Tag: Australian Music Prize

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Teeth & Tongue’s Jess Cornelius Releases Haunting Visuals for “Jealousy” Off Her Forthcoming Solo Debut

Over the past year, I had written a bit about the critically acclaimed, Melbourne, Australia-based indie rock/indie pop act Teeth & Tongue. Comprised of New Zealand-born, Melbourne, Australia-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Jess Cornelius, guitarist Marc Regueiro-McKelvie, bassist Damian Sullivan and drummer James Harvey, the quartet initially began as a solo recording project of its founding member Jess Cornelius, and over the course of the four albums, the band developed a reputation for restless experimentation with their sound morphing from an ambient and textured sound to a wiry, dance floor-friendly post-punk inspired by Yeah Yeah Yeahs‘ It’s Blitz!, as you would hear on Give Up on Your Health, an album that received attention both nationally and internationally — it was nominated for a J Award and the Australian Music Prize, named Album of the Week on 3RRR and Featured Album on Double J, as well as features in Rolling Stone, The Fader and Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter.

Adding to a growing profile, Cornelius has played at some of the her adopted homeland’s and the world’s major music festivals including Laneway Festival, Meredith Music Festival, Falls Festival, Boogie Woogie Festival, SXSW, CMJ, Perth International Arts Festival and Darwin Festival, toured with acclaimed singer/songwriter Courtney Barnett and Vance Joy, opened for J. Mascis, Sons & Daughters, EMA, Juana Molina, The Dodos, The Mountain Goats, The Drones and Laura Marling, as well performed as a musical guest on several episodes of SBS‘ Rockwiz.
 
After several years as a frontperson, Cornelius decided it was time to focus on creating music under her own name, and as a result, Cornelius relocated to Los Angeles to write, and record new material, which included “Jealousy,” the first single off her forthcoming debut EP Nothing Is Lost. And from the single, the New Zealand-born singer/songwriter’s solo work is a marked departure from her work with Teeth & Tongue, as  the material is stripped down to a sparse arrangement of Cornelius’ dynamic, PJ Harvey-like vocals, accompanied by her strummed guitar, dramatic drumming and backing vocals. With a strip down approach of songwriter, vocals, guitar and drums, the listener must not only pay attention to the songwriter’s vocals but to the lyrics as well — and in this case, “Jealousy,” a song based on one of the most hideous yet common human emotions may arguably be some of the more direct, empathetic writing of her career.  You can practically feel the bile and resentment of the song’s narrator, who focuses on what she lacks and what others have; however, the song should serve both as a reminder and warning — after all, you don’t know what someone else had to sacrifice to be in the situation they’re in now, and if you did, you might not have done so.
 
 
Directed by Thomas Hyland at Clones and Clones, the recently released video for “Jealousy” employs a relatively simple yet haunting concept: we follow Cornelius as rides a bike through a suburban development at night. And in some way, the treatment emphasizes the bitter loneliness and spite of its narrator, whose jealousy and resentments seem to fuel her through something that’s both endless and pointless.
 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Last year, I wrote a bit about the critically acclaimed, Melbourne, Australia-based indie rock/indie pop act Teeth & Tongue. Comprised of New Zealand-born, Melbourne, Australia-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Jess Cornelius, guitarist Marc Regueiro-McKelvie, bassist Damian Sullivan and drummer James Harvey, the quartet initially began as a solo recording project of its founding member Jess Cornelius, and over the course of the four albums, the band developed a reputation for restless experimentation with their sound morphing from an ambient and textured sound to a wiry, dance floor-friendly post-punk inspired by Yeah Yeah Yeahs‘ It’s Blitz!, as you would hear on Give Up on Your Health, an album that received attention both nationally and internationally — it was nominated for a J Award and the Australian Music Prize, named Album of the Week on 3RRR and Featured Album on Double J, as well as features in Rolling Stone, The Fader and Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter.

Along with that, Cornelius has played at some of the her adopted homeland’s and the world’s major music festivals including Laneway Festival, Meredith Music Festival, Falls Festival, Boogie Woogie Festival, SXSW, CMJ, Perth International Arts Festival and Darwin Festival, toured with acclaimed singer/songwriter Courtney Barnett and Vance Joy, opened for J. Mascis, Sons & Daughters, EMA, Juana Molina, The Dodos, The Mountain Goats, The Drones and Laura Marling, as well performed as a musical guest on several episodes of SBS‘ Rockwiz.
After several years as a frontperson, Cornelius decided it was time to focus on creating music under her own name, and as you’ll hear on her solo debut single “Jealousy,” her solo work is a marked departure from her critically applauded work in Teeth & Tongue, as the material is stripped down to a sparse arrangement of Cornelius’ dynamic, PJ Harvey-like vocals, accompanied by her strummed guitar, dramatic drumming and backing vocals. And by stripping down the material to its bare essence of songwriter, vocals, guitar and drums, the listener must not only pay attention to the songwriter’s vocals but to the lyrics as well — and in this case, “Jealousy,” a song based on one of the most hideous yet common human emotions may arguably be some of the more direct, empathetic writing of her career.  You can practically feel the bile and resentment of the song’s narrator, who focuses on what she lacks and what others have; however, the song should serve both as a reminder and warning — after all, you don’t know what someone else had to sacrifice to be in the situation they’re in now, and if you did, you might not have done so.
Cornelius’ solo EP is slated for release later this year, but along with the release of “Jealousy,” she announced a handful of solo dates in Los Angeles and New York, along with a series of dates opening for Paul Kelly. Check out the tour dates below.
 
Tour Dates 
* without Paul Kelly
08/23: Hush Club at Hyperion – Los Angeles, CA*
09/08: Pianos – New York, NY*
09/13: Arlene’s Grocery – New York, NY*
09/15: Rockwood Music Hall – New York, NY*
09/17: The Hamilton – Washington, DC
09/19: Virgin Mobile Mod Club – Toronto, ON
09/20: Petit Campus, Montréal, QC
09/22: Brighton Music Hall – Allston, MA
09/23: Highline Ballroom – New York, NY
09/24: Sellersville Theater – Sellersville, PA
09/26: Stag’s Head Music Hall – Raleigh, NC
09/27: City Winery – Atlanta, GA
09/29: Sons of Hermann Hall – Dallas, TX
09/30: 3TEN Austin City Limits Live – Austin, TX
10/02: Main Street Crossing – Tomball, TX
10/04: City Winery – Nashville, TN
10/05: Zanzabar – Louisville, KY
10/07: The Magic Bag – Ferndale, MI
10/08: The Clay Center – Charleston, WV
10/10: SPACE – Evanston, IL
10/11: The Cedar Cultural Center – Minneapolis, MN
10/13: Daniels Hall @ Swallow Hill – Denver, CO
10/14: The State Room – Salt Lake City, UT
10/16: Imperial – Vancouver, BC
10/17: Doug Fir Lounge – Portland, OR
10/18: The Crocodile – Seattle, WA
10/20: Slim’s – San Francisco, CA
10/22: The Roxy Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Melbourne Australia-based JOVM Mainstays Gold Class Return with an Anthemic Post Punk Ode to Resistance

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written a handful of posts about JOVM’s newest mainstay act, Melbourne, Australia-based post-punk band Gold Class, an act comprised of  collection of work friends, drinking buddies and classmates in a creative writing course featuring  Evan James Purdey (guitar), Jon Shub (bass), Adam Curley (vocals), and Logan Gibson (drums). The Australian quartet formed back in 2014 and they quickly developed a reputation for lean and explosive live sets, which eventually culminated in their debut effort, It’s You — and with It’s You, the members of Gold Class wrote and recorded an album that paired angular and wiry post-punk with material that lyrically focused on issues of personal politics, sexuality and identity, with an unflinching frankness. Critically, the album was a massive success in Australia, with the Aussie quartet being shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize and receiving an Age Award nomination. 
With a rapidly growing national and international profile, the members of Gold Class found themselves playing a series of sold out shows across their homeland, and London, as well as sets at some of the world’s biggest festivals, including Golden Plains, Splendour in the Grass, London Calling, and Primavera Sound. Building upon that growing profile, Drum, the highly-anticipated follow up to It’s You is slated for release next Friday through Felte Records, and as the band’s Adam Curley explains in an artist statement about the new album,“The week we started to write Drum, my relationship ended and I was left alone in a draughty [sic] old house, which belonged to a friend of a friend. In the house, I sat around with my notebook, the quiet hours cut with news from friends and the TV; the suicides of musicians and writers I’d known and queer kids I hadn’t; the systematic abuse of vulnerable people, the constant mockery of anyone on the outs. 

I knew what the purpose of the album would be when I wrote the repeated line in ‘Get Yours:’ ‘There’s none left here and all I need.’ I wanted it to be a record of defiance, a resistance to the idea of scrambling for a place at a table that wasn’t set for you. A sort of a love letter to anyone who not only can’t meet the standard but doesn’t want to. I wanted it to be a record of rage and ecstasy and endless nights and sex and dumb fun and ventures in solidarity. Not just an album of urgency and longing, but one of abandon and a reclaiming of a self beyond boundaries.

But I couldn’t avoid what was immediately happening in my life, either, that the end of my relationship had uncovered a lot of the feelings of isolation I experienced growing up. And so it turned out that the album is also personal, and I think is in conversation with queer histories of silence and evasion and transgression, which I was revisiting through the writing of James Baldwin and Cocteau. Childhood imagery kept creeping into the lyrics. Maybe I was trying to come to some peace with the past and to stand up and find some agency in the present. I suppose it was the most defiant thing I could think to do: not to write as some act of catharsis but in an attempt simply to document and claim my existence; that I am here.”

Now, while the album is fueled by the personal experiences, thoughts and emotions of the band’s primary lyricist, the album, which was co-produced by  
The Drones‘ Garther Liddiard reportedly finds the band expanding upon both their sound, attempting to capture distinctly different moods and tones from its predecessor; in fact on album single “Twist In The Dark,” the band manages to evoke a complicated and somewhat contradictory array of emotions — desperate and fervent longing, the uncertainty of a relationship in which you can’t tell what your motivations are for the relationship nor can you figure out what that other person truly feels or their motivations. And the result is a tense push and pull between desire and repugnance that’s at the heart of the most dysfunctional and confusing relationships. But underneath, there’s a wistfulness towards the ridiculous, burning passions and desires of one’s youth when things seemed more simplistic and much more black and white, yes and no. 

“Get Yours,” Drum’s latest single will further cement the Aussie post-punk quartet’s reputation for crafting tense and wiry post-punk based around its lyricists personal experiences and his own messy, complicated, very adult life and while the band plays with a passionate and fiery self-assuredness, the material is rooted within an urgent and uncompromising desire to live in accordance to one’s own dictates, desires and pleasures and to resist, simply by saying “I’m here and you may hate me, but I ain’t going anywhere. My life fucking matters.” 

Directed by Defero Productions, the recently released video for “Get Yours” consists of slickly edited live footage of  the band performing a sweaty and furious set in a dark little club as it always should be, and the video captures the explosion of lights, the fervent passion of the band playing their songs in front of people, who truly get their music. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Melbourne, Australia’s Gold Class Pairs Tense Sounds with Equally Tense Visuals for “Twist In The Dark”

Comprised of a collection of work friends, bar buddies and students in a creative writing course, the Melbourne, Australia-based post-punk band Gold Class, featuring Evan James Purdey (guitar), Jon Shub (bass), Adam Curley (vocals), and Logan Gibson (drums), formed in 2014. And shortly after their formation, the quartet quickly developed a reputation for lean and explosive live sets, which eventually culminated in their debut effort It’s You, an effort that paired angular and wiry post punk with material that thematically focused on personal politics, sexuality and identity. As a result of its unflinching frankness, the Australian quartet was shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize and was nominated for an Age Award — and with a growing national and international profile, the members of Gold Class played a series of sold out shows across their homeland and London, as well as sets at some of the world’s biggest festivals, including Golden Plains, Splendour in the Grass, London Calling, and Primavera Sound.
 
 
Building upon their rapidly growing international profile, the band’s follow up to It’s You, Drum is slated for an August 18, 2017 release through Felte Records and as the band’s Adam Curley explains in an artist statement “The week we started to write Drum, my relationship ended and I was left alone in a draughty [sic] old house, which belonged to a friend of a friend. In the house, I sat around with my notebook, the quiet hours cut with new from friends and the TV; the suicides of musicians and writers I’d known and queer kids I hadn’t; the systematic abuse of vulnerable people, the constant mockery of anyone on the outs. 

I knew what the purpose of the album would be when I wrote the repeated line in “Get Yours:” “There’s none left here and all I need.” I wanted it to be a record of defiance, a resistance to the idea of scrambling for a place at a table that wasn’t set for you. A sort of a love letter to anyone who not only can’t meet the standard but doesn’t want to. I wanted it to be a record of rage and ecstasy and endless nights and sex and dumb fun and ventures in solidarity. Not just an album of urgency and longing, but one of abandon and a reclaiming of a self beyond boundaries.

But I couldn’t avoid what was immediately happening in my life, either, that the end of my relationship had uncovered a lot of the feelings of isolation I experienced growing up. And so it turned out that the album is also personal, and I think is in conversation with queer histories of silence and evasion and transgression, which I was revisiting through the writing of James Baldwin and Cocteau. Childhood imagery kept creeping into the lyrics. Maybe I was trying to come to some peace with the past and to stand up and find some agency in the present. I suppose it was the most defiant thing I could think to do: not to write as some act of catharsis but in an attempt simply to document and claim my existence; that I am here. 
 
Not only is the material much more personal and much more forceful, the album. which was co-produced by The Drones’ Garther Liddiard finds the band expanding upon both their sound, attempting to capture distinctly different moods and tones from its predecessor,  and as you’ll hear on the album’s latest single “Twist In The Dark,” the band evoking a complicated array of emotions — desperate and fervent longing, the uncertainty of a relationship in which you can’t tell what your motivations are nor can you figure out what that other person truly feels; but underneath, there’s a wistfulness towards the burning passions and desires of one’s youth, when things were seemingly much more black and white. And what caught my attention was the fact that the Melbourne-based quartet smartly pairs tense, angular post-punk with incredibly smart lyrics, rooted on the experiences, thoughts and feelings of someone, who’s led a fully and messy life.
 
The recently released visuals for the song employs a relatively simple concept as it features the members of the band performing the song in an empty performance space but pay close attention as there are sudden jump cuts and even quicker changes in lighting — all of which further emphasize the song’s tense, anxious vibe.