month. Live, we’re still mostly focusing on Hospice because it’s our first time in Australia and we’re still working out how to play a lot of these new songs. The new album is not like Hospice and that’s something we didn’t think at first,” he says with a sigh. “It’s definitely been a long uphill battle making this record. It took a lot of time to come up with ideas and throw them out. Stupidly I thought I might follow Hospice up with something similar, but once I decided not to try that the process became very different and the songs too. Definitely, the album is better for not trying to be anything and just letting the songs happen as they wanted to.’

Though it seems like a brave effort to even attempt to replicate the diarising of Hospice, Silberman gives nothing more away about the Antlers’ forthcoming release. Wills is more open about Bear in Heaven’s recent activities in the studio.

“We’ve recorded a cover we’re putting out, we’ve been writing and we’re 50% done with two new songs we may have ready when we hit Australia, though mainly we’ve just been working out how to play songs more than write them. We’re so busy with touring that recording has been pushed back to next month. We have another album in the can which never made it outside the States, and we’ve been sprucing that up for live shows which comes across well.” Hmmm…Antlers = reindeer, any chance of a Christmas song at some point? “Uh no, I don’t think so,” Silberman responds chuckling ruefully. “We’re two-thirds Jewish and not religious at all.”

Given a shared penchant for launching into searing sky-scraping soundscapes that could use another person to render, can audiences expect any cross-pollination on stage? “We are going to get up in each others sets,” laughs Wills. “We’ve been backed into a corner on this one, so we have to,” he continues happily with Silberman murmuring his assent. “We don’t know what it’s going to involve yet. One night we’ll play alphabetical, the next night reverse alphabetical but beyond that we haven’t decided on anything.”

CD Review: GLENN RICHARDS - Glimjack

2011-01-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

(Sony)

On Glimjack, the first solo album for Augie March front-dude Glenn Richards, Richards digs a little deeper into the furrow of shy and intelligent indie-rock he’s been happy to occupy since the March’s breathtaking Sunset Studies. While it’s perhaps unfair to judge this effort against that album, Glimjack takes few risks and returns fewer rewards, from the mysteriously unevocative title and inexplicable art deco cover to the unadventurous instrumentation and pedestrian delivery. Lyrics are difficult to discern due to his slightly gruff phrasing and production sounds as rough as the edge Richards would like to add to toughen up what are essentially some lyrically imaginative country rock songs.

Tracks Painter By Numbers and The Love Zoo are as intelligently verbose as some of Richards’ better-known works and will likely be heralded as further examples of brilliance in the genuinely great body of work Richards has amassed. Musically though, it feels he has no inclination to venture beyond jamming lazily with some very talented friends. There’s nothing wrong with this approach and Richards is clearly writing about what he knows, it just seems that his stories, though well told, aren’t very exciting, and neither is Glimjack.

In spite of the above observations, this album does boast fine musicianship from Mike Noga’s sinewy and spot-on drumming and the ever-reliable Dan Luscombe whose guitar gets a chance to stray into new pastures on Long Pigs, Harsh Critic and Glimjack Muttering with exalting results. These moments (reminiscent of Gene Clark’s country-glam masterpiece No Other) are far too rare, the songs too cluttered and Richards’ voice too subdued however, to rescue Glimjack from ambling off into one too many tedious sunsets.

There are so many intimidatingly literate, vehemently anti-ego and prodigiously talented thirty-something men in the Australian music industry, and, it seems, so few have anything new or engaging to say. Sadly, Glimjack only adds to this community radio-ready pile. Many fans of Augie March will regard this as a sincere, heartfelt, and lovingly crafted album, and are unlikely to want Richards to move in a bold new direction. Certainly, take the lyrics themselves as verse and there is a great poet at work, and one who can act as a beacon in the Australian rock landscape, but as an album, these charms are submerged. Words are not enough to make a great album and there is no suggestion that the songs could be better served by anything other than another foray into a country-infused rock. Compile his lyrics into a book and it’s a worthy purchase, but as an album…he’s done, and will probably do, better.

LAST VOICES - An interview with Becky Unthank of The Unthanks

2011-01-09T17:44:00.000-08:00

On the line from her flat in West Yorkshire, Becky Unthank is genuinely happy to be talking about her music. Though not hers by pen, there are few more stunning expropriators of songs than her and her sister Rachel in their group The Unthanks. Even legendarily blunt British experimental folk-rocker Robert Wyatt favours their versions of his songs over his own. “That’s the great thing about folk music,” says Unthank with a disarming Northumbrian burr, “is it’s all about songs and the windows they open. We originally did Robert’s Sea Song on our second album and fell in love with his music. A good song is a good song and I wouldn’t be worried about singing a pop song or anything really. We did a concert at Union Chapel last month of just his and Antony Hegarty’s songs - I’m in love with Antony’s music - we did For Today I Am a Boy of his for years and years and we never thought we’d do a set of just their songs. I did wonder for a while: ‘he’s such an amazing artist, what are we trying to achieve anyway?’ But we just had an incredible time exploring the ins and outs of the music. It was a brilliant experience for us and hopefully everyone else.”

With this, their third Australian tour, three sold out shows in Sydney, a Mercury Music Prize nomination and their most recent albums charting in the UK, people thinking their music is brilliant has become an increasingly common response. Since 2005, The Unthanks have gone from being a regional, familial project to an English music institution. “I think after the Mercury Music Prize…being put in that context, you’re visible to a lot more people and they remember your name. It was a great opportunity and very exciting. The family were pleased but mostly it was my friends getting excited. It gave them a context for what we're doing, it’s just our folk music to them I think and sometimes, it just doesn’t click that it’s not just a family thing, and it’s dead exciting.”

English folk music, especially English traditional folk music, long held as the infinitely less cool uptight brother of its American counterpart, finds its origins in tales of working-class celebrations and hardship. Springing up in areas removed from political centres and cultural hubs, traditional folk music saw its heydays during cultural revolutions and many songs fell into obscurity, even if their sentiments are timeless.

With little in the way of competition, The Unthanks have spent the last five years becoming one of the finest, most successful and most respected bands drawing from this fathomless well. Their interpretations of lost or barely remembered folk ballads and shows full of stories of how their rediscoveries occurred can result in songs some find squeamishly twee (particularly when the clog dancing kicks in), but lends an infusion of realism and honesty many bands would kill for. Unthank however, doesn’t see it in such a serious way. “We’ve always done music in our family really for fun,” she says brightly. “On our way to festivals and at parties, our parents got into it in the sixties from going to folk festivals in the summer and they took us too and it was so fun to meet other young people in such a relaxed environment. We’ve always been involved in it and I never thought it was unusual until we became teenagers,” she says with an embarrassed laugh. “I went through a boy band phase and Rachel went through a metal phase and of course I didn’t go around telling everyone in Newcastle I was into folk music, but I never lost interest in it. It’s such a great social life and the songs and the stories are something that you can really become involved in. They’re about life at home, love, hope and death; things that matter to us and to everyone I think. We’re not singing from our voice because these songs don’t belong to one person, they’re someone’s testimony. We’re passing on the stories and I like that part of it. This isn’t all ‘this is the way the world should be’, you can take from them whatever you want to and it’s not dictating our view.”

Though most of The Unthanks previous albums (when they were known as Rachel Unthank and the Winterset) comprised of songs unearthed in their local Northumberland in the north of England, recent years and their forthcoming album Last have seen an expansion of source material. “When we do an album we rack our brains for what songs we’ve been singing for years, our dad’s brain, songbooks...we pick up songs at folk clubs and old records of our parents, it’s an ongoing trawl," she continues enthusiastically. "What captures us is a story really, something we can empathise with, a song that touches us and makes us think ‘I want to sing that to a lot of other people’. The family do it as a whole, it’s the way we socialise, we become more like friends, some people dread family parties, we can’t wait.”

Happily, media attention brought about a change in the typical audience demographic for an Unthanks gig, i.e. not just myopic 40-year-old folk-festival stereotypes. “I find more and more teenagers do come to our shows,” she counters. “It’s not our typical audience of course, but a lot of younger people don’t necessarily know they have their own folk music but when they do, they’re interested. England’s not like Scotland or Ireland where there’s definitely been a history of that.”

The ‘that’ which Unthank talks about is not just musical, but a deeply entrenched, centuries-old cultural pride, something anathema to many British and Australian sensibilities. Besides music and stories there lurks that mercilessly parodied and laughably antiquated bugbear, folk dancing, something the Unthanks do with a gravity many find hilarious. “Oh I know!” Unthank says with mirthful glee. “Rachel and I have both been clog dancing since we were five. We didn’t realise everyone else didn’t do it until we were much older, and after we did some dancing on Jools Holland were asked to do a TV show on folk dancing [Still Folk Dancing After All These Years]. We wound up going around the country and filming different traditional dances, some which we’d heard about and others which were totally new to us. It was a blast. We always bring some of that dancing to our shows and it doesn’t seem funny when you’re so used to it.”

The live shows, the natural home of traditional music, see the now-five-piece band switching between instruments. “The new album in coming out in March, there’ll be a couple of things from that at the Australian shows, maybe some Antony songs too. We thought about doing a live album in Melbourne for a while because we loved the sound at The Toff in Town, then it became talk of a live album with an orchestra back home, but it just hasn’t been the right time,” she says slightly despondently. “It’s hard to capture a live performance when you make an album, though we did record the Union Chapel shows and I know I’m really happy with it and I’d like to do another live album.”

Live Review: KRISTINA MILTIADOU, DANCING HEALS

2011-01-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

GRACE DARLING

Outside the temperature is still sitting at a balmy 25 and inside there is an ambience just as warm. Though Militiadou has had little in the way of press or publicity campaigns, a successful bid to play support for Marina and the Diamonds in Sydney has been the latest in a series of profile-increasing events and tonight’s sold out show is likely to be another stepping stone to fame.

With a stage setup reversing the venue’s layout, it’s a strange but homely design that suits the vocal and supportive tightly packed crowd.

Dancing Heals are, musically, a strange mix of derivative American indie-rock and fantastically rough vocal harmonies. Singer John-Lee Farrell and co-songwriter Daniel Trakell use their complimentary writing and vocals styles to lift the band up above the comparisons that some songs suggest. Elements of The Lemonheads, Broken Social Scene and Mumford and Sons push through the showmanship of Farrell which serves as much as distracts from the songs themselves. The band, however, are tight and flesh the songs out with style and energy to burn.

Though the crowd clearly like Dancing Heals, the room bursts to life as Miltiadou takes to the stage wearing a band of white carnations in her hair and a sheer pink pleated dress. Kicking off with On Our Way the initially striking aspects are Miltiadou’s piercing Brit-School-influenced voice, her commanding stage presence and the phenomenal tightness of her four-piece band. Heavy on the percussion and rubbery basslines Miltiadou’s arrangements are breathtaking in their speed, dynamic shifts and addictive complexity.

Eminently danceable, it’s when Miltiadou sends her yearning tones over irresistible rhythms, slows down the mile-a-minute Kate Nash stream-of-consciousness and lets some space creep in as on Stepping Stone and the phenomenal All Across The Night that the band truly gel. A cover of Kings of Leon’s Milk leaves the original a stolid po-faced bore when compared to Miltiadou’s joyous calypso reinvention and the crowd respond with ever-louder cheers and more vibrant dancing.

Though there is a proclivity for covers (Beyonce and Aretha also get a makeover), the band’s originals shine through and suggest that there is much more than a good party band here. Miltiadou’s refusal to shorten or change her name shows a headstrong confidence reflected in her singing and it’s likely to guarantee some obsessive fans later. All together, it’s a stunning show and it’s unlikely they’ll play such a small room again.

Live Review: THE FRUSTRATIONS

2010-12-30T17:55:00.000-08:00

BRISBANE HOTEL, HOBART

The Brisbane Hotel is alive with the ceaseless chatter of locals and interstate Christmas ex-locals catching up, drinking heavily and all here to witness the first gig in seven years for one-time flagship of the celebrated Hobart mid-to-late-nineties ‘scene’ The Frustrations.

Unlike so many other bands seeking to reform, the songs written by singer and guitarist Julian Teakle and drummer Mike Harris were wise beyond their years when they were written, so revisiting them is no mere exercise in nostalgia and many pack a surprising punch. Always a fan of unfettered honesty, Teakle counters the expected heckling and banter with ease. ‘Hi we’re the Frustrations...from a million years ago,’ he says with a wry chuckle between opener My New Shirt and Volcano. Teakle finishes the gig with a humourless ‘Now fuck off and spend your gift vouchers’ over blazing squalls of feedback suggesting that some sort of catharsis has been earned.

Affection is always matched with frustration at living in your hometown, and few songwriters have explored this with such blunt precision as Julian Teakle. The fact that he writes about Hobart is going to limit their relevance, but their coruscating sincerity can’t be denied, and tonight was a blinding reminder.

Knowing exactly how to set these paeans to the streets outside the venue, Harris has one drum style that involves the need to hit every drum on every song and this vocal-cue-triggered clutter sets Teakle’s stark guitar hacks off perfectly and allows them to capture that elusive beast; a simple sound to call your own.

The sonically reductive quality of The Frustrations is the most notably dated aspect of their sound. Few bands would have the bravery to play a 90-minute set with just a drum kit, guitar and occasionally used distortion pedal; no reverb, no distractions.

One Trick Pony Show is a languid mid-set highlight, Ricochet is ferocious and local classic What Erica Told Me sparks a sing-along with its brief verses (I love you / You’re dropped), before Teakle drily intones: ‘That was a song I wrote when I was 18, here is a far more sophisticated song I wrote when I was 28’, and enters Wilderness.

Teakle seems to have nothing to prove, won’t be thrown by vicious heckling and doesn’t exude the submerged need to seek approval that was an essential contributor to the energy needed to keep a band alive. There are dud notes, missed beats, a ferociously unpredictable cameo from Andrew Harper on 21 and the realisation that there are a lot of songs they can choose from.

Sonic Advisor, unreleased song Hey Death and Girl in the Purple Dress all shine, inspire some gentle slamming and are devoured by the audience, many of whom were definitely too young to have seen them before. Thankfully, there was never a chance of this being too polished, and like all good reunions, new material was played. Possibly best of all though, talk of the forthcoming release of a ‘lost’ album and plans for mainland shows.