Plastic Palace Alice – ‘Empire Falls’

Part of the new breed of multi-instrumental indie bands directly influenced by the Arcade Fire phenom, Melbourne’s Plastic Palace Alice is getting some buzz locally, owing to frequent gigging with their Sydney counterpart The Seabellies and favourable spins on Triple J and local community stations. This song was produced by Jonathan Burnside who has done some work with The Sleepy Jackson, The Melvins, and local Nova FM favourites Dukes of Windsor. Check them out tonight at the Public Bar at The Espy, St. Kilda.

www.myspace.com/plasticpalacealiceband

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The Checks – ‘Take Me There’

Their songs sound like any old retro rock band to me, kinda a bit of Jet, a bit of The Exploders, or any of those retro rock revivalist bands from the 80s, 90s or today. They are around 19-20 years old, been together as a band since they were 15 and originate from New Zealand. As the story goes, The Checks were playing a gig when they were ‘discovered’ by NME’s Editor who happen to be on holiday at the time in Auckland. He offered them a spot in the NME new music tour, and so they relocated to London, scored a record deal and recorded and released their debut album Hunting Whales. Next Noel Gallagher himself chose them to be the support for an Oasis tour in Australia. And then the chance to came up to support The Hives in Japan. Quite the rock n roll story so far. They’re touring Australia in late May playing small venues like Hopetoun and The Tote before going on the road for the Jet tour support. Catch them if you dig this song.

www.myspace.com/thechecks

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DJ Bonez – ‘The Hot (feat Blade)’

This sounds nothing likw Australian hip hop and I know a lot of people hate this kind of hip hop that makes itself sound so American, but I suppose that was probably the aim of this record, to blur the boundary between local and overseas production skills. DJ Bonez is one of the house producers of local hip hop giant Obese Records, based in Melbourne. He has produced for most artists on the label includes Hyjak n Torcha, label boss Pegz, Plutonic Lab, the country’s biggest hip hoppers Hilltop Hoods, and about 20 other releases listed on his myspace site.

Now I’m never gonna be saying that I’m an authority on the subject of hip hop, or even know it well enough to be a good critic/reviewer. I mean this sounds pretty good to me. To make things complicated I’ve been told that Ninja Art, the album that this track is taken off, is not even an original album but a rework/remix of another album of the same name. Hmm?

I try to keep an open mind however with Australian hip hop because it’s interesting to observe how the scene has been divided into two big camps and that is this Obese Records crew based in Melbourne, and the Elephant Traks crew based in Sydney whom I posted about yesterday. They each retain their own sound flavour because they seem to keep their circle of producers between themselves. Everyone else, like Macromantics for example, is pretty much outside of this scene. I hope to one day know enough to map out this scene but at this point in time I’m pretty much an outside observer. If anyone here knows more please do comment.

www.myspace.com/deejaybonez

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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

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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

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photo by Jack Mannix

Catcall – ‘The Body Kiss’

Another track from the beautiful Catherine Kelleher aka Catcall.

www.myspace.com/catcallmusic

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Architecture in Helsinki – Heart It Races (Pink Skull remix) (mp3)

I don’t even have the original version of this song but I thought I’d post the Pink Skull (?) remix. It’s not that I find this remix particularly enriching or adventurous. In fact I have trouble listening from beginning to end. But I wanted to point out that it’s very common marketing strategy now for bands, in order for them to break new songs without giving everything away too soon, to giveaway the remix version of whatever song that is. I’m pretty sure this is why this remix version is floating around the internet quite a bit. For example, last year the Yeah Yeah Yeahs put out a Diplo remix of their first single Gold Lion of their new album. This was around for a few weeks before the real song was on myspace. This is the first case I can remember that used this rollout strategy. I suppose it could work really well if the remixer is well known enough that it would pick up interest, I’m not sure this is the case with this single for AIH.

www.myspace.com/aihmusic

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