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LISTEN: GRRL PAL

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GRRL_PAL

Dolly Doctor quiz time, GRRL PAL. ‘What does your band name really say about you?’

Bands who have a strong disposition for removing vowels in titles should be approached with relative to high caution. Most of the time. Grammatical farts are all the rage, y’know. If we’re talking the symbolic clusterfck of the current music rainbow (△△△), then these guys should sound reasonably accessible.

GRRL PAL are a new three piece from B̶r̶o̶o̶k̶l̶y̶n̶ Perth. Only 55 people vibing on these guys on Facebook right now. Babies, really. Digits like those don’t stay stagnant for long when you look like an American Apparel clothes horse and tell the kids your tunes are directly influenced by Futurama episodes.

‘Amazon’ is the first taste of the band’s debut EP. This track files in with the type of pixelated indie-pop that America usually stamps all bragging rights to. Geo-speaking, GRRL PAL have departed from the typical expectations of the usual prog/psych and guitar weighted stuff we’re all used to from Perth. While there’s a great wave of upcoming experimental artists springing out of Perth too (fostered by guys from New Weird Australia especially), these guys don’t really fit in either category.

Influences are worn on the sleeve here; you can definitely point out bits of Chairlift, Glass Candy, Cults and Grimes‘ breathy woo-ing swimming around in with your cereal. Lyrically, it’s more style than substance, but definitely still a highly likeable first track. With a bit of time and love, I think these guys have the potential to hitch a ride on the hype wagon pretty fast.

GRRL PAL are releasing their debut EP next month.

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Facebook / Soundcloud

LOOK: Sound Gallery @ CMW Toronto

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CMW--100

Presented by Sounds Australia, the folks behind the Aussie BBQ showcases. Featuring The Falls, Emma Louise and more great Aussie talent in snowy downtown Toronto. Sounds Australia are awesome peeps that raise the profile and visibility of our very fine contemporary music sector on the international stage. Y’know, get people hooked up and out there – like these lucky TTWT kids. Anyho, we’ll be heading along to the Canadian Music Week BBQ to have a beer. Maybe we’ll see Nick Cave (he’ll probably be drinking wine) and bring you more coverage. But for now, feast on these shots from the lovely Church of the Holy Trinity.

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LISTEN: Courtney Barnett

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courtney

Courtney Barnett is a genius poet. In case you didn’t know. This is her new track ‘Avant Gardener’. It’s amazing. It tells the story of a very hot sunny Monday. Like any other day. You wake up and decide to clean up your front yard because you realise your rental probably looks “like a meth lab”. You know what I’m talking about. A little gardening. It’s good for the soul. It makes every slacker feel productive. And slightly less guilty when the old lady across the road stares at your wheelie bin that you left out cause it’s almost bin day… again. So you pull some weeds. Plant some herbs. And girls plant sun flowers (which I think look creepy) and guys dig up shit and plant way too many tomato plants.

Anyway, all of a sudden our pal Courtney can’t breathe and calls 000 (yeah that’s the right number!) and gets a shot of adrenaline. Nice story. Humbly recounted like spoken word and soundtracked by her friends including Dan Luscombe who makes guitar scratching and squealing sound bloody beautiful. The harmony is great, the tune rolls along like a road trip and Courtney’s matter of fact dry lyrics have inspired this lengthy rant and probably a whole heap more reviews that will detail the story and how good she is. Everyone is getting a piece of her on support slots but get along to one of these single launches. It should be rad:

21 Mar – Black Bear Lodge w/ Grand Atlantic & Dom Miller – Bris, QLD.
23 Mar – Brighton Up Bar w/ Pear Shape & Bec and Ben – Syd, NSW.
28 Mar – Toff in Town w/ Money for Rope & Atolls – Mel, VIC

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Website/Bandcamp

NEWS: ATP – Release The Bats

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An All-Day Halloween Party Extravaganza!

That’s the tag line. I have always wanted to be excited about halloween. How could you go wrong with a night of dress-up and free candy (lollies). So it’s with much excitement, I tells ya – we are getting a true celebration of Halloween thanks to the folks at ATP. I mean why should American’s have all the fun! So yeah, those amazing peeps who put on a festival in the mountains – without the snow but with Nick Cave. And then made Altona the next Brunswick. That last gig went pretty well so they thought – why not keep it rolling? How bout having The Breeders come play at the Westgate Entertainment Centre and Grand Star reception in Altona, Melbourne. Bringing the classic lineup of Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs, and Jim Macpherson to play a full lick of Last Splash. Seriously – Cannonball!

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As for the all important Aussie tilt – The UV Race, White Walls, Hoss, and Total Control sound pretty great but expect even more riot awesomeness tba. Now, let’s get real. And quote from the presser “This will be a dark journey, fellow traveller. The core of your very being will be assaulted by the audio maelstrom that is the Jesus Lizard – flying in for this very rare and exclusive appearance – their first Australian visit since 1998. They will summon five kinds of hell, and unleash raw, dark forces that will confront your psyche. They promise the sonic equivalent of staring at the sun. Hope that you are ready for the starkness that is reality when, like all things in this existence, it ends.” Nice eh.

I personally can’t wait for Fuck Buttons and Lightning Bolt on the same day – that shit is crazy!

Tickets are priced at $150 (+ booking fee) and go on sale today at 9am from www.atpfestival.com

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LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR: Popstrangers

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Love_Thy_Neighbour

Last December, I went to New Zealand. Rode a horse, ate my weight in burgers, hung off the side of a cliff, had a good time.Really don’t know why any able minded Kiwi would bother moving here to live in a small suburban shack. Or bother refining their vowels for that reason either.

We’ve got away with pillaging from our pals across the Tasman for a long while, so we’re settling years of bad-blood with some happy blog trading instead. For that reason, we’ve decided to team up with NZ mega-blog Under The Radar who’ll be filling that Kiwi shaped void in your life with an NZ band every week.

First up, UTR’s Courtney Sanders gets y’all reacquainted with one of our old favourites…Popstrangers!

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popstrangers

Popstrangers are a three piece band who have been kicking around Auckland for several years now. Drawing on The Dunedin Sound (they were also briefly signed to Flying Nun Records) for inspiration the trio – lead by understated frontman Joel Flyger – have gone about marrying The Verlaines and The 3D’s to heavier compatriots Bailterspace. Never derivative, these influences are stripped down and applied to Popstrangers contemporary observations; ones that suggest a lot of time hanging around listening to Bradford Cox and co. It’s slacker rock sans flannel shirts, and all the better for it.

Earlier this month Popstrangers released their debut full length album Antipodes on cult New York-based label Carpark Records and played a bunch of album release shows at home and in your fair country. The album’s title suggests endless days in idyllic locations, and while this is partly true, Flyger admits it was the darker side of isolation that he was concerned with while writing: It’s all about isolation and wanting to do something different. When we wrote these songs it was kind of a weird time: I’d been doing the same thing for like five years. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I wasn’t happy with what I was doing”.

‘Roy Brown’ is the third single from Antipodes and combines the pop sensibilities of earlier singles ‘Heaven’ and ‘What Else Could They Do’ with the thematic palpability of the instrumental tracks on the album. A lot of conflicting emotions vie for attention here and considering this band are defining the ‘New Zealand Sound’ of this generation, that makes perfect sense.

 

Listen to

(mp3)

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www.undertheradar.co.nz