Miami Horror – ‘Don’t Be On With Her’ (mp3)

Miami Horror is 20 year old Ben Plant from Melbourne have garnered some blog loving overseas recently with his production work for Gameboy/Gamegirl. This is track is a preview from an upcoming debut full length Bravado. There’s not much detail as he doesn’t really play live except for DJing gigs, but his obvious influences from 80s clubbing favourites Prince and early Madonna gives a fresh take on the jagged electro beats dominant of dance floors today. This would fit perfectly in the next installment of Grand Theft Auto Vice City soundtrack. Thanks to Discodust for the file.

www.myspace.com/miamihorror

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Lenka – ‘Chance’

The beautiful Lenka has updated us with an exclusive track from her worldwide travels. Currently in Los Angeles for shows and songwriting, she will be flying over to Paris to live for a month. Lucky!

www.myspace.com/lenkamusic 

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Ladyhawke – ‘Back Of The Van’

I’ve been hunting down this song for ages and finally got it from a friend who emailed it to me a few days ago. It’s one of the catchiest tune I’ve heard in ages and though it is shamelessly retro, it has a timeless mood and melody to it that I know you will enjoy. As mentioned previously Ladyhawke aka Pip is from Sydney and she plays guitar for Teenager. Rumours are she has a deal in the works with a major and is currently going round the world on a writing trip…whatever that means.

www.myspace.com/ladyhawkerock

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photo by boudist.com

Belles Will Ring – ‘Mad Love’

We’ve blogged them before, but this single has scored Belles Will Ring national airplay on Triple J. It is taken out of a three track EP that will lead to an album soon, entitled Mood Patterns. This song takes the same path of the revivalist mod pop of their previous material, but with a bit more beat and build up.

www.myspace.com/belleswillring

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Wolfmother – ‘Woman’ (Avalanches remix)

Well congratulations is in order. Who would’ve thought they’d go all the way to winning a GRAMMY? From their early gig in Hopetoun, their legendary industry gig at 161 in Melbourne, many many gigs, festivals and radio play later their very first song ‘Woman’ wins the golden grammaphone. Well done boys, and to all the label and management team too of course, was one hell of a good punt!

www.myspace.com/wolfmother

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Oh Mercy – ‘We Shouldn’t Miss The Market’

Oh Mercy are the Triple J Unearthed winners of the Big Day Out competition in Victoria. Two Sundays ago they opened the local stage and played to 500 people which I was told their biggest crowd ever. The band is really Alexander Gow’s vehicle for performing self penned songs and well arranged covers. I’ve seen them twice in Melbourne, both times they manage to gather indifferent punters in the venue and got them standing up and transfixed to renditions of relaxed, down tempo folk tunes that at times borders on alt-country. This command over the audience is largely to Gow’s easy going stage charm and natural troubadour’s swagger, qualities that is all too often missing or worse badly faked in most young singer-songwriters. It is quite a hard genre to stand out of, partly because there are so many players in the game and partly because these kind of songs don’t exactly jump and grab people’s attention. It’s challenging for such a young band such as Oh Mercy, all of whom are under 20, to write folk tunes relevant to most of the genre’s fans because most of the anecdotal experience needed occurs after living through one’s early 20s. Nevertheless this is a very promising start for Gow and his band, and I hope I will keep hearing more from them in the next few years.

www.myspace.com/ohmercyband

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Cut Copy – ‘Hearts On Fire’

New track from my favourite Modular band, Cut Copy returns with a track that could easily be taken out of Bright Like Neon Love album, and towards the end of the song, a baseline straight out of New Order’s songbook. Perhaps it’s a cue for party djs to drop True Faith? Some might think it’s more of the same, but I’m digging this. No word on the album yet but they’re trekking around the country and Singapore on the Good Vibrations Festival.

Update: I’ve just received word that Cut Copy has released this track ahead of the rest of the album to coincide with their Good Vibes dates and a Nokia promotion tie in. They’re flying to NY after the festival to record their album to be out in July, but before all that happens this Friday (tomorrow!) they are playing a FREE set at Melbourne’s Federation square as part of their Nokia promo to showcase their new material, starts at 7.30pm.

www.myspace.com/cutcopy

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