Triosk

You may remember a couple of weeks ago I posted about a Sydney band called Pivot. Well, Triosk share a lot in common with Pivot – in fact, Adrian Klumpes and drummer extraordinaire Laurence Pike are in both Triosk and Pivot, and Richard Pike from Pivot co-produced Triosk’s amazing new album, The Headlight Serenade.

The music between the bands differs quite substantially though. While Pivot are a slightly more structured band, encompassing more rock music sensibilities, Triosk’s music is a far more avant-garde jazz affair with a strong emphasis on mood and atmosphere. Triosk are more akin to ambient (dare I say “post rock”) acts like Boards of Canada and Tortoise. The Headlight Serenade is a fantastic aural experience and a must of lovers of left-of-centre music. I hope to catch this trio live very soon. Check out the opening track ‘Visions IV’. Awesome stuff.

Triosk – ‘Visions IV’

http://www.triosk.com
http://www.myspace.com/triosk

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Decoder Ring – photo by Nabil

It’s not often that I’ll buy an album without hearing a track or two first, but that’s exactly what I did with Fractions, the latest release from Decoder Ring. Of course I had heard their previous work, which had been mainly instrumental, but Fractions blew me away. Since writing the film score for the movie Somersault, the band had recruited the beautiful vocalist Lenka, whose voice is amazing and sits so well with Decoder Ring’s music.

The band still, thankfully, retain their penchant for instrumental songs, and regardless of whether their songs contain vocals or not, they’re still beautiful and accessible to any music fan. Decoder Ring are one of my favourite Australian acts, although I’m yet to witness them live though I’m told their shows are spectacular. We’ve got a cut from the Fractions album entitled ‘Out of Range’.

Decoder Ring – ‘Out of Range’

http://www.decoderring.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/decoderringsounds

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Bob Evans

There is a grand juxtaposition in terms of musical styles that are in vogue at the moment. On one hand, we have the superfluous Eighties synth/new wave fad, and on the other the simple, stripped-back folk music trend. Perth’s Bob Evans is a subject of the latter category. But rather that it be a contrived, money making exercise, Bob Evans plays honest, emotional folk music.

Truth be told, Bob Evans is actually the alter-ego of Kevin Mitchell, front man for Perth punk/pop group Jebediah. I was never a big fan of the music of Jebediah, but I’ve fallen in love with Bob Evans and his latest release Suburban Songbook. There’s nothing flashy about the record, it’s just based around simple and effective folk-rock tunes with strong songwriting at the core. It’s one of my favourite albums of the year and while it was hard to pick one song off the album to showcase, I thought it might be best to go with the opening song, and lead single, ‘Don’t You Think It’s Time?’

Bob Evans – ‘Don’t You Think It’s Time’

http://www.bobevans.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/suburbankid

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Inga Liljeström – photo by Gavin Bradstreet

Inga Liljeström – how do you describe her music? Well, her music acts more like a soundtrack, the nature of it allows you to picture the visuals in your head and create a mini-movie to what you’re hearing. She creates a form of jazz electronica, rather than trip-hop although comparisons to artists such as Björk and Portishead are often generated.

I’ve seen Inga a few times live and she’s as good live as she is on CD. Her drummer, Michael Iverson, is amazing, as is her string section. She manages to recreate all the sounds live, and at one show of hers, she even had dancers – now that’s a live experience! She’s released two albums, but Elk is the latest record, and it’s a fantastic aural journey. We’ve got the song ‘Glow’ from that album for you to wrap your ears around.

Inga Liljeström – ‘Glow’

http://www.ingaliljestrom.com

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.hinge

It’s like the episode of The Simpsons where Apu is living with them, and his mother comes to stay and Lisa and Bart ask her “what’s with the dot?” Well, we could ask the same about .hinge, this rocking Melbourne five piece. They’ve been kicking around the Aussie alternative music scene sicne 1997 and musically they keep going from strength to strength. Their debut album Something To Adore was listed in the Top 10 albums of 2005 on DecoyMusic.com.

I’ve always been a fan of vocalist Glenn Johnstone and he performs even better live. Also, the guitar work of Rob Crimi and Brock Collins is reminiscent of the interplay between Billy Corgan and James Iha. .hinge don’t follow conventional song structures, but they still manage to create rock songs interwoven with intricate, effected guitar. Oh yeah, and the bass and drums groove along fantastically too! Check out the song ‘Cut The Cord’ from Something To Adore.

.hinge – ‘Cut The Cord’ (mp3)

http://www.hinge.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/hingemusic

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Pivot

I wish there was an easy way to describe the brand of instrumental music that Pivot makes. It’s densely layered and the songs are progressive and lacking in formal song structures. In a vain attempt to assign Pivot into a genre, they’re possibly organic experimental electronica – how’s that for a description! Pivot include healthy doses of synthesisers and laptop wizardry, but there’s also guitar melodies, driving bass lines and Laurence Pike’s amazing drumming.

I’ve seen these guys live only once and they blew me away, I can’t wait to see them again. Their debut album Make Me Love You was nominated for the coveted inaugural Triple J album of the year award, The J Award. If you want to hear how good these guys are, we’ve got the title track right below this sentence!

Pivot – ‘Make Me Love You’ (mp3)

http://www.pivotisagoodboy.com/

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Gotye – ‘Out In The Cold’ screen cap (directed by Jacob Simkin)

Gotye, whose real name is Wally de Backer, has managed to release what is close to the best Australian album for 2006, Like Drawing Blood. I love the press release – “Take two and a half years, four share-houses, 757 op-shop records, a few thousand dollars lost to dodgy housemates, 2565 hours of community library customer service, 20,000 km of round-Australia travel, countless computer crashes and one critical hard-disk failure, and you have a rough diary for the recording process of the new record by Gotye (pronounced ‘gore-ti-yeah’).”

Instrumentally, Like Drawing Blood is a cut-and-paste affair, in a similar vein to DJ Shadow sans the hip-hop. All of this is topped off by Wally’s immaculate vocals. The end result is a fusion of genres and styles that’s a joy to listen to. We’ve got the track ‘Thanks For Your Time’ for your listening pleasure.

Gotye – ‘Thanks For Your Time’ (mp3)

http://www.gotye.com/
http://www.myspace.com/gotye

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