Tag: Melbourne Australia

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Anthemic and Jangling Pop Guitar Pop of Wesley Fuller

Wesley Fuller is a Perth, Australia-born, Melbourne, Australia-based singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist and producer, who quickly received national attention with the release of his debut EP, Melvista for an anthemic jangling guitar pop sound that draws from 60s bubblegum pop, 70s glam rock. Fuller’s much anticipated full-length debut Inner City Dream is slated for a September 22, 2017 release through 1965 Records, and the material will reportedly further cement his growing reputation for crafting infectious and anthemic pop that sounds mischievously anachronistic, all while subtly expanding upon his sound and songwriting approach, as his influences expanded; in fact, as a result of his regularly occurring DJ sets in and around Melbourne, Fuller cites late 70s and early 80s Talking Heads as a growing influence on him. As Fuller explains “Melvista was really my first solo expedition and I was learning as I went along. I think by the time I came to record the album I had a better technical knowledge of what I was doing. There’s probably a wider span of influences on the album. I wanted to showcase every aspect of my sound.” 

Along with the sound, Fuller’s material thematically has reportedly progressed as well with the material on Inner City Dream revealing a growing maturity with the material focusing on the worldview of a young man trying to come to terms with his place, both physically and symbolically — but at times with a wry, observational humor; in fact, as you’ll hear on Inner City Dream’s later single “#1 Song,” the song smartly focuses and then mischievously takes fire on the upper echelon of modern pop. As Fuller says in press notes “I think everyone in the scene knows to a certain extent that it’s all bullshit. So why take it seriously? You’ve got some artists with 20 tracks in the Top 30. The gap between the big stars and the indie bands are worlds apart. There’s really no money in music at all unless you’re at the very top. To get there, you have to compromise your dignity and be prepared to release some pretty pedestrian shit.” But instead of calling those who have managed massive success a bunch of soulless sellouts, the song sly says “well, in that situation what would you do? Does anyone dream of criss-crossing the country in an old van with two, three, four or more broke, desperate and sweaty musicians, and possibly getting your whole life stolen while on the road? Who doesn’t dream of having the biggest song in their country — or in the world? And who doesn’t dream of playing in front of massive crowds at Glastonbury, Madison Square Garden, Wembley Stadium, The Rose Bowl, etc.? What would you do in the face of an opportunity of a lifetime? Talk about artistic integrity? Bullshit! You’d probably sign your name on the dotted line, sell your soul and your mother if you have to.  

“#1 Song” ironically enough manages to sound as though it was a #1 song released sometime between 1969 and 1974 — with a subtly modern production sheen; but at its core is some incredibly slick and carefully crafted pop-leaning songwriting, complete with an incredibly infectious, danceable, and anthemic hook reminiscent of T. Rex, Bay City Rollers and a handful of others.

The recently released video features Fuller and his backing band appearing as though they fell out of time warp from 1973 or so, playing “#1 Song” on a Top of the Pops-like TV show — and the way the video is shot, to even how the musicians appear to be playing bear an uncanny resemblance to how shows of that period were shot.   

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Ella Thompson and Graeme Pogson, GL is a Melbourne, Australia-based electronic music production and artist duo, who with the release of 2013’s Love Hexagon EP and their full-length debut Touch developed a reputation for specializing in a sound that’s very much a contemporary take on disco, funk, boogie, soul and house music, and as a result the Australian electronic music duo quickly earned international attention from The Guardian, i-D, The FADER, V Magazine, XLR8R and others, as well as played sets at New Zealand’s St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival and Splore Festival while nationally they’ve opened for Nick Murphy fka Chet Faker and played a successful headlining national tour to support their full-length debut.

Building upon a growing national and international profile, which resulted in a busy touring schedule, the duo locked themselves away in the studio to write and record the double A-sided single “Destiny”/”Reflect,” and as the duo explain “‘Reflect’ is an extended jam we made at TFS Studio in North Fitzroy, Melbourne. We wanted to try a long form exploration piece. Listen out for the delightful keyboard solo by Harvey Sutherland! Lyrically, it’s about searching inward, when the outside gets a bit much.” Interestingly enough, the song while being decidedly introspective manages to be joyous, suggesting that searching inward can be a profound solace in a cruel world or as George Clinton once wisely sung “The kingdom of heaven is within.” Of course, sonically, the song will further cement the duo’s reputation for crafting a sound that draws so much  from 80s and 90s house music and 80s synth soul that it brings to mind The Whispers “It’s A Love Thing,” “And The Beat Goes On,” and “Rock Steady,” Evelyn “Champagne” King’s “Love Come Down” and Cherelle‘s “Saturday Love” as Pogson pairs a production featuring layers of shimmering and cascading synths, a sinuous bass line, tribal drumming, bursts of shimmering keys and a soaring hook with Thompson’s self-assured vocals. Simply put, it’s arguably one of the most DJ-leaning, club rocking tracks I’ve written about in several months; in fact, if I were DJ’ing, I’d make sure to fit this one into a set.

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Sultry and Sensual Sounds and Visuals of Anna of the North’s Latest Single “Lovers”

Comprised of the Gjøvik, Norway-born and-based singer/songwriter and musician Anna Lotterud and New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based producer Brady Daniell-Smith, the Norwegian/New Zealand-Australian indie electro pop duo Anna of the North can trace its origin back to 2012. As the story goes, Lotterud was working in a shop in her small town near Oslo, and was settling down with her first love, anticipating a life of routine, normality and banality when a customer came in and changed her life. Polite and well groomed, this stranger began making daily visits, browsing for hours but never buy-in anything. One afternoon, the woman suddenly approached Lotterud and implored her to abandoned the traditional life she had planned out, and go and expand her horizons. The plea jolted something in Lotterud and in an act of rather uncharacteristic spontaneity, she booked a flight to Australia, leaving her life and her partner behind. 

The time Lotterud spent in Australia was personally fulfilling but also incredibly turbulent. She fell in love again, only to have her heart broken as suddenly and inexplicably as her decision to leave Norway in the first place. Around that time, she met her future producer and collaborator Brady Daniell-Smith. At the time, Smith who was also struggling with his own complicated relationships, was performing as an acoustic singer/songwriter in Melbourne, and in a serendipitous moment, Lotterud had caught Smith performing while she was friends. Interestingly, Lotterud and Smith then quickly became friends, with Smith encouraging his new friend to find solace in songwriting — and that by making music they could exorcise the ghosts of their past love lives. The project’s name actually came from a joke — Smith jokingly referred to Lotterud as “Anna of the North” and the name stuck. 

The release of their debut single “Sway” three years ago began an incredible run of attention grabbing singles that have received over 60 million streams across every streaming service, multiple number 1 spots on Hype Machine’s charts and rotation on BBC Radio 1, Triple J and  Beats 1 — and in many ways that shouldn’t be surprising as the duo’s sound pairs brooding, icy minimalism with bright, buoyant and radio friendly/dance floor friendly production. 

The duo’s highly-anticipated full length effort Lovers is slated for release on September 8, 2017 and reportedly the album’s material focuses on a subject familiar to the duo and to countless others — heartbreak. And through the album’s ten tracks, the album goes through the various emotional stages people typically feel after a relationship ends, including turmoil, grief, confusion, and the tentative joy in letting yourself start moving forward. Of course, along with that there’s the recognition that knowing love, including its inevitable heartbreak is necessary and wonderful because it opens up the possibility to know love once more. 

Interestingly,  the album’s latest single, album title track “Lovers” pairs a production featuring layers of shimmering synths, buoyant almost rubbery beats and a soaring hook with Lotterud’s tender and aching vocals, expressing a desperate an urgent longing that’s frustrated and can’t be fulfilled. 

The recently released visuals for “Lovers” features Lotterud at a party by herself surrounded by couples — and in some way she’s haunted by the fact her relationship has fallen apart. As the duo explains “On a literal level, the video is about being lost at a house party and surrounded by couples when your own relationship has fallen apart. Digging deeper, it’s set in the same place as the song, that point when you feel so alone and you’re reaching out but they’re not reaching back. It’s desperate”

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.
 
 
 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Certainly, if you’ve been frequenting the site over the past 12-18 months or so you’ve come across a handful of posts on Melbourne, Australia-based emcee REMI  and his producer and collaborator Sensible J. The duo rose to national prominence in their homeland with 2014’s critically and commercially successful  Raw X Infinity, an album that was named Triple J‘s Album of the Week and the Independent Hip Hop Album of the Year by the Australian Independent Record Association, a well as receiving international attention from OkayAfrica, JUICE, laut.de, NPR‘s All Things Considered among others. And adding to a growing profile, the duo were named “Australian Breakthrough Artist of the Year,” and followed that up with touring nationally and across both the UK and EU with Danny Brown, Vic Mensa, De La Soul, Joey Bada$$ and Damon Albarn.

Last year saw the release of the duo’s critically applauded sophomore full-length effort, Divas and Demons, which paired their strengths — an incredibly adept lyricist and storyteller, whose stories possessed an uncommonly earnest, soul-baring honesty and an incredibly dope and soulful producer, whose sound and production nods at the great J. Dilla, DJ Premier and others; in fact, you’d probably recall “For Good,” a charmingly coquettish love song in which its male and female narrators have misunderstandings, bicker and fight, cheat and drive each other insane in a youthfully dysfunctional relationship featuring a guest spot from Sydney, Australia-based poet, visual artist and singer/songwriter Sampa The Great rhyming and singing over a warm and soulful production that nodded at The Roots and Erykah Badu‘s “You Got Me;” “Substance Therapy,” the album’s second single featured Remi rhyming honestly about how drinking, drugging and womanizing as an escape from himself and his depression only managed to further mire him in depression paired with a production that emphasizes the rapid vacillation of self-loathing, self-doubt, fear, anger, and desperate escapism of the severely depressed; “Lose Sleep” was a deeply personal song that drew from REMI’s own experiences a mixed race man in Australia and in the world — and in some way, he wanted the song to be a message to other mixed race kids about that weird feeling of feeling as though you could never quite fit in; but that his experience and story, as of those of others matters in a much larger story; and the last single I wrote about “Contact Hi/High/I” featured REMI along with a guest spot from  Hiatus Kaiyote‘s Silent Jay rhyming and singing about what seems to be a permanent state of adolescence, which constantly validates itself through vice and excess.

Interestingly enough, this year marks Sensible J’s solo debut — and his first single “Fire Sign” is a a collaboration with his friends and frequent collaborators REMI and Sampha the Great, which features the two rhyming over a thumping and swaggering, soulful groove, reminiscent of the aforementioned J. Dilla, thanks to a production featuring twinkling keys, boom bap-like drum programming and a ridiculous, anthemic hook; in fact, in a playful turn, the trio pay homage to A Tribe Called Quest — and it shouldn’t be surprising because much like the legendary Tribe and De La Soul, the Melbourne-based trio specialize in an overwhelmingly soulful, thoughtful hip-hop, serving as a reminder that the genre and its practitioners have always been wildly diverse; after all, NWA, Tribe, De La, Public Enemy, Kid ‘N’ Play, MC Lyte and others all existed simultaneously.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Return with Hallucinogenic Visuals for the Face-Melting Epic “Lord of Lightning vs. Balrog”

Over the past couple of months, the Melbourne, Australia-based psych rock sextet King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard have quickly become JOVM mainstays. And considering the wild variety of things that I’ll write about in any given day, week or month that shouldn’t be terribly surprising. The act, comprised of Stu Mackenzie (vocals, guitar, and flute), Ambrose Kenny Smith (synths, harmonica), Cook Craig (guitar), Joey Walker (guitar), Lucas Skinner (bass), Eric Moore (drums) and Michael Cavanagh (drums), the Australian psych rock sextet have developed a reputation for incredibly energetic live shows and for being incredibly prolific, as they’ve released 10 full-length, studio albums since 2012 — and with each album, the band has revealed a relentlessly experimental song and songwriting approach; in fact, their earliest releases blended elements of 60s surf rock, garage rock and psych rock and their later work featuring elements of film scores, prog rock, folk, soul, Krautrock, heavy metal and proto-metal.

Released earlier this year, the band’s tenth studio album Flying Microtonal Banana found the band delving deeper into trance-inducing done, non-Western musical scales and metronomic rhythms — and in fact, the sound on that album is so profoundly unique and evolved, that it required the members of the band to reinvent their own instruments after they began experimenting with a custom microtonal guitar, made for the band’s frontman Stu Mackenzie. As the band mentioned in press notes on Flying Microtonal Banana they found particular inspiration from the movable frets of a Turkish instrument, the bağlama, a classical lute — and three guitars and a bass were customized for the band to explore wildly different scales and a new set of musical notes not normally heard in Western music. They then customized a keyboard and a mouth organ. Additionally, the material on the album finds the and incorporating the use of a Turkish horn called a zurna, which looks a bit like a clarinet but because it’s a double-reeded instrument, the possess a wobbly sound that Mackenzie says “blends perfectly with the secret notes on the guitar.” And as you may remember, album single “Rattlesnake” paired a chugging, motorik-like groove and anthemic, chant-worthy hook; but while clearly drawing from prog rock, Krautrock, psych rock, heavy psych, stoner rock and even space rock, the song finds the band putting a familiar Western sound into a decidedly Eastern context — and as a result, it’s not only a wild, mind-altering spin on something familiar and seemingly done to death and then some, while possessing a familiar acid-tinged yet alien, otherworldly sound.

Unsurprisingly, the Melbourne-based psych rockers will follow up on one of the trippiest and more unique sounding albums I’ve heard this year with Murder Of The Universe, a concept album meant to end all concept albums forever, as the material thematically concerns itself with the downfall of man and the death of the planet — and it evokes the greater sense of fear that we’re foolishly inching closer to our own destruction. As the band’s Stu Mackenzie explains “We’re living in dystopian times that are pretty scary and it’s hard not to reflect that in our music. It’s almost unavoidable. Some scientists predict that the downfall of humanity is just as likely to come at the hands of Artificial Intelligence, as it is war or viruses or climate change. But these are fascinating times too. Human beings are visual creatures – vision is our primary instinct, and this is very much a visual, descriptive, bleak record. While the tone is definitely apocalyptic, it is not necessarily purely a mirror of the current state of humanity. It’s about new non-linear narratives.”

Structurally, Murder of the Universe‘s tracks are separated into three chapters and the album’s first single ““Chapter 3: Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe” offered an incredible taste of what listeners should expect from the entire album, as it’s a 13 minute, shape-shifting, face-melting prog rock song that evokes Biblical visions of the apocalypse — enormous mushroom clouds, pools of fire and blood, death and unceasing war, poverty and misery, featuring a cyborg, who desperately longs to be alive, to simply be.

Now, as you may also recall earlier this year, the Australian psych rock collective was on Conan to perform an abridged version of their latest single “The Lord of Lighting vs. Balrog,”a nearly 14 minute hallucinogenic, heavy psych and prog rock-inspired shape shifter of a song that features face-melting guitar riffs while detailing an epic, mythical battle between the Lord of Lighting and Balrog, in which the fate of the universe and all living things will depend on; but just underneath is a sobering meditation on the nature of life and death. And yes, the resemblance to Black Sabbath is both uncanny and fucking awesome.

Created by Jason Galea and Ben Jones, the recently released video for “The Lord of Lighting vs. Balrog” is gloriously, defiantly hallucinogenic while drawing from 60s videos, complete with an extended sequence of the band performing in a haunted forest with rapid fire cuts; in fact, the cuts are so rapid that if you suffer from photo-sensitive epilepsy that it’s suggested that you not watch.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Husky Performs Their Gorgeous New Single “Splinters In The Fire”

Over the past five years or so, I’ve written quite a bit about the Melbourne, Australia-based indie folk/indie rock act Husky. Initially formed as a quartet featuring is founding members and primary songwriters Husky Gwenda and Gideon Preiss (keys, vocals), along with Evan Tweedie (bass, vocals) and Luke Collins (drums) filling out the band’s original lineup, the quartet quickly received national attention and acclaim after they won Triple J’s Unearthed Contest. As the result of a growing national profile, the band played at The Push Over Festival, one of their homeland’s biggest music festivals and they’ve opened for several internationally known touring acts, including Devendra Banhart, Noah and the Whale, The Shins, and Gotye.
The band’s remarkably self-assured and gorgeously lush full-length debut Forever So was released globally through Sub Pop Records — and the album was interestingly enough recorded in a loving DIY fashion with reclaimed recording gear in an abandoned bungalow near Gwenda’s house. The band’s sophomore effort Ruckers Hill further cemented the act’s reputation for incredibly crafted songs possessed effortlessly gorgeous melodies paired with anthemic hooks; however, as you may recall, with the release of “Late Night Store” late last year, the band revealed a massive change in thematic and sonic direction that was influenced by a lineup change that left the band’s founding duo as its sole members, and from the year that Gawenda and Preiss spent living in Berlin. And one of the first things you’d notice if you had been familiar with the renowned Australian band is that while the material off their first two albums was melody-driven, “Late Night Store” was much more hook-driven and featured Gawenda and Preiss employing the of analog synths and electric guitar in what may have been one of their most rock-leaning songs they’ve written and released. Thematically, the song captured the wild array of sensations and emotions most commonly felt when you’re far away from home — in particular, awe, reinvention, danger, of being in the words of Paul Salopek “a traveler, a man from far away” — while evoking the sensation of wandering around all hours of the day and night from jet lag, excitement, boredom and loneliness from hotel room to cafe, from cafe to bar, from bar to nightclub, observing everyone and everything around you; the strange and profound bond you have with others, who are like you, far away from home and are wandering around with the exact same thoughts and feelings reverberating in their heads.

“Ghost,” the band’s first single of 2017 and the second single off the band’s third full-length album Punchbuzz continued in a similar vein as its preceding single as it features shimmering, arpeggio synths, a propulsive bass line, thundering drumming and a rousingly anthemic hook — and while pushing the sound that won them international attention into a contemporary, rock-leaning take, both “Late Night Store” and “Ghost” are among the most personal yet ambitious songwriting of Gawenda’s career.

“Splinters In The Fire,” the soon-to-be released third album’s third and latest single can trace its origins to a guitar line that had been repeating in his head for weeks while the line “Splinters in the fire, summer days in the smoke” kept making its way into the lyrics had been writing. As Gawenda explains in press notes, there was “something about ruthlessness of fire — and time.” And as a result, the song possesses the wistful and sober mood of one coming to grips with the end of relationships, the passing of time and the acceptance of one’s own mortality; after all, all things pass and all things die, and this is is the way of things.

The duo, along with their backing band released a live video of them performing of the song, shot in the gardens of an old, somewhat abandoned mansion near their residence in Melbourne — and from the video, it’s a big rambling place, in which ghosts and spirits haunt and wander about.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past five years or so, you’ve likely come across a handful of posts featuring the  Melbourne, Australia-based indie folk/indie rock act Husky. Initially formed as a quartet featuring founding members and primary songwriters Husky Gawenda (vocals, guitar) and Gideon Preiss (keys, vocals) with Tweedie (bass, vocals) and Luke Collins (drums) filling out the band’s original lineup, the band quickly received national acclaim after winning  Triple J’s Unearthed Contest and playing at  The Push Over Festival, one of Australia’s biggest music festivals. Adding to a growing profile, the band opened for severally internationally known touring acts including Devendra Banhart, Noah and the Whale, The Shins, and Gotye.

 

As the story goes, the band’s remarkably self-assured and gorgeously lush full-length debut Forever So was released globally through Sub Pop Records but it was actually recorded in a lovingly DIY fashion with old recording gear in an abandoned bungalow near Husky Gwenda’s house. The band’s sophomore effort Ruckers Hill further cemented the act’s reputation for incredibly crafted songs that possessed elements of folk, pop and indie rock, along with some gorgeous melodies and rather anthemic hooks; however with up until the release of “Late Night Store” late last year, the band revealed a change in thematic and sonic direction that was influenced by a massive lineup change that left the band’s founding duo as its sole members — and from the year that Gawenda and Preiss spent living in Berlin. Whereas the material off their first two albums was melody- driven, “Late Night Store” was much more hook-driven and featured the band employing the use of synths, keys and electric guitar in what may arguably one of the more rousingly anthemic songs they’ve released. Thematically, the song captured the wild array of sensations and emotions most commonly felt when you’re far away from home — in particular, awe, reinvention, danger, of being in the words of Paul Salopek “a traveler, a man from far away” —  while evoking the sensation of wandering around all hours of the day and night from jet lag, excitement, boredom and loneliness from hotel room to cafe, from cafe to bar, from bar to nightclub, observing everyone and everything around you; the strange and profound bond you have with others, who are like you, far away from home and are wandering around with the exact same thoughts and feelings reverberating in their heads.

 

“Ghost,” the second and latest single off the band’s third full-length effort Punchbuzz, slated for a June 2, 2017 continues in a similar vein as its preceding single as it features shimmering arpeggio synths, a propulsive bass line, thundering drumming and a rousingly anthemic hook — and while being an ambitious and contemporary, indie rock-leaning take on the sound that won them international attention, both singles manage to be among the most personal songwriting of Gawenda’s career. Interestingly, as Gwenda explained to the folks at Clash, “‘Ghost’ is about a process of coming to terms with this half-asleep, half-awake, somewhere between the haunted past and the sunlit possibility of tomorrow, mid-air, mid-dream state. Put simply, I was searching for a way to get free. Free of the past. Free of the future. Free of myself. Whatever that means.”  And as a result, the song possesses an urgent yearning for something that’s not quite there in front of you while hinting at the regrets, mistakes and experiences that accumulate to create a messy, lived-in life.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Anthemic Folk Pop and Psych Pop Sounds of Melbourne, Australia’s Jade Imagine

Perhaps best known as the frontwoman of Melbourne, Australia-based electro pop act Tantrums, Jess McInally has spent the better part of the past decade as a touring and session musician with stints in Jess Cornelius’ recording project Teeth and Tongue and Jess Ribiero’s backing band; but towards the end of 2015, some of her dearest friends had encouraged McInally that it was time for her to write her own material and front another band. “I’m a songwriter and it took me so long to realize that,” McInally said in press notes. “I need to be writing, because that’s how I feel good.” Using a loaner guitar from her friend Dan Kelly, McInally began writing the material that would comprise What The Fuck Was I Thinking, the debut EP for her newest project, Jade Imagine.
After recording a series of demos in her bedroom, McInally sent them to Dave Mudie, Courtney Barnett’s drummer, and as the story goes, not only did Mudie dig the material he received, he then recorded some drum tracks and helped to steer some pre-production of material. Encouraged by the development, McInally began recruiting a rotating series of backing band members and collaborations that primarily includes Liam “Snowy” Halliwell (bass), best known for his work with The Ocean Party and Ciggie Witch; Tim Harvey (production, guitar), best known for his work with Emma Louise and Real Feelings; and Jen Sholakis (drums), best known for her work with East Brunswick All Girls Choir and Jen Cloher, and the newly formed band spent the next six months recording the EP at Mudie’s house and DIY-based sessions in McInally’s bedroom. As McInally says of the recording sessions, “Whenever I record with Tim [Harvey], we have a little session beforehand and listen to songs from other bands and talk about what sounds we want. It’s all very measured with him. For instance, on the drums for ‘Walkin’ Around,’ Fleetwood Mac was a reference, but so was NEU! and that definitely doesn’t come through. With Dave [Mudie], it’s more like ‘lets throw some things at the wall and see what sticks’ in a good way.” And while reportedly drawing from mid 60s California beach and psych pop, The Church, T-Rex, Fleetwood Mac, The Triffids, and The Go-Betweens, What The Fuck Was I Thinking’s latest single “Walkin’ Around,” sonically reminds me renowned fellow countrymen Husky and Starsailor while nodding a bit at The Verve.

Directed by Clancy Walker, the recently released music video for “Walkin’ Around” reminds me quite a bit of the video for The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” as the video follows a focused Jade McInally walking around Melbourne with an intense and determined sense of purpose; in fact, she’s so purposeful, that she’s practically mowing people down on the sidewalk until towards the end, she finally meets up with her bandmates, who join her for the rest of their walk.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Perform a Wild, Psych Rock Freakout on Conan

Over the past couple of months, I’ve written a bit about the Melbourne, Australia-based psych rock sextet King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard. Comprised of Stu Mackenzie (vocals, guitar, and flute), Ambrose Kenny Smith (synths, harmonica), Cook Craig (guitar), Joey Walker (guitar), Lucas Skinner (bass), Eric Moore (drums) and Michael Cavanagh (drums), the Australian psych rock sextet have developed a reputation for incredibly energetic live shows and for being incredibly prolific, as they’ve released 10 full-length, studio albums since 2012 — and with each album, the band has revealed themselves to have a relentlessly experimental song and songwriting approach; in fact, their earliest releases blended elements of 60s surf rock, garage rock and psych rock and their later work featuring elements of film scores, prog rock, folk, soul, Krautrock, heavy metal and proto-metal.

Released earlier this year, the band’s tenth studio album Flying Microtonal Banana found the band delving deeper into trance-inducing done, non-Western musical scales and metronomic rhythms — and in fact, the sound on that album is so profoundly unique and evolved, that it required the members of the band to reinvent their own instruments after they began experimenting with a custom microtonal guitar, made for the band’s frontman Stu Mackenzie. As the band mentioned in press notes on Flying Microtonal Banana they found particular inspiration from the movable frets of a Turkish instrument, the bağlama, a classical lute — and three guitars and a bass were customized for the band to explore wildly different scales and a new set of musical notes not normally heard in Western music. They then customized a keyboard and a mouth organ. Additionally, the material on the album finds the and incorporating the use of a Turkish horn called a zurna, which looks a bit like a clarinet but because it’s a double-reeded instrument, the possess a wobbly sound that Mackenzie says “blends perfectly with the secret notes on the guitar.”

Album single “Rattlesnake” paired a chugging, motorik-like groove and anthemic, chant-worthy hook; but while clearly drawing from prog rock, Krautrock, psych rock, heavy psych, stoner rock and even space rock, the song finds the band putting a familiar Western sound into a decidedly Eastern context — and as a result, it’s not only a wild, mind-altering spin on something familiar and seemingly done to death and then some, while possessing a familiar acid-tinged yet alien, otherworldly sound.

Unsurprisingly, the Melbourne-based psych rockers will follow up on one of the trippiest and more unique sounding albums I’ve heard this year with Murder Of The Universe, a concept album meant to end all concept albums, as the material thematically concerns itself with the downfall of man and the death of the planet — and it evokes the greater sense of fear that we’re foolishly inching closer to our own destruction. As the band’s Stu Mackenzie explains “We’re living in dystopian times that are pretty scary and it’s hard not to reflect that in our music. It’s almost unavoidable. Some scientists predict that the downfall of humanity is just as likely to come at the hands of Artificial Intelligence, as it is war or viruses or climate change. But these are fascinating times too. Human beings are visual creatures – vision is our primary instinct, and this is very much a visual, descriptive, bleak record. While the tone is definitely apocalyptic, it is not necessarily purely a mirror of the current state of humanity. It’s about new non-linear narratives.”

Structurally, Murder of the Universe’s tracks are separated into three chapters and the album’s first single “Chapter 3: Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe” is an epic, 13 minute, shape-shifting, face-melting prog rock song that evokes Biblical visions of the apocalypse — enormous mushroom clouds, pools of fire and blood, death and unceasing war, poverty and misery, featuring a cyborg, who desperately longs to be alive, to simply be.

The Melbourne, Australia-based psych rock band was recently on Conan to perform “Lord of Lightning” is a trippy track that meshes 60s heavy psych rock and prog rock, featuring some blistering guitar work — and it manages to feel like a wild, hallucinogenic freak out while maintaining their reputation to be defiantly, joyously difficult to pigeonhole.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Return with an Expansive, Epic, and Blistering New Single

So if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, you may recall that I’ve written about the Melbourne, Australia-based psych rock sextet King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard. Comprised of Stu Mackenzie (vocals, guitar, and flute), Ambrose Kenny Smith (synths, harmonica), Cook Craig (guitar), Joey Walker (guitar), Lucas Skinner (bass), Eric Moore (drums) and Michael Cavanagh (drums), the Australian psych rock sextet have developed a reputation for incredibly energetic live shows and for being incredibly prolific, as they’ve released 10 full-length, studio albums since 2012 — and interestingly each album revealed a band that has relentlessly experimented with its overall sound and songwriting approach with their earliest releases blending elements of 60s surf rock, garage rock and psych rock and their later work featuring elements of film scores, prog rock, folk, soul, Krautrock, heavy metal and proto-metal.

Released earlier this year, the band’s tenth studio album Flying Microtonal Banana found the band delving deeper into trance-inducing done, non-Western musical scales and metronomic rhythms — and in fact, the sound on that album is so profoundly unique and evolved, that it required the members of the band to reinvent their own instruments after they began experimenting with a custom microtonal guitar, made for the band’s frontman Stu Mackenzie. As the band mentioned in press notes on Flying Microtonal Banana they found particular inspiration from the movable frets of a Turkish instrument, the bağlama, a classical lute — and three guitars and a bass were customized for the band to explore wildly different scales and a new set of musical notes not normally heard in Western music. They then customized a keyboard and a mouth organ. Additionally, the material on the album finds the and incorporating the use of a Turkish horn called a zurna, which looks a bit like a clarinet but because it’s a double-reeded instrument, the possess a wobbly sound that Mackenzie says “blends perfectly with the secret notes on the guitar.”

Album single “Rattlesnake” paired a chugging, motorik-like groove and anthemic, chant-worthy hook; but while clearly drawing from prog rock, Krautrock, psych rock, heavy psych, stoner rock and even space rock, the song finds the band putting a familiar Western sound into a decidedly Eastern context — and as a result, it’s not only a wild, mind-altering spin on something familiar and seemingly done to death and then some, while possessing a familiar acid-tinged yet alien, otherworldly sound.

Unsurprisingly, the Melbourne-based psych rockers will follow up on one of the trippiest and more unique sounding albums I’ve heard this year with Murder Of The Universe, a concept album meant to end all concept albums, as the material thematically concerns itself with the downfall of man and the death of the planet — and it evokes the greater sense of fear that we’re foolishly inching closer to our own destruction. As the band’s Stu Mackenzie explains “We’re living in dystopian times that are pretty scary and it’s hard not to reflect that in our music. It’s almost unavoidable. Some scientists predict that the downfall of humanity is just as likely to come at the hands of Artificial Intelligence, as it is war or viruses or climate change. But these are fascinating times too. Human beings are visual creatures – vision is our primary instinct, and this is very much a visual, descriptive, bleak record. While the tone is definitely apocalyptic, it is not necessarily purely a mirror of the current state of humanity. It’s about new non-linear narratives.”

Structurally, the album’s tracks are separated into three separate chapters and the album’s first single “Chapter 3: Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe” is an epic 13 minute, shape-shifting, felt-melting bit of prog rock that evokes Biblical visions of the apocalypse — including enormous mushroom clouds, pools of fire and blood, death and unceasing war, poverty and misery, featuring a cyborg, who desperately longs to be alive, to simply be. Interestingly enough, this particular song along with the rest of the material on Murder of the Universe reportedly nods at previously released albums I’m In Your Mind Fuzz and Nonagon Infinity as they all share song recurrent themes and motifs and if you’re paying attention you may catch a snippet at a melody or a riff from them. And while nodding at the concept of wormholes in which you can easily move from past, present and future in a seamless yet mind-altering fashion. These ideas aren’t necessarily contrived,” the band’s Mackenzie explains in press notes. “Sometimes they just happen.” Sonically speaking “Han-Tyuni and the Murder of the Universe” manages to nod at King Crimson, Rush and Black Sabbath simultaneously as it features some impressively textured guitar work and sounds — but while being defiantly, joyously difficult to pigeonhole.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay REMI Further Cements His Growing Reputation for Thoughtful, Conscious, and Soulful Hip-Hop

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past year or so, you’ve likely come across a couple of posts on Melbourne, Australia-based emcee Remi and his producer and collaborator Sensible J. And as you may recall the duo rose to national prominence with the 2014 release of their critically and commercially successful effort Raw X Infinity, an album that was named Triple J’s Album of the Week and the Independent Hip Hop Album of the Year by the Australian Independent Record Association, and received international attention from OkayAfrica, JUICE, laut.de, NPR‘s All Things Considered, and several others. Adding to a growing national and international profile, the young Melbourne-based artist was named “Australian Breakthrough Artist of the Year” and he along with his producer and collaborator wound up touring nationally and across the UK and the EU with Danny Brown, Vic Mensa, De La Soul, Joey Bada$$ and Damon Albarn.

Last year saw the release of the duo’s critically applauded full-length Divas and Demons, an album that revealed a supremely talented emcee, who was an adept lyricist and storyteller, whose stories possessed an earnest and soul-baring honesty. In fact, you may recall that I wrote about the album’s first three singles “For Good,” a charmingly coquettish love song in which its male and female narrators have misunderstandings, bicker and fight, cheat an drive each other insane in a youthfully dysfunctional relationship featuring Sydney, Australia-based poet, visual artist and singer/songwriter Sampa The Great rhyming and singing over a warm and soulful production by Sensible J that nodded at The Roots and Erykah Badu’s “You Got Me.” “Substance Therapy,” the album’s second single featured Remi rhyming honestly about how drinking, drugging and womanizing as an escape from himself and his depression only managed to further mire him in depression. Along with provocative, soul-baring lyrics, Sensible J’s production was meant to emphasize vacillating sense of self-loathing, elf-doubt, fear, anger, and desperate escapism of the dangerously depressed. The album’s third single “Lose Sleep” was a deeply personal song that drew from Remi’s own experiences a mixed race man in Australia and in the world — and in some way, he wanted the song to be a message to other mixed race kids about that weird feeling of feeling as though you could never quite fit in; but that his experience and story, as of those of others matters in a much larger story.
“Contact Hi/High/I” is the latest single off 2016’s Divas and Demons and the as the Melbourne-based emcee explains of his collaboration with Hiatus Kaiyote’s Silent Jay, “I wrote this joint when I was living out of home. One of my friends once told me: ‘In Australia, we have it so good, we’re afforded the liberty to stay childish for our whole lives.’ Whether drinking culture, drug culture, consumerism, etc. I kinda noticed this in myself and wanted to just write about my childish mentality, and how it was being validated by my vices.” The single features both Silent Jay and Remi singing and rhyming over a warm and soulful Sensible J production consisting of twinkling keys, congo drumming and stuttering beats. Interestingly, as a New Yorker, the song captures a familiar sentiment that has come up lately in my life, especially as I inch my way into my 40s.

The recently released music video features Remi, Sensible J and Silent Jay baking cookies, goofing off and hanging out with their homies but underneath the mischief and comic antics is a more serious commentary. In fact, there’s the sense of each of the video’s subjects playing at being adults and not quite knowing how to do it properly; but if you truly consider it: no one really quite knows what to go about being an adult, they make it up as they go along.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Up-and-Coming Australian Pop Artist Woodes Live at The Line in Melbourne Australia

Best known as Woodes, Elle Graham is an up-and-coming, 24-year-old, Melbourne, Australia-based singer/songwriter and producer, who first came to national attention across Australia with a commercially and critically successful collaboration with fellow Australian producer Elkkle on a single that wound up becoming one of 2015’s most played songs on Triple J’s Unearthed Radio. Building upon a growing national profile, Graham collaborated with an impressive list of contemporary artists and producers including FØRD, Golden Vessel, Atticus Beats and North Elements. Adding to a growing profile, Graham released her 2016 self-produced self-titled debut EP, which debuted in the iTunes Top 20 Charts in 7 countries and received more than 2 million streams, while receiving praise across the blogosphere from Indie Shuffle, Pigeons and Planes, i-D, as well as from actress Emma Roberts, who has tweeted about her love of “The Thaw.”

“Bonfire,” Graham’s latest single consists of a looped, handclap-led production featuring tribal polyrhythm, shimmering and moody guitar chords, twinkling keys, buzzing and atmospheric electronics with Graham’s ethereal yet soulful vocals with a soaring hook. And while drawing from a cherished childhood memory of being both fearless and carefree, the song manages to sound unlike anything in contemporary pop today.

Just in time for her Stateside and SXSW debut and the release of three remixes of the song, Graham released both the live video of her and her backing band performing “Bonfire” at The Line in Melbourne.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Initially formed as a quartet, comprised of founding member, Benjamin Plant (production),  along with Josh Moriarty (vocals, guitar), Aaron Shanahan (guitar, vocals and production) and Daniel Whitechuch (bass, keyboards and guitar), the Melbourne, Australia-based indie electro pop act Miami Horror quickly received national and international attention with their 2010 debut Illumination, an effort that was praised for a sound that drew from fellow countrymen Cut Copy, as well as New Order, Prince, Michael Jackson, E.L.O. and others.

The then-quartet spent the next three years shuttling back and forth between their hometown of Melbourne, Australia, Los Angeles and Paris writing and recording the material that would comprise their critically praised 2013 sophomore effort, All Possible Futures, a breezy and summery, dance floor-friendly effort that was deeply inspired by the time the band spent writing and recording in Southern California and drew from 80s synth pop, classic house and 60s pop. Building upon their rapidly growing profile, the members of the act have extensively toured the globe — and along with the aforementioned Cut Copy, and fellow Australians Total Giovanni and others, have put their hometown on the international map for a unique yet approachable electro pop sound and approach.

Now, it’s been a few years since the blogosphere has heard from Miami Horror, as the act’s Benjamin Plant has been busy co-writing tracks with Client Liaison and Roland Tings and writing new Miami Horror material, while the act has gone through a lineup change that has them writing and recording as a trio. But interestingly enough, their soon-to-be released conceptual EP, The Shapes finds the band further exploring and expanding upon their sound, as the material draws from art pop, Talking Heads, Caribbean funk and African beats among other things while retaining elements of the sound that won them international attention. And as you’ll hear on the EP’s upbeat, dance floor-friendly first single “Leila,” the song nods at Tom Tom Club, Fear of Music and Remain in Light-era Talking Heads, 80s synth pop  as the act pairs a buoyant and rousing hook, plaintive vocals, shimmering synths, African percussion, and an incredibly funky bass line with Moriarty’s plaintive vocals.  Interestingly, in some way, the song teases at something like a return to the sound of Illumination — but in a deceptive fashion says “well, not quite” as the material manages to possesses a boldly neon colored sheen while being a dance-floor friendly anthem.