Dead Letter Chorus – ‘Laces Bound’

Blah, I hate colds.  They suck.  But this isn’t about what ailment I’m suffering at the moment, it’s about Sydney band Dead Letter Chorus (no, not Dead Letter Circus, or Dead Letter Opener).  Don’t ask me why everyone’s fascinated with undelivered mail…

To be honest I don’t know too much about these guys.  From their various bios and press releases, it doesn’t look like they’ve been around too long.  There’s six of them, and the vocals are swapped between Cameron Potts and Gabrielle Huber.  Judging by the title of their brand new EP Listen Carefully (We Shall Say This Only Once), they’re ‘Allo ‘Allo fans.  The EP is getting a national release on July 7 (yep, 07/07/07).

The band were gracious enough tho send through an MP3 of a song from their forthcoming EP.  The song, entitled ‘Laces Bound’, is just the sonic warmth I needed to get through this damn cold.  The vocals are courtesy of Gabrielle on this one, and her voice reminds me of someone, though I can’t remember for the life of me who.  Oh well, it ain’t important.  What’s important is that this is a really great indie/foilk tune, and hopefully it’ll be as comforting to you as it is to me.

http://www.myspace.com/deadletterchorus

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http://www.myspace.com/cuthbertandthenightwalkers

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Leroy Lee – ‘Drawing Smoke’ (mp3)

Missy Higgins recently teamed up with the radio station Triple J and their website triplejunearthed.com to help choose unsigned artists to open for her on her latest national tour.  Sydney boy Leroy Lee was chosen by Missy for her Sydney show.  A couple of years ago, especially in Australia, there was an explosion of roots/folk artists when guys like John Butler and Xavier Rudd took off, and a lot of it started to sound the same – at the end of the day, there’s only a finite number of options when it comes to a voice and an acoustic guitar.

But there’s something about Leroy’s music that stands out.  Maybe its because he moves away from blues influences like so many others and instead embraces more pop-esque melodies of acts like The Beatles and Elliott Smith (and you can hear a lot of Elliott Smith in the layered vocal harmonies).

http://www.myspace.com/leroyleemusic

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Something about this clip is so mesmerising.

http://www.jakob.co.nz
http://www.myspace.com/jakobmusic

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Kit Pop – ‘Less Focus’ (mp3)

Whilst attempting to begin my remix career via the Triple J Unearthed website, I came across the electronic works of Kit Pop, an artist based in Perth.  I’ve always harboured a love for glitchy electronica, and his track ‘Less Focus’ takes the cake.

It’s a cut-and-paste-and-fuck affair, influenced by hip-hop and abstract electronica.  Make of it what you will, but it’s a pretty sweet tune if you dig this kinda sonic manipulation.

http://www.kit-pop.com
http://www.myspace.com/kitpop

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Mr. Percival – ‘All Of The People’

It seems like every week I’m falling in love with some new Aussie release, and I guess that’s the benefit of working at a music mag and a radio station – you get a flood of new CDs crossing your desk every day.

So my new musical infatuation comes in the form of Out of the Loop, the sophomore release from the truly amazing Bondi-based singer Mr. Percival (or Darren Percival as he’s otherwise known).  There’s not enough space to say how much I’m loving this album at the moment.  It’s such a positive, uplifting record and Darren’s voice is just phenomenal.  I mean, this guy trained under Bobby McFerrin – the same guy who sung ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’!!

Influenced strongly by gospel music, Out of the Loop is created solely by Darren’s voice – every drum beat, shaker, vocal backing and double bass is mimicked and created by Darren.  By utilising a variety of loop pedals, he records the backings and then has the ability to stop and start them whenever he wants.  Check out his MySpace page for videos, because it’s a hard one to understand if you’re not up with the workings of loop pedals. 

So everything you hear on Out of the Loop is created live, and that fact alone is mindblowing, and that’s before you even hear his heaven-sent voice.  He’s toured with some of Australia’s biggest acts, as well as graced the recordings of many a fantastic artist, including trumpeter extraordinaire James Morrison (not the UK bloke). 

He’s playing heaps of dates around Sydney, so go see him if you live there – expand your musical horizons, break free of your indie safety net and… just listen to this album!

http://www.mrpercival.com
http://www.myspace.com/mrpercival

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Kiosk performing live at the Cake Shop in New York City last year.  It’s not the greatest quality vid, but it’s raw as fuck which is part of the reason I wanted to throw it up here.

Also, for those living in Sydney, Cat Kelleher, the vocalist for Kiosk (and you might know her from her solo hip-hop project Catcall) is performing in a play penned by playwright Wayne Tunks called Unrequited, which is on at the Newtown Theatre.  It’s running from May 30 – June 23. Tickets are $27, or $22 if you’re lucky enough to still be a student.  Go, it’ll be cool.  They’ve even got a MySpace site – www.myspace.com/unrequitedtheplay.

http://www.myspace.com/kiosk

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