Unkle Ho – ‘Big Bad Rag’

I’ve been meaning to write on the elefant traks crew for a while now but I never really had the time to properly research them and their extensive crew of producers, rappers and beat makers. One of these guys is Unkle Ho, a member of the hip hop group The Herd, who has released an album previously in 2005, but still largely unknown in the music listening public in Australia, ie Triple J listeners.

As the press release goes, Unkle Ho was born in Hong Kong but moved to Sydney when young, and has made beats and design graphics for the Elephant Traks crew in general. This track does not show any hint of hip hop leanings but instead gives away a rich sonic melting pot of Asian instrumentation on top of a jazzy rhythm, the melodies cut up so fine it feels almost organic. Perhaps it could do with some singing on top of the beats cos I was waiting for vocals to kick in to lift up the track. But maybe it’s better leaving it as an instrumental, as a showcase of his production skills. This guy is well worth investigating more.

www.myspace.com/unkleho

The Locus Scene – ‘Chinese Whispers (demo)’ (mp3)

Maybe it’s pop, maybe it’s rock, maybe it’s just a sweet song… this is the first offering from The Locus Scene, a band that won the MusicOz Award in 2004 for Best Rock Artist, and they hadn’t even played a gig!

It’s been great to see this band come so far: from their first gig at the Annandale Hotel, which admittedly was a bit shaky, to now being confident, and having a slew of fantastic songs (personal fave: ‘Crowded Room’), many of which will appear on their upcoming debut EP In Technicolour.  Locus Scene frontman Luis Rojas is the brains behind most of the songwriting and recording of this EP, and if his band-in-hiatus, Shanghai, is anything to go by, there’s no doubt this EP will be an eclectic mixture of styles and instruments.  He’s just finished producing the new EP from Mz Ann Thropik ao hopefully the Locus Scene EP will be of the same recording quality.

It’s been a couple of months since these guys played live, as they’re searching for a new guitarist, but keep an eye out for their return, and their super-amazing drummer Stassy!

http://www.thelocusscene.com
http://www.myspace.com/thelocusscene

Thine ears and eyes bleed. LMFAO.

Lenka – ‘Skipalong’

Lenka has updated us with her current world adventure with a new song! This time she is in LA and those lucky enough to live there can catch her shows at these dates:

10th May at On The Rox, 21 May at Bordello, 8 Jun at Hotel Cafe

check out her myspace for more details

www.myspace.com/lenkamusic

photo by Jack Mannix

Catcall – ‘The Body Kiss’

Another track from the beautiful Catherine Kelleher aka Catcall.

www.myspace.com/catcallmusic

Architecture in Helsinki – ‘Heart it Races’

Playful beats and booms, steel drums and sweeping backing vocals can’t save the Architecture from themselves. Suddenly I am reminded of The Baby-sitter’s Club, and Dawn’s envious declaration vis-à-vis her diabetic, artistic, Japanese-American friend: “Oh Claudia,” she sighed, “You’re so wild and wacky.” Like that pretty little sugar-fiend and her wild ideas for entertaining the children of the Stepford-esque community of Stoneybrook, Architecture are just trucking along out there on the cutting edge. So wild and so wacky, you just want to club them to death like a pack of baby seals.

www.myspace.com/aihmusic

Bridezilla – ‘St Francine’ (mp3)

Shit… I don’t even know where to begin when trying to write something about Bridezilla. They’re pretty cool but I’ve never been swept away with them like I know a lot of people have.

There’s definitely a lot of novelty factors to the band – and I don’t mean it as a derogatory remark, but it just garners them a lot more attention than bands who are playing music in a similar vein. The band has an average age of 16, and with 4/5 of the band female, that’s always going to attract some attention. And they definitely play music that’s light years ahead of what most high-school bands are playing. I think I remember my high school band was playing shitty Nirvana and Metallica covers, and we probably threw in ‘Under the Bridge’ there as well.

Throw in a saxophone and a violin and you get some pretty cool instrumentation to go with their indie-pop tunes (and hey, indie-pop is the new black). There’s also a few songs on the net, and ‘St Francine’ was the only one I could manage to rip off from the Triple J Unearthed site. It’s cool, but I haven’t managed to see them live yet, and people rave about their live shows, so I reckon they might have a couple more engaging tracks up their sleeve. Vocalist Holiday Carmen-Sparks has a Sarah Blasko, breathy quality to her voice, which is guaranteed to either piss people off or make them fall in love with her. There’s a YouTube vid on their MySpace, and she seems to carry herself pretty well on stage, so I reckon a lot of the nay-sayers would probably fall in love with her performance side.

Hey – I stole this from the Annandale Hotel website. I thought it had some cool info:
“Our first gig and song was played at The Bondi Wave in 2005, with just violin, saxaphone, guitar and voice. We did not…and still dont know our style of music or what we wanted. We were called “BOY” for that gig hence all of us being girls. Soon enough we had asked josh to put some drums on a few new songs as an experiment…and we loved it and him…so we asked him to join the band.

“We now have drums in all of our songs. Our second gig was at Bondi BLYMP, organised by WAYS. We were at the time called “The Cupie Dolls”, but on the night changed it to “BRIDEZILLA”. During the Summer period we played two gigs in the band room for underage raves (SUBMISSION) at HOME nightclub. Just recently… BrideZilla recorded eight songs at the Big Jesus Burger Studios with amazingly talented and generous Chris Townend!!!! And… we now have a manger, Mr. Scott Horscroft!!!! who is the most Excellent!”

http://www.myspace.com/bridezillaa